---
section: Library
booktitle: "Light on the Path"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "LIGHT"
dategiven: "21 January 1986 am"
place: " in Kathmandu, Nepal"
chapternum: "Chapter #20"
chaptertitle: "Nobody can expect consistency from me"
acode: "8601210"
shorttitle: "LIGHT20"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "81mins"
displaytitle: "Light on the Path: Chapter #20"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
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<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,
THESE QUESTIONS ARE FROM THE DUTCH RAJNEESH TIMES. THE FIRST QUESTION IS: NOW YOU ARE MAKING A WORLD TOUR, FOR THE FIRST TIME THE WELL IS GOING TO THE THIRSTY. IS THE WORLD READY TO RECEIVE THE WELL?</p>


It has been ready for a long time -- not the whole world but just the chosen few.


The whole world perhaps may never be ready. It is unfortunate, but unavoidable, because the world has no awareness of the present or of the future; it lives only in the past. It walks ahead but looks backward. That is the fundamental cause of all accidents -- all the wars, and all the blood that has been shed on the earth.
People are looking back and walking forward.


Why do they look back? Their psychology has to be understood: They have lived the past, they are acquainted with it. It may not have been blissful -- it was not. It may have been painful, miserable -- it was, but human mind clings to the known. It has a certain logic; the known may be painful, miserable, but at least it is known. Who knows? -- the unknown may be more painful, more miserable. And we know how to deal with the known; we don't know how to deal with the unknown.


We have become accustomed to the known; it is painful, but because we have been living in it for so long even the pain has become part of us. The misery has become our way of life. Slowly, slowly we have accepted it; now it no longer hurts.


In fact the mind is afraid that if all this pain, misery and suffering is taken away, it will find itself in a space with which it is absolutely unacquainted; and that is frightening.


The greatest fear in the world is the fear of the unknown -- and mind is a coward. Hence, the world at large perhaps may never be ready. Not that it does not feel the thirst; it feels the thirst, but it has not the guts to recognize it. Even to recognize it is dangerous. That means the beginning of a search, the beginning of a seeking, again moving into the unknown.
The moment you start searching, you become alone.


If you don't search, you are surrounded by a crowd, a vast crowd of believers, of people who have faith. The crowd gives you a certain warmth, coziness. It makes you feel that you must be right because so many people, millions of people, are on the same way. You can be wrong, but so many people cannot be wrong. And if they are all moving in the same direction, it brings you a certainty.


That's why people want to belong to a church, to a religion, to a dogma, to a creed, to an ideology -- political, religious, social; but they want to belong to a crowd, they don't want to stand alone.


To stand alone... the fear arises: Who knows whether you are right or wrong?
To stand alone, you stand in coldness.


To stand alone, you lose the coziness of the crowd. To stand alone, you lose the faith of the fanatic. To stand alone, you lose the authority of a long tradition.


But if you recognize your thirst, you have to stand alone and you have to walk alone, because the truth is never found by the crowd. It is never found on the superhighway. There are not even footpaths which lead to it. As you search for it, as you walk, you create your footpath yourself. It is a very strange phenomenon. You don't have a footpath ready-made, waiting for you, which will lead you to the truth, to the temple; you have to walk, and just by walking you have to create it.


Each step is full of hesitation, fear, trembling. You cannot be certain because you don't have any map -- there exists none. You don't know where you are moving -- are you going towards the truth or away from it?


That's why I say it needs guts, courage. It needs the courage of the gambler who can stake everything, not knowing what is going to be the result. He may lose all or he may win all. All or none -- that is the choice facing you on each step, every moment. One who accepts this situation becomes more and more integrated, becomes more and more independent, becomes more and more together, centered, rooted.


And as all these tremendously significant things are happening to his being, he finds a new warmth which comes from his own innermost source, a new coziness which is not dependent on the crowd, on anybody else. He finds a new clarity, a new vision, new eyes to see.


Things become easier as he proceeds, but the first step is the most difficult. To go out of the crowd is a drastic step.


The world has lived for millennia in the same rut -- being born in misery, living in misery, dying in misery... at the most a few moments here and there of entertainment, not of ecstasy.


Entertainment is not ecstasy, entertainment is just an opium. You become so absorbed in looking at something -- a movie, a circus, a football match, a boxing competition -- that you forget yourself and your pains. Entertainment is a way of forgetting yourself and your misery. It can be only for a few moments; again you will be back. And your pain is not going to forgive you so soon. You deceived it -- it is going to be revengeful. So after each entertainment you will fall into a deeper ditch of darkness and misery, just to compensate.


But this has been the way the world has lived. Only once in a while somebody has rebelled against this whole order. It needs tremendous intelligence.
I am going on a world tour....


I am aware of my people who have already taken the first step; they have already separated themselves from the crowd. They are no longer Christians, no longer Jews, no longer Hindus. They have done a great job, something rare, something unique -- never done by such a vast number of people before.


There are only two ways: either they should come to me... which the vested interests are going to make more and more difficult. THey would like to isolate me from my people -- they have already started doing that. I have my own way to respond to their fascist strategy.


Rather than calling people to myself, I will be going to my people.


Yes, it is true, the thirsty have always come to the well; but it is an old proverb, it is not contemporary. Now you can have water coming to your home, wherever you are. Of course in ancient days the well could not go to the people, but now tap water can reach everywhere, anywhere. And I am absolutely contemporary, so I say, for the first time the well will go to the thirsty.


This is the only possible way to prevent governments, religions, the political parties from preventing my people reaching me; I will be moving around the world. This way I can reach more people, new people also who may not have come to me, who may not have ever thought to come to me.


There are millions of people who love me, who are in deep sympathy with me, who would like to be with me but circumstances prevent them. Their commitments to their families, to their countries, to their professions prevent them. And there is also something more fundamental than all these things.


That is, the negative person is always very active, articulate. Just a single negative person will make so much noise and so much fuss that he may create the illusion that many people are negative.


Why does the negative person make so much fuss, so much argument? Why is he so loud? Ordinarily one would think that the negative person would be inactive. That seems to be in tune with negativity. But it is not the case. There must be some reason behind it.


The reason is, the negative person is afraid of his own negativity. If he remains silent his negativity is going to burn him. The negativity is part of death, destruction; if he remains silent he will shrink and die within himself.


To avoid this death he jumps, he runs here and there, he shouts loudly; he makes noise and he protests, argues, and almost creates single-handedly a phenomenon that makes it appear to the onlookers as if there are many people who are negative. He is simply trying to save himself from his negativity. He is vomiting it, he cannot keep it inside -- it is fire.


The positive person who loves me, who is sympathetic, who dreams one day to be with me, remains silent because love is something which one wants to keep in the secretmost part of one's heart. Love is something that one does not want to shout about. In shouting it will die. In making a fuss about it, he will kill it. It has to be protected; it is a very delicate phenomenon. It has to be kept silently within, so that nobody knows about it.


So there are millions of people who love me but have never said it to anybody. It is just their own private secret. And love grows in this way; the deeper you hide it, the faster it grows. Lovers know it -- not very clearly because their love is not of a conscious state, but they have a certain glimpse of it.


When you really love someone you cannot even say to the person, "I love you." The words seem to fall too short... in fact, seem profane. They don't express your experience, they don't express your heart. They are dull and dead. They don't have the radiance, the fragrance of your love.


It is very difficult for the lover to say, "I love you." Words are miles away from what is growing in his heart. People start saying to each other "I love you" when love is dead. Husbands and wives say to each other, "I love you."


Dale Carnegie in his book, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE, suggests that every husband should say at least three times a day to his wife, "I love you." Now, this type of nonsense can be written only by an American.


This man knows nothing about love -- he is simply a businessman. What he is talking is business, not love. He would have been far more successful as a salesman of secondhand cars rather than being a philosopher of love. He has never loved anybody.


But what he is saying makes some sense. When love dies you can express it. When it is alive, you can live it, but you cannot express it; your whole being may say it, but not your words. Your eyes may be full of it, but not your words; they are empty, and there is no way to fill them.


This is a tragedy in a way: that love cannot be said but hate is very articulate; that the best has to remain unexpressed and the worst is loudly expressed; that the best has no logic to support it and the worst has all the logic to support it -- it can argue, it can protest.


I am going around the world for all those people who are already with me; also for those people who would like to be with me, but their love is silent. I will also be going for those who have been sympathetic. Sympathy is not enough, but it is an indication that they can take a few steps and become part of my lovers. Sympathy in itself is not enough, but it is a good indication of where the wind is blowing, the direction.


There are people who are just indecisive. They have not yet decided for or against. If I don't reach them soon there is a possibility they may decide against, because those negative loudspeakers are continuously bombarding their ears. All the yellow newspapers, magazines; the governments, the religious leaders -- they are all trying hard to convince them to be on their side. I don't need to convince them. I have just to be close to them, and that will do it.


They don't know me, yet without knowing me they have not decided against me. The moment they know me, there is no question of their deciding against me -- because they have been continuously fed arguments against me, and still they have remained undecided, open.


All these categories together can make millions of people.... And the strangest thing of all is that the people who think they are enemies of mine have no argument against me. They are fighting a losing battle. They know it. I have touched precisely their life nerve.


It has never happened in the past for the simple reason that religions have criticized each other, but their criticisms were always half-hearted. They could not go the full length, because to go the full length they would have had to criticize themselves too. A Hindu can criticize a Christian, but only up to a certain limit, because beyond that limit he himself is vulnerable.


For example, one very much respected Hindu saint, Karpatri, happened to travel with me once. We knew each other -- he had even written a whole book against me. And he was talking about Jesus Christ's crucifixion.


He said, "According to Hindu philosophy, a man who is enlightened is finished with all his evil karmas; he cannot be crucified. Crucifixion is possible only if in your past life you have committed a very grave, evil act."


Within the Hindu framework it looks logical, but I asked him, "Would you like to stretch your logic a little bit more? Do you think Krishna was enlightened?"


He said, "Certainly." He was not even suspecting where I was leading him to -- because Krishna died while he was resting under a tree, and a hunter, by mistake, shot him with an arrow.


I said to him, "It is not a crucifixion, but Krishna dying from a poisoned arrow.... He may not have committed as grave a crime as Jesus Christ in his past life, but he must have committed something; all his karmas are not finished."


He had never thought about it, that his argument would spoil his own philosophy. So I said, "You should first look into your own home before you start criticizing anybody. I am not protecting Jesus Christ, I am simply making you aware that when you make an argument you should go the whole way, and you should look into your own religion to see whether there is something that goes against your argument. This proves it."


Religions have been criticizing each other. It is very easy because each religion is based on certain superstitions -- of course on different kinds of superstitions, so it becomes easy to criticize the other. But you should be aware that your own religion is based on superstitions, which may be different but they also are illogical, as much as any other religion's.


It does not matter what form the illogicality takes; a superstition is a superstition. And every religion has, at its base, something that it cannot answer. So they have been arguing, but their argument was always half-hearted.


With me the situation is different. I don't have anything to protect. I don't have a religion, I can argue the whole way. They cannot use my argument against me -- because I have nothing.


That is their basic difficulty. Because I don't propose any philosophy, any program, they cannot fight against me. I can fight against all of them without bothering at all that my argument may go against myself, so that I have to stop at a certain limit. There is no question of that, because I don't have anything -- a proposal, a program, a philosophy.


This is making them almost mad. Otherwise, by and by they have become polite to each other, seeing that everybody has their loopholes. What is the point of bringing the loopholes of the other into light? -- because he will bring your loopholes into the light and you both will be exposed. It is better to be polite, nice to each other.


For the past two centuries they have started making some kind of synthesis of all religions. Even in the universities all over the world now they study different religions not as independent bodies of thought; they study them under one department, "comparative religion." So they can compare the best of all the religions, ignoring the loopholes.


Right now no Hindu is criticizing Mohammedans philosophically, no Jaina is criticizing Hindus or Buddhists. They have calmed down, seeing the fact that they are sailing in the same boat. Making holes in the boat is going to be against each other, against all. It is better to keep the loopholes hidden, unexposed.


I don't have any religion so there is no question of any superstition, there is no question of any loopholes. I am not traveling with them in their boat -- I don't have a boat because I am not going to the other shore. This shore is enough for me. Only idiots think of the other shore, only idiots think that the grass is greener on the neighbor's lawn. To me this shore is enough, and the grass is green enough. If it is not, we will make it green.


My moving around the world will help tremendously to bring together these different categories of people who are somehow interested in me. It may also create new troubles for me from the vested interests; but I never think of them as troubles. The more they become afraid of me, the more they are losing ground.


And it is better to fight all over the world simultaneously than to fight in different countries at different times, because the fight is the same; why not make it a concentrated effort all over the world?


German sannyasins have been asking me, "Should we go to court against the government? -- because there is no reason, no law that says they can prohibit you from entering Germany. You have not committed any crime in Germany. There is no reason why a person who has never been in Germany should be prevented from entering. And to make a law out of it, to decide it in the parliament...."


I have been telling them, "Just wait. When I am in Europe then you go into the courts, because then the atmosphere will be more supportive from all the countries, the news media will be more supportive. And it is absolutely illegal. You are going to win, but we want to win it in such a way that it becomes a precedent so that no other country can do it. Otherwise they can start doing it in every other country to prevent my movement; I will not be able to travel.


"But let me come to Europe, and then make a really great attack on the German government, that it is against the constitution, against human rights that an absolutely innocent person who has never been on your land should be prevented from entering."


The reasons that they have given are so bogus. The reason is -- one simply wants to laugh at the stupidity of your great politicians -- the reason the parliament has given is that I am not going to be of any help to Germany, why should I be allowed in? But if this is the case then it should be applicable to everybody who enters Germany, to every tourist. If this is a crime -- that I am not going to be of any help to the nation of Germany -- then all tourists should be prevented; then nobody should enter Germany! And the people who are living in Germany, if they are not of any help to the nation of Germany, they should be turned out.


This is a strange reason that they have provided. No court can accept it. They may start bringing other barriers to prevent me -- and it will be a good battle, a good challenge.
We have to fight now worldwide.


We have to make the movement a household name around the world. It is already a household name, but we have to get sannyasins, lovers, sympathizers from every house, so the fight can be from the basic unit of society, the family.


The world is not ready, but a part of the world -- the cream, the young and the intelligent -- is absolutely ready. The moment they heard that I am going for a world tour... immediately I received invitations from Greece, from Italy, from Spain, from Portugal, from Switzerland, from New Zealand, from Austria, from Australia, from Costa Rica, from Paraguay, and from many more other countries.


Even three governments have invited me, knowing perfectly well that America is against me and is pressuring governments that I should not be allowed there. Three governments have been courageous enough.... And those countries are not rich -- poor countries, South American countries. But they want to show to America, "You don't have the monopoly over the world."


So going around the world will help us to find who is our friend and who is not. And my own experience is that one of our friends is equal to one hundred enemies... because they don't have anything, just old, rotten ideas which are out of date. Just a little push and they will fall apart.
They are fighting for the dead.
We are fighting for the unborn.
And the decision of existence is always for life.
<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,
SOME PEOPLE ARE INTERESTED IN YOU, SOME PEOPLE APPRECIATE YOU, OTHERS RECOGNIZE YOU, AND SOME FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU. PLEASE SPEAK ABOUT THE JOURNEY TO THE MASTER AND ALSO THE JOURNEY WITH THE MASTER.</p>


It is natural that there should be many categories of people. And there will be categories within categories.


For example, you say, "There are some who are interested in you." This is not a single category, because there may be people who are intellectually interested in me because they feel a deep intellectual rapport, a logical affinity, but their hearts are not involved. They will remain only students, and to them I will be only a teacher, a philosopher, a thinker -- but never a master, never a friend.


There may be a few others who are interested just out of curiosity: "Who is this man? Why out of all religious people, is he being followed by millions, condemned by millions?" They may be just curious. Curiosity is of no spiritual significance. They will not even become students. It is a superficial thing, it never goes deeper than gossiping.


But there may be a group who is interested neither just intellectually nor just out of curiosity, but who feel a certain unknown, mysterious link. They are not aware of what it is, but there is a pull, a magnetic pull. These people have the possibility of becoming disciples. These people can find in me a master. That's why I said there are categories within categories; and it is natural that there will be a wide range of people interested in me for different reasons.


The second category you call the lovers. There are only two possible categories of lovers. One is the man, the other is the woman. The man first finds an intellectual conviction, a conversion on theoretical grounds; philosophically he wants to be absolutely satisfied. Logic comes first, then only can he open his doors of love. Logic is his god.


This type may enter into the world of love but can fall out of it; just as he can fall in, he can fall out -- because I am a continuously growing man. That is one of the differences to be remembered.


Buddha stops at a certain point when he is forty years of age, and then for the remaining forty-two years he simply repeats consistently the same discipline, doctrine, argument, which he had found at the age of forty. As far as I am concerned, he died at forty.


The forty-two years that he lived afterwards were posthumous, a ghost life. And certainly ghosts can only repeat; they are very consistent people. They cannot say a single new word. They are not inventive, they are not discoverers; they are just shadows of the past. And the same is the case with all the religious masters of the past.
It is not true with me.
I will be alive to my very last breath.
I am not going to die before my death.


So there is every possibility that what I am saying today, tomorrow I may contradict. Nobody can expect consistency from me. You can expect growth, but to grow you have to be moving into new lands, into new discoveries, into new ideas; and naturally the past cannot contain them. You are continuously widening. The past was very narrow.


It is just like the river Ganges. It is born deep in the Himalayas. The place where it originates is so small that it seems unbelievable. They have made a marble face of a cow, and from the cow's mouth originates the Ganges -- just a small, thin current. And then it goes on gathering immense experiences in the mountains, in the forests, and goes on becoming bigger and bigger, wider and wider. By the time it reaches to the plains it is oceanic.


And it continues, growing. New experiences... because it is one thing in the mountains, and it is a totally different thing on the plains. In the mountains there were trees, there were animals and birds, but no man. On the plains it finds a totally different world: millions of men, temples, worshippers; it goes on gathering experience. It goes on gathering new rivers, new waters. Great rivers go on merging with it.


By the time it reaches to the ocean... the place where the Ganges meets the ocean is called Gangasagar. Sagar means ocean. Before meeting the ocean, the Ganga itself has become an ocean. It is so vast that, from one bank, you cannot see the other side. In fact it has earned its meeting with the ocean. From a small current that falls from the mouth of a stone cow to Gangasagar, it is a totally different thing. The same is true with me. I am growing every moment. I am absorbing new currents, new vibes, every moment.


There is a tremendous harmony within me, there is no inconsistency within me. But to the logical mind it will be difficult to see the inner harmony. He will see only from the outside -- that I go on changing, that I am not consistent. So the man who has first intellectually convinced himself that he is in tune with me falls in love, but can fall out of love -- any moment.


One thing has to be remembered: when I say "man," I do not exactly mean masculine. A woman can be in the same category if she moves with intellectual conviction, and then enters into love. So it is not a differentiation between man and woman as such, but most probably ninety-nine percent will be males in this category; perhaps one percent may be women.


The second category is of the woman, who falls in love first, and because she is in love she starts being converted to the ideology, to the philosophy. She has one thing -- that she cannot fall out of love just because I have changed some idea, I have said something which is inconsistent, because her love is not based on that. Her love is first, everything else is secondary.


It does not matter to her whether I am saying the same thing or changing it. Her love makes it possible for her to see the inner harmony which the intellectual man misses. So ninety-nine percent in this category will be women, one percent will be men. But whoever is in this category only falls in love and cannot fall out; it simply is irrelevant what I say.


Love is capable of seeing a harmony in all kinds of inconsistencies.


Love is vast enough to see contradictions as complementaries.


This is one of the most important categories. Those who are in this category are the most fortunate because nothing can distract them from the path. The heart only says yes once, and never moves away from it. The mind's yes is conditional; the heart's yes is unconditional.


The mind says, "Yes, because what you are saying agrees with my logic." Remember the difference: the mind says, "Yes, because you are agreeing with my logic, with my understanding, with me." The heart says, "Yes, because I am agreeing with you, I have found where to dissolve myself, where to lose myself."


There are admirers. Most of them will remain only admirers. They will not come in contact with me in a living way. Their admiration is really hiding their jealousy.


I have known people who have come to see me... I could see immediately that their admiration is just a cover-up. One man had come to Manali -- a journalist, very intellectual, a nice person -- and he told me, "In such a small life you have become an international figure. I admire you."


I said, "You should think about it -- whether you admire me or you are jealous of me. Would you like to change places? Would you like to become an international figure? I am ready: I can become the journalist, you can become the international figure. I will be freed from all the trouble!"


He was shocked, but he understood the point. He said, "Perhaps it is jealousy; perhaps I am unable to say that I am jealous, and I am saying that I admire you."


People admire only those whom they would have liked to become. Their admiration is an ego trip.


So from this third category, ninety percent of admirers will belong to the jealous group. Only ten percent perhaps may not be jealous, may be simple-hearted, non-egoistic, and their admiration will be simply a heartfelt feeling. But that's where it stops.


They admire a novel of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, they admire a painting of Picasso, they admire the music of Mozart -- they admire me. But what can admiring the painting of Picasso give you? That's where it ends. It is a nice, heartfelt feeling, you are overwhelmed -- but then what? Your admiration is not going to change your life, it is not going to become a transformation.
And what is your fourth category?

OTHERS RECOGNIZE YOU.


Right. The fourth category -- of the people who recognize me -- also consists of two types of people. One, which will be the majority.... It is again an ego number. By recognizing me they are trying to put themselves above me, to show that they understand me, that they understand my enlightenment, that they recognize me as a master.


But it is almost like a blind man recognizing a man with eyes just to deceive himself, just to create a belief in his own mind that he has eyes.


The major part of this category will be of that sort. I have come across such people. The king of this country recognizes me as an awakened being. But he thinks of himself as a man of great spiritual realization, which he is not. It is very easy for him to be supported by his puppets, his paid servants, who say, "Yes, you are a great spiritual leader."


But if he recognizes me as an enlightened person, he should come to see me at least. I'm a guest in his country and he should know the tradition of the East.


There is a story in the life of Gautam Buddha. He is entering Shravasti -- one of the most beautiful and rich cities of his days -- but the king of Shravasti, although recognizing Buddha as an enlightened being, refuses to allow his prime minister to go to the gate of the city to receive him.


He says to the prime minister, "He is enlightened -- I recognize the fact -- but still he is just a beggar. And I am a great king: why should I go to receive a beggar? If he wants to see me he can come to the palace and ask for an audience."


The prime minister is as old as the king's father. He was his father's prime minister too -- the father is dead. The prime minister has tears in his eyes, and he says, "My son, you don't know the way of the East; you don't understand at all what you are saying. If you recognize him as the enlightened one, the question does not arise that he is a beggar, that he has to ask for an audience and come to the palace.


"These things show that you don't know at all what enlightenment is. This is absolutely ugly. And I cannot serve a man like you -- this is my resignation. Either you come to welcome Gautam Buddha at the gate, or accept my resignation. I cannot serve an idiot.


"This always has been so, that when an enlightened person comes -- and you recognize him -- then you have to go to receive him; otherwise withdraw your words that you recognize him. That is simply your ego -- you want to prove that you have such understanding, such wisdom that you can see that the man is enlightened. You have no such understanding, no such wisdom.


"And my tears are for your dead father, because Buddha used to come here in the time of your father, and I remember those beautiful days when your father would go to the gate -- not on the chariot but walking barefoot, because Gautam Buddha is coming. Barefoot -- how can he wear shoes? How can he go in a golden chariot? And he would go and fall at the feet of the beggar."


The majority of people who say that they recognize me are, deep down, simply putting themselves higher by their recognition.


But there is a minority also which says, "We recognize... not that we know exactly what he is, but one thing is certain: he is something far above us."


This is a totally different kind of recognition. They are not putting themselves above, they are putting themselves where they are. They recognize the person's height, depth, wisdom, in a humble way. They can see that something has happened to him. They cannot make a clear-cut statement about what has happened, but something has happened and the man is totally different. He is no longer the same man as he used to be.


This happened to Gautam Buddha's father. He was very angry when Gautam Buddha came back after twelve years. The father was furious, very angry. Buddha was his only son, and his father was getting old; any day he could die. Who was going to succeed him? Who was going to be his successor in the big kingdom?


Then Gautam Buddha came with his begging bowl like a beggar, and the father was simply mad. He screamed, shouted, and abused Buddha. He said, "You betrayed me in my old age. I had depended on you. Rather than helping me, you escaped from the house without even asking my permission!"


Buddha listened to the whole thing. As the father cooled down, Buddha said, "You are right -- your son, Siddhartha, has hurt you badly. On his behalf I ask your forgiveness. But please look into my eyes: I am not the same person."


And the father for the first time wiped his tears, looked into the eyes of Gautam Buddha, and he said, "My God, you are my son who had left twelve years before, but I can see that something has happened. You are no longer the same.


"Forget all my anger and forget all those twelve years that I have been continuously furious with you, because what you have gained is far more precious. I can see you have gone far away. I am old, but be compassionate enough to initiate me on the same path."


This is also recognition, but the recognition of a humble heart who can see the light, the depth, the faraway stars, but is not claiming, "I am above you and I can recognize you and I can certify you."


And you have asked about going to the master, and about being with the master.... What is the difference? -- is that your question?

THE JOURNEY TO THE MASTER, FINDING THE MASTER; AND ALSO THE JOURNEY ONCE YOU'VE FOUND THE MASTER, TRAVELING WITH HIM.


They are two steps of the same process -- going to the master and then being with the master.


Going to the master is far more difficult than the second step. The first step is always more difficult, because going to the master means leaving your ego, leaving your mind, leaving your expectations, putting everything aside, traveling very light, with no load, no burden.


All those things you have cherished all your life -- maybe for many lives -- and to detach yourself from them is difficult. And who knows? For whom are you leaving all your cherished things? You are risking for an unknown person. So the first step is difficult -- more difficult if you are going to the master with intellectual conviction, less difficult if you are going with a heart full of love.


The heart can do miracles. It can see where mind is blind, it can understand where mind fails. It has its own way of reaching to the mysteries of life. If you are going as if you have fallen in love, then you can leave everything.


Just by the way, all over the world, whenever a girl marries she has to go to her husband's house. Strange -- nowhere have they tried the other way, that the husband goes to the wife's house. But there is a tremendous wisdom in it -- because man thinks from the intellect. He may not be able to leave behind his family, his father, his mother, his brothers. That may be difficult.


But the woman loves from the heart. She can leave the father, she can leave the mother; she can leave everything of the past and go into the unknown with the man she loves.


So this is a folk wisdom prevalent all over the world. Logically the conclusion would have been different. Because man is stronger, he should leave his family and go to the girl's family -- she is more delicate. But no, that has not been done.


The same is true when you go to the master. If it is a heart-to-heart connection, you can leave everything aside, and even the first step becomes light, easy. Otherwise it is difficult, it takes time. For the intellectually converted person it sometimes takes years. He may hang around, think again and again, go a little further and come back.


The second step is not difficult. Once you have reached the master, for both -- those who have come from the mind and those who have come from the heart -- for both the second step is easy. The first step you were taking alone; the second step you are not alone, the master is already with you. In fact the second step is being taken by the master -- he simply gives you the appearance that you are taking it.


To be with the master is in fact something totally different. The master is with you, and only when the master is with you, is there revolution. Just your being with the master will not do anything.


There are many people who think they are with the master, and nothing happens to them -- for the simple reason that the master is not with them; they are not yet ready.


But the last thing again to be reminded of: if a person has come to the master with love being the first thing and logic the second thing, he will find that to be with the master is absolutely easy. And the master will find that to accept the person to his innermost being is without any difficulty.


But the person who has come with logic -- the master has to wait. He has to see whether he drops his logic and remains with love; then only can he be taken with the master on the journey. Otherwise he can back out from any point, and the whole work and the whole effort would have gone down the drain. And no master wants to waste his time, his work, his energy.
			

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