---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Grass Grows By Itself"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "GRASS"
dategiven: "22 February 1975 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #2"
chaptertitle: "Master and Disciple"
acode: "7502220"
shorttitle: "GRASS02"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "89mins"
displaytitle: "The Grass Grows By Itself: Chapter #2"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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<p class="sutra">EVERY TIME LIEH TZU WAS NOT BUSY, YIN SHENG TOOK THE OPPORTUNITY TO BEG FOR SECRETS. LIEH TZU KEPT TURNING HIM AWAY AND WOULD NOT TELL HIM UNTIL EVENTUALLY HE SAID: I USED TO THINK YOU INTELLIGENT -- ARE YOU REALLY AS VULGAR AS ALL THAT? HERE, I WILL TELL YOU WHAT I LEARNT FROM MY OWN MASTER.
THREE YEARS AFTER I BEGAN TO SERVE THE MASTER, MY MIND NO LONGER DARED TO THINK OF RIGHT OR WRONG, AND MY MOUTH NO LONGER DARED TO SPEAK OF BENEFIT AND HARM. IT WAS ONLY THEN THAT I GOT SO MUCH AS A GLANCE FROM THE MASTER.
AFTER FIVE YEARS MY MIND WAS AGAIN THINKING OF RIGHT AND WRONG, AND MY MOUTH WAS AGAIN SPEAKING OF BENEFIT AND HARM. FOR THE FIRST TIME THE MASTER'S FACE RELAXED INTO A SMILE.
AFTER SEVEN YEARS I THOUGHT OF WHATEVER CAME INTO MY MIND WITHOUT ANY LONGER DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG, AND I SAID WHATEVER CAME INTO MY MOUTH WITHOUT ANY LONGER DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN BENEFIT AND HARM. AND FOR THE FIRST TIME THE MASTER PULLED ME OVER TO SIT WITH HIM ON THE SAME MAT.
AFTER NINE YEARS I THOUGHT WITHOUT RESTRAINT OF WHATEVER CAME INTO MY MIND, AND SAID WITHOUT RESTRAINT WHATEVER CAME INTO MY MOUTH WITHOUT KNOWING WHETHER THE RIGHT OR WRONG, BENEFIT OR HARM, WERE MINE OR ANOTHER'S, AND WITHOUT KNOWING WHETHER THAT MASTER WAS MY TEACHER OR NOT. EVERYTHING WAS THE SAME.
NOW YOU COME TO BE MY DISCIPLE, AND BEFORE EVEN A YEAR HAS GONE ROUND YOU ARE INDIGNANT AND RESENTFUL AND TIME AGAIN!</p>


The greatest art in the world is to be a disciple. It cannot be compared to anything. It is unique and incomparable. Nothing like it exists in any other relationship, nothing like it can exist.


To be a disciple, to be with a master, is to move into the unknown. You cannot be very aggressive there. If you are aggressive, the unknown will never be revealed to you. It cannot be revealed to an aggressive mind. The very nature of it is such that you have to be receptive, not aggressive.


The search for truth is not an active search, it is a deep passivity -- in your deep passivity you will receive. But if you become too active and concerned, you will miss. It is like being a womb, it is feminine, you receive the truth as a woman receives a pregnancy.


Remember this... then many things will become easier to understand.


To be near a master is to be just a passivity, absorbing whatsoever the master gives or whatsoever the master is -- not asking. The moment you start asking you have become aggressive, the receptivity is lost, you have become active. The passive, the feminine, is no longer there. Nobody has ever reached the truth as a male -- aggressive, violent. That's not possible. You reach very silently. In fact, you wait and truth reaches you. The truth seeks you, like water seeks some hollow ground, moves downwards, finds a place, and becomes a lake.


An active mind is too filled with itself; an active mind thinks that it knows what truth is. One has only to ask, at least the question is known; only for the answer does one have to seek and search.


But when you become passive, even the question is not known. How to ask? What to ask? For what to ask? There is no question, one cannot do anything else but wait. This is patience -- and this is infinite patience -- because it is not a question of time, it is not a question of you waiting for a few months, or a few years. If you have patience for a few years, that won't help, because a mind that thinks that it has to wait for three years is not, in fact, waiting. He is looking actively, to when the three years are over, then he can jump, be aggressive, and ask; then he can demand that the period of waiting be over, that now he is entitled to know. There is nothing like that. Nobody is ever entitled to know the truth.


Suddenly the moment comes when you are ready, and your patience has become not of time, but of eternity; you are not waiting for something, but simply waiting, because the waiting is so beautiful; the waiting itself is such a deep meditation, the waiting itself is such a tremendous achievement -- who bothers about anything else? When the waiting has become so total, so intense, so whole, that time disappears and the waiting takes the quality of eternity, then immediately you are ready. You are not entitled, remember -- you cannot ask. You are simply ready and you are not even aware that you are ready. Because the very awareness will be a hindrance to your readiness; the very awareness will show that the ego is there, watching in the corner, hiding somewhere.


And the ego is always aggressive, whether hiding or not hiding, apparent or not apparent. Even hiding in the deepest corner of the unconscious, the ego is aggressive. And when I say that to become totally passive is the art of being a disciple, I mean -- dissolve the ego. Then there is nobody who is asking, demanding, then there is simply nobody -- you are a vacant house, a deep emptiness, simply waiting. And suddenly, all that you could have asked for is given to you, without you asking for it.


Jesus says: Ask, and it shall be given to you. But that is not the highest teaching. Jesus could not give the highest teaching to the people who were around him because they did not know how to be disciples. In the Jewish tradition teachers have existed, and students, but a disciple and a master is basically an Eastern phenomenon. Teachers have existed -- who have taught many things; and students have existed, sincere students -- who have learnt much.


But Jesus couldn't find disciples there, he couldn't give the highest teaching. He says: Ask and it shall be given to you. Knock, and doors shall be opened unto you. But I tell you, if you ask, you will miss; if you knock, you will be rejected. Because the very knocking is aggressive, the very asking is of the ego. In the very asking you are too much, and the doors cannot be opened for you.


In the knocking, what are you doing? You are being violent. No. At the doors of the temples knocking is not allowed. You have to come to the doors so silently that even the sound of your feet is not heard. You come as a nothing, as if nobody has come. You wait at the door and whenever the door opens you will enter. You are not in a hurry. You can sit and relax at the door, because the door knows better than you when to open, and the master inside knows better than you when it should be given.


Knocking at the door of the temple is vulgar; asking the master is unmannerly -- because he is not going to teach you anything, he is not a teacher. He is going to toss something to you from his innermost being -- a treasure -- and unless you are ready, it cannot be done. The pearls cannot be thrown before the swine. The master has to wait until your swine has disappeared, until you have awakened and you have become really human and the animal is no longer there -- the aggressive, the vulgar, the violent. The relationship between a master and a disciple is not of a rape: it is of deepest love.


That is the difference between science and religion. Science is like rape; there is aggression towards nature to know its secrets. Science is a violent effort to force nature to reveal its secrets. Religion is love, it is a persuasion, it is a silent waiting. It is making oneself ready, prepared, so that whenever the moment of your inner readiness comes, suddenly there is a tuning, everything falls into line and nature is revealed to you. And this revelation is totally different. Science may force nature to give a few facts -- but the truth? No. Science will never be able to know the truth. At the most, robbers, aggressive, violent people, can snatch away a few facts. That's all. And those facts will be of the surface. The innermost center will remain veiled for them because to reach the innermost, violence is not to be used -- cannot be used. The innermost center must invite you, only then can you enter there. Uninvited, there is no way. As a guest, invited, you enter into the inner shrine.


The relationship between a master and a disciple is the highest possibility of love -- because it is not a relationship of two bodies, it is not a relationship of any pleasure, or any gratification, it is not a relationship of two minds, two friends, in subtle, psychic harmony. No. It is neither bodily, nor sexual; it is neither mental nor emotional. It is two totals, coming together and merging into each other.


And how can you be a total if you ask a question? If you are aggressive, you cannot be total. A totality is always silent; there is no conflict within. That's why you cannot be in conflict without. Totality is serene and tranquil and collected. It is a deep togetherness. Waiting near a master, one learns how to be together, with no movement. A simple unmoving center simply waits; thirsty of course, hungry of course, feeling the thirst in every fiber of the body, in every cell of the being -- but waiting, because the master knows better when the right moment comes. Not knocking... the temptation will be there, and, when the master is available, the temptation becomes very, very deep and intense. Why not ask him? He can give, then why wait, why waste time? No, it is not a question of wasting time. Really, waiting patiently is the best use of time. All else may be wasted but waiting is not, because waiting is prayer, waiting is meditation, waiting is all. Everything happens through it.


And I call it the greatest art. Why? Because between a master and disciple the greatest mystery is lived, the deepest is lived, the highest flows. It is a relationship between the known and the unknown, between the finite and infinite, between time and eternity, between the seed and the flower, between the actual and the potential, between past and future. A disciple is only the past; the master is only the future. And here, this moment, in their deep love and waiting, they meet. The disciple is time, the master is eternity. The disciple is mind and the master is no-mind. The disciple is all that he knows, and a master is all that cannot be known. When the bridge happens between a master and a disciple, it is a miracle. To bridge the known with the unknown, and time with eternity, is a miracle.


Doing is on the part of the master, because he knows what to do. The doing is not on your part, should not be on your part, because, by your very doing, you will disturb the whole thing. You don't know what you are -- how can you do anything? A disciple waits, knowing well that he cannot do. He does not know the direction, he does not know what is good and what is bad, he does not know himself. How can he do anything? The doing is of the master; but when I say that the doing is of the master, don't misunderstand me.


A master never does anything -- if the disciple can wait, the very being of the master becomes a doing. Just his presence becomes a catalytic agent, and many things start happening on their own accord.


When somebody asked the great master Zenerin: What do you do with your disciples? He said: What do I do? I don't do anything. The questioner asked: But so many things happen around you, you must be doing something. Zenerin said: Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.


This is what a master is doing: sitting quietly, doing nothing, waiting for the right moment, the spring. Suddenly, when the disciple and the master meet, there will be spring -- the spring comes, and the grass grows by itself. And this is how it happens. A master simply sits, not doing anything and a disciple waits for the master to so something. Then comes the spring. And the moment they meet, the grass grows by itself.


In fact, truth is a happening; one has only to allow it. Nothing is to be done directly; one has only to allow it. You will not be able to know it, unless it happens, because all you know is that only when you do something does something happen. When you don't do anything, nothing happens. So you are completely oblivious of a totally different dimension of things. But, if you observe your own life, you will see many things still happening without your doing. What do you do when love happens? The grass grows by itself. Suddenly the spring is there and something flowers within you, flowers for somebody -- you are in love. What have you done?


That's why people are so afraid of love -- because it is a happening, you cannot manipulate it, you cannot be in control. That's why people say that love is blind. In fact, just the opposite is the case -- love is the only clarity of vision. Love is the only eye, but people say that love is blind because they cannot do anything about it. It takes possession and they are no longer in control, they are thrown off-center. They say it is blind because reason is not there -- it is irrational. It is like a madness; it is like a high fever; it is something that has happened to you, like a disease. It appears to be so, because you are no longer in control -- life has taken over. Truth is of the quality of love. That's why Jesus goes on saying, "Love is God," or "God is love," because the quality is of the same source. Truth also happens like love, you don't do anything about it. You don't even knock on the door.


You breathe in, you breathe out; that is what life is. How do you do it? Are you the doer? Then hold your breath in, for a few seconds, and you will come to know that you are not the doer. You cannot hold it for long. Within seconds the breath will force itself out. Hold it out: within seconds you will find you cannot do anything -- the breath is forcing itself in. In fact, the grass grows by itself, just like breathing. It grows of its own accord; you are not the doer.


But the ego avoids looking at such facts. The ego looks only at things which you can do. It chooses, accumulates things which can be done, and it avoids, throws into the unconscious, those things which happen. The ego is very choosey. It doesn't look at life in its totality.


Truth is a happening, the final happening, the ultimate happening, in which you dissolve into the whole and the whole dissolves into you. In the words of Tilopa, it is MAHAMUDRA, the ultimate orgasm that happens between one unit of consciousness and total consciousness, the total ocean of consciousness -- between the drop and the ocean. It is the total orgasm, in which both are lost into each other and the identities dissolve.


The same happens between a master and a disciple. The master is of the quality of the ocean and the disciple is still a drop -- the finite meeting the infinite. Much patience is needed, infinite patience is needed. Hurry won't help.


Now, try to understand this beautiful Zen parable. Each word has to be allowed to reach your deepest core of being, because this is what you are here for. If you can understand this story, it will be easier for you to be closer and closer to me.
<p class="sutra">EVERY TIME LIEH TZU WAS NOT BUSY, YIN SHENG TOOK THE OPPORTUNITY TO BEG FOR SECRETS.</p>


Lieh Tzu was one of the masters of the school of Lao Tzu, one of the enlightened disciples of Lao Tzu. And Lieh Tzu was not an ordinary master, not concerned with your small problems, your actions, not concerned with small teachings. Lieh Tzu was concerned only with the ultimate. He had many disciples.


There are two types of disciples. One type of disciple is chosen by the master; another type of disciple is one who has chosen the master. Their qualities differ. This man, Yin Sheng, must have been one of the second category -- and vast is the difference. When a master chooses you, it is totally different. Of course, you will never be allowed to know that the master has chosen you. In fact, the master will persuade you in such a way that you will feel that you have chosen him. He has to be very subtle about it, because if he allows you to know that he has chosen you, your ego can create a disturbance, because the ego likes to be the master; the ego likes to be in control. Every day I encounter the same situation: I have not to allow you to know that I am choosing you, I have to give you freedom to choose me.


But the difference is vast, because when a master chooses a disciple, he chooses with perfect understanding. He looks through you, all your potentialities, possibilities, past and future -- the whole destiny is revealed to him. But when you choose a master, almost always you will be wrong. Because you grope in the dark. Not knowing who you are, how can you choose? Not knowing what truth is, how can you choose a master? How can you judge? Whatsoever you judge is going to be wrong. I say unconditionally: it is not a question of whether something can be wrong and something right. No. Whatsoever you choose, will be wrong, because you are in darkness, you don't have the inner light by which to judge. You don't have any criterion, you don't have any touchstone. You cannot know what is gold and what is not gold. A sincere seeker simply allows the master to be; a sincere seeker allows a master to choose him. A foolish seeker tries to choose the master, and then, from the very beginning, trouble arises.


Lieh Tzu and his master, Lao Tzu, had a totally different quality of relationship. Lao Tzu had chosen Lieh Tzu. This Yin Sheng had chosen Lieh Tzu, and when a disciple chooses he is aggressive -- because of the very choice the aggression starts. And a master cannot reject you, even if you choose him, just out of his compassion he cannot reject you.
<p class="sutra">EVERY TIME LIEH TZU WAS NOT BUSY, YIN SHENG TOOK THE OPPORTUNITY TO BEG FOR SECRETS.</p>


That begging is not really begging, it is just a way to snatch. In fact, he is aggressive, not a beggar, the begging is just diplomatic. He is a thief, not a beggar. Whenever he found any opportunity and Lieh Tzu was not busy, he started begging for the secrets. Lieh Tzu kept turning him away and would not tell him until eventually he said.... Many times Lieh Tzu avoided, postponed, and said: Sometime I will tell you, some other time, it is not the right moment. You are not ripe. But Yin Sheng persisted until eventually Lieh Tzu had to say the truth. He said: I USED TO THINK YOU INTELLIGENT -- ARE YOU REALLY AS VULGAR AS ALL THAT?


What is the vulgarity? Secrets cannot be asked for, you have to earn them. You have to become capable. Secrets are gifts from the master: you cannot steal them, you cannot beg them, you cannot snatch them, you cannot rob them -- there is no way. Secrets can only be gifts, nothing else. So you have to be capable, capable so that the master can give them to you as gifts. He would like to share them, but you have to rise above your ordinary mind, because the ordinary mind will not be able to share. That's what Jesus goes on saying: Pearls cannot be thrown before the swine. Because the swine won't understand, the understanding is not there. You can understand words: those secrets are not words. You can understand concepts: those secrets are not concepts. They are not philosophies, doctrines. Those secrets are the innermost energy of the master, his treasure of being. If you rise higher and higher, then only will you be nearer and nearer the master, and only when the master feels that you can sit on the same mat can the secrets be given to you. Not before. Even if he wants to give, he cannot. To whom? He would like to give them out of his compassion, but they will be simply wasted.


It happened in the same way that a Sufi mystic, Dhun-nun had a disciple. The disciple must have been like Yin Sheng, persistent, asking again and again. One day, Dhun-nun gave him a stone and told him to go to the market, to the vegetable market, and to try to sell it. The stone was very big, it looked beautiful. But the master said: Don't sell it, just try to sell it: observe, go to many people and just report to me how much we can get for it from the vegetable market. The man went. Many people looked at it and they thought: It can be a good show-piece, our children can play with it, or we can use it as measures for our vegetables. So they offered, but just few small coins, like ten paise. The man came back. He said: At the most, we can only get ten paise for it -- and responses were different, from two paise to ten.


The master said: Now you go to the gold market and ask people there. But don't sell it, just enquire how much. From the gold market the disciple came, very happy, and he said: These people are wonderful. They are ready to give a thousand rupees for this. Responses were different, from five hundred to a thousand rupees.


The master said: Now you go to the jewellers, but don't sell it. He went to the jewellers. He couldn't believe it. They were ready to offer fifty thousand rupees. And when he wouldn't sell, they went on increasing the offers -- they reached one hundred thousand rupees. But the man said: I am not going to sell it. They said: We offer two hundred thousand rupees, three hundred thousand rupees, or whatsoever you say. But sell it! The man said: I cannot sell. I am just to enquire. He couldn't believe it -- these people were mad. He himself thought that the price that was offered in the vegetable market was enough.


He came back. The master took the stone and said: We are not going to sell it, but now you know that it depends on you, on if you have the touchstone, the understanding. You go on asking questions and you live in the vegetable market. You live in the vegetable market and you have the understanding of that market. Then you ask for valuable secrets: you ask for diamonds. First become a jeweller, and then come to me. Then I will teach you.


A certain quality of understanding is needed, only then can certain truths be given to you. And secrets? You cannot ask for them, because in the very asking you show that you come from the vegetable market. You have to wait; you have to wait infinitely. Then you show that you are ready to sacrifice your whole life for them. Then you show how much you value the secrets -- you are ready to sacrifice yourself completely. Then the master simply shares his being with you. Nothing is to be given, because these are not things. Energy simply jumps from the master towards you like a flame. It enters you and transfigures you completely.
<p class="sutra">I USED TO THINK YOU INTELLIGENT -- ARE YOU REALLY AS VULGAR AS ALL THAT?</p>


This persistent asking shows a vulgar mind. You don't understand what you are asking. Juvenile, childish, you seem to be absolutely uncultured, not knowing with whom you are, not knowing what you are asking.


And then he told his own story with his own master. It is a rare story.
<p class="sutra">HERE, I WILL TELL YOU WHAT I LEARNT FROM MY OWN MASTER.</p>


His own master, was Lao Tzu, the source of the Taoist tradition, one of the greatest beings who has ever walked on the earth. Says Lieh Tzu:
<p class="sutra">THREE YEARS AFTER I BEGAN TO SERVE THE MASTER, MY MIND NO LONGER DARED TO THINK OF RIGHT OR WRONG, AND MY MOUTH NO LONGER DARED TO SPEAK OF BENEFIT AND HARM. IT WAS ONLY THEN THAT I GOT SO MUCH AS A GLANCE FROM THE MASTER.</p>


Three years passed. He simply served the master. What else can you do? You can simply serve the master. Nothing else can be done by a disciple. No questioning. No asking. No demanding. A disciple simply becomes a shadow of the master, serves him, and through service, through his love, reverence, trust, a change starts in the mind.
Says Lieh Tzu:


... MY MIND NO LONGER DARED TO THINK OF RIGHT AND WRONG. It became almost impossible to think about what is right and what is wrong. When you live near a master, you need not think. You simply move with him. You simply follow his movements. You leave everything to him. You surrender.

Says Lieh Tzu:
<p class="sutra">MY MIND NO LONGER DARED TO THINK... AND MY MOUTH NO LONGER DARED TO SPEAK OF BENEFIT AND HARM.</p>


Because in living near a master your whole attitude starts changing. For the first time, from the window of the master, you look at the total: where wrong and right meet and mingle with each other, where darkness and light are no more separate.
Says Heraclitus:


God is night and day, summer and winter, hunger and satiety.


Through the master first glimpses start coming to you. The master becomes a window: the closer you come the more your own understanding is thrown into chaos. Whatever you knew before becomes absolutely useless, futile. You are shaken. Your whole foundation is shaken. You are thrown off-gear. You no longer know what is right and what is wrong. You have looked through the master at the whole, and the total comprehends all. The total comprehends all contradictions, the total comprehends all paradoxes, in the total all opposites meet and become one. That's why Lieh Tzu said that he no longer dared to think of what was wrong and what was right. All the criteria of right and wrong dropped. All the concepts of what is benefit and what is harm simply evaporated. IT WAS ONLY THEN THAT I GOT SO MUCH AS A GLANCE FROM THE MASTER.


Three years of deep trust, service, and when the master saw that now the old mind was no longer functioning -- the old mind, which lived in opposites, in divisions, good and evil, ugly and beautiful, this and that -- that dividing mind was no more, IT WAS ONLY THEN THAT I GOT SO MUCH AS A GLANCE FROM THE MASTER.


What does Lieh Tzu mean? Is it that for three years the master never looked at Lieh Tzu? That is impossible. Serving the master continuously, the master must have looked millions of times. Then what does he mean by a glance?


A look and a glance are totally different. A look is a passive thing. When I look at you, my eyes function as a window, you are mirrored, it is not a glance. A glance means that my eyes don't function as windows, but that my eyes start functioning as a pouring of my energy into you. They are not passive; they are loaded with the master's energy. When the look is loaded with the master's innermost energy, then it becomes a glance. It is a very creative force. It simply goes to your very heart, like an arrow, it penetrates to your very deepest core. In a sense it is like an arrow, because it penetrates; in another sense it is like a seed -- you become pregnant. A glance is a look that makes you pregnant with the energy of the master. A glance is totally different from a look. In a glance the master travels from his own being to your center. A glance is a bridge. The master must have looked at Lieh Tzu many times in three years, but it was not a glance. And you will know the difference only when I give you a glance. Sometimes, I give you a glance -- but whenever I give the glance to a certain person, only he knows nobody else can know it. The glance has to be earned, you have to be ready for it. The look is okay, but the glance has a very intense energy in it. It is a transfer of the master's being, his first effort to penetrate you.


IT WAS ONLY THEN THAT I GOT SO MUCH AS A GLANCE FROM THE MASTER. Remember the difference between a look and a glance. A look is just a look -- nothing more. A glance is qualitatively different -- something moves. The look becomes the vehicle -- it is no longer empty, something travels with it.


If you have fallen in love with somebody you may know what a glance is. The same woman had looked at you many times, but it was an ordinary look -- as everybody else looks at you. Then suddenly one day, a spring morning, she gives you a glance. It is totally different; it is an invitation; it is an offer; it is a call. Suddenly something pierces your heart. Now the woman is no longer the same. Something has happened between you. Something only you two will know, something absolutely private. It is not public, nobody else will be aware that something has happened; that a look has become a glance.


But this is nothing, a love glance is nothing compared to when a master looks at you, and it is no longer a look but a glance. Because when two lovers look at each other with a loving glance, they stand on the same plane. The glance cannot be very loaded, it is just like a river moving on the same plane. When a master looks at you, it is like a tremendous waterfall, because the planes are different. It is as if Niagara is falling into you. You are completely washed away and you will never be the same again. You cannot be the same again -- there is no return.


Once a master has glanced at you, your innermost being hums is a different way, lives in a different rhythm. In fact you are no longer the same: the old has disappeared through the glance and a new being has come into being. That's what Lieh Tzu says -- for three years of serving the master continuously, waiting and waiting, not asking anything, one day, he got a glance from the master.
<p class="sutra">AFTER FIVE YEARS MY MIND WAS AGAIN THINKING OF RIGHT AND WRONG, AND MY MOUTH WAS AGAIN SPEAKING OF BENEFIT AND HARM. FOR THE FIRST TIME THE MASTER'S FACE RELAXED INTO A SMILE.</p>


Try to penetrate this story: this is your story. It is not something that happened in the past, it is something which is going to happen in the future. All Zen stories are future stories about you. So don't think it is something that happened in the past. Zen is never in the past, it is always in the future. And you have to bring it into the present. What happened? After three years of serving the master he didn't dare to think of what was right and wrong, didn't dare to say what was right and wrong, what was harmful and what was beneficial. Then what happened after the glance?... MY MIND WAS AGAIN THINKING OF RIGHT AND WRONG, AND MY MOUTH WAS AGAIN SPEAKING OF BENEFIT AND HARM. What happened?


First you think something is right and something is wrong, because society has conditioned you that way. It is not your thinking, it is not you, it is the society in you. Society has conditioned your mind. It has penetrated within you and controls you from there.


Now scientists say that sooner or later we will be able to fix electrodes in the deepest part of the mind and, through those electrodes, a man will be able to be controlled. The government will be able to control the whole country, and you will not know that somebody else is controlling you. You will feel that you are doing these things. You can be pacified immediately: a knob has only to be pushed. You can be made angry: a knob has only to be pushed.


Delgado did a very famous experiment. He fixed an electrode, a small, tiny electrode, in the brain of a bull. Then he gave a public demonstration. He had a small mechanism in his hand, just a small radio with a few buttons on it. He pushed one button and the bull rushed towards him, ferocious, and everybody became concerned that Delgado would be killed. Just in the nick of time, exactly when the bull was going to penetrate Delgado, he pushed another button. Suddenly, the bull stopped as if dead, like a statue. The inside electrode was controlled by the wireless -- the bull would become ferocious just by pushing a button, and it could be stopped just by pushing a button.


This is a very, very new finding but society has been doing it since prehistorical days in a different way, in a subtle way. Society doesn't fix an electrode in your mind although soon it will do that, because it will be cheaper, and easier, and then there will be no possibility for human freedom. Delgado has done one of the most dangerous things, more dangerous than atomic energy, an atom bomb, or an H-bomb -- because they can kill your bodies, but Delgado can kill your very soul, the very possibility of your freedom. And you will not be able to know that you are functioning because of somebody else's directions, you will think that you are doing it.


The same is being done by society in a very subtle, primitive way. Society teaches you what is right and what is wrong. From the very childhood it forces what is right and what is wrong onto your mind and then continuous repetition hypnotizes you -- the continuous repetition and feedback. Whenever you do right you are appreciated, and whenever you do wrong you are condemned. Whenever you do right, there is a positive feedback; prizes are given to you, appreciations.


Whenever there is something wrong, a negative feedback is given; you are punished, condemned. This is how society has been fixing the electrode inside you. Then it controls. If your society has conditioned you to be a vegetarian, you cannot eat meat. Not that meat cannot be eaten, but simply the electrode, the conditioning controls and, seeing the meat, you will start vomiting. It is nothing that you are doing, it is being done by society, and every society conditions in its own way. That's why it is very difficult to live in another society; to live in a foreign country becomes difficult. Your conditionings are different and their conditionings are different and all moralities are nothing but conditionings. So when a person starts moving towards the ultimate freedom and truth, first the conditioning of the society falls.


That's what happened to Lieh Tzu. After three years of serving the master, watching, living, being with him, he came to know that all right and wrong are just social conditionings. They fell. Then arises your own conscience. The real conscience. The conscience that you carry right now is false, it is borrowed. Then arises your own conscience: then you have your own vision of what is right and what is wrong. That is what happened.
<p class="sutra">AFTER FIVE YEARS MY MIND WAS AGAIN THINKING OF RIGHT AND WRONG, AND MY MOUTH WAS AGAIN SPEAKING OF BENEFIT AND HARM. FOR THE FIRST TIME THE MASTER'S FACE RELAXED INTO A SMILE.</p>


Not that the master was continuously sad for these eight years. Hard, serious? No! A master like Lao Tzu is always laughing. He is not a serious man. Seriousness is a disease. An enlightened man is always playful, his whole life is nothing but a play. How can he be serious?


What happened? For these eight years, did Lao Tzu never laugh nor smile? No, that is not the point: he must have laughed many times, and he must have smiled many times. But for Lieh Tzu, in his innermost being, something happened on that day: for the first time the master's face relaxed into a smile. A master has to haunt the disciple continuously; he has to be very hard; out of compassion, he has to work continuously. This is about the inner face, not about the outer face. For these eight years Lao Tzu must have followed the innermost being of Lieh Tzu with a very hard face, very hard, for the inner discipline. Then seeing that Lieh Tzu's own conscience had evolved, he must have smiled, for the first time. That smile was concerned with the inner, not the outer face. For the first time, Lieh Tzu felt many smiles from the master falling on him like showers. He could feel that the master had relaxed about him -- no longer hard, no longer a taskmaster. He had smiled.


Once your own conscience has arisen, there is no need for the master to be hard on you. He had to be hard because you had a false conscience in the first place. That had to be destroyed. Then he had to be hard because your own conscience has to be crystallized. When it has crystallized, you have your own center of being; then the master can smile and relax. Half the work is done. Now there is no need for any outer discipline from the master for you. You have your own conscience. Now you have your own inner light, which will show you what is wrong and what is right. Now you can move on your own.


That is the meaning of the master smiling -- it is felt. When really you attain to your own conscience, you will feel the master's smiles falling within you, showering; they will surround you from every corner of your being. That is why the master celebrates the birth of your inner conscience.
<p class="sutra">AFTER SEVEN YEARS I THOUGHT OF WHATEVER CAME INTO MY MIND WITHOUT ANY LONGER DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG, AND I SAID WHATEVER CAME INTO MY MOUTH WITHOUT ANY LONGER DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN BENEFIT AND HARM. AND FOR THE FIRST TIME THE MASTER PULLED ME OVER TO SIT WITH HIM ON THE SAME MAT.</p>


Again, it is like a spiral or like a mountain path. You come again to the same point at a higher altitude, again and again, the inner spiral. The false conscience fell, the conditioning of society fell, your own inner conscience arose. Now that too disappears.
<p class="sutra">AFTER SEVEN YEARS I THOUGHT OF WHATEVER CAME INTO MY MIND WITHOUT ANY LONGER DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG, AND I SAID WHATEVER CAME INTO MY MOUTH WITHOUT ANY LONGER DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN BENEFIT AND HARM.</p>


This is total relaxation. A conscience, an inner conscience, is also needed because you are not absolutely natural. An outer conscience is needed because you don't have an inner conscience. The inner conscience is needed because you are not absolutely natural yet: something wrong can happen through you. But when you are absolutely natural, what Tilopa calls 'loose and natural', then no harm can happen through you. You simply are no more; you cannot harm. Now there is no need, so your inner conscience also dissolves. Now you become like a small child, simple and pure, saying things that happen to you, thinking things that happen to you. Thoughts float in your mind, but you are not concerned; your mouth says things, you are not concerned. It is like a small child, or like a madman: absolutely relaxed, as if there is nobody in control. And when the control is completely lost, the ego disappears because the ego is nothing but the controller -- when there is no control, who are you? You are just like a river flowing towards the ocean, or like a cloud floating in the sky. You are no longer there; the human, the ego, has disappeared. Now you are simply natural.


AFTER SEVEN YEARS I THOUGHT OF WHATEVER CAME INTO MY MIND... You cannot do anything, because there is nobody to do. If thoughts come, they come. If they don't come, okay; if they come, okay. The mouth says something -- there is nobody to control it, so it says. Sometimes somebody asks and no answer comes; such a man will remain silent. Sometimes there is nobody asking anything and this man laughs and answers, because it comes. This man behaves like a madman!


In India, there is a sect, a particular sect, called BAUL -- the word BAUL means the mad. They live in this third state continuously. They do whatsoever happens: no good, no bad, no choice on their part. They move like winds, and they are one of the most beautiful phenomena in the world. They dance, they sing, even sometimes when there is nobody, on a lonely path, they will still be singing; like a flower that has come to bloom on a lonely path where nobody walks. But the flower has the fragrance to spread, and it goes on spreading the fragrance.They live simply 'loose and natural'.
<p class="sutra">AND FOR THE FIRST TIME THE MASTER PULLED ME OVER TO SIT WITH HIM ON THE SAME MAT.</p>


Now the disciple has disappeared; the ego is no longer there. Now the master and the disciple have become one, now there is no distinction. The master pulled Lieh Tzu over, for the first time pulled him over to sit with him on the same mat. Just symbolic. But, deep inside, very, very significant. The master has pulled him towards him now, seeing that no barrier exists, there is no ego to resist. When the disciple disappears, the master also disappears.


The master was not there, in fact, from the very beginning. It was only because of the ego of the disciple that he was the master. The disciple was ignorant, that's why he was the master. Now there is no disciple and no master. Both have disappeared.


The master has pulled him onto his own mat; inside, the master has pulled him and they have become one. This is MAHAMUDRA. This is the orgasm that happens between a master and a disciple when they meet. A faint glimpse can come to you through sexual orgasm, very faint, very pale. But it is difficult to have any other parallel, that's why I say through sexual orgasm -- something of the same happens. Something. As a drop can be compared to the ocean -- just like that. Sexual orgasm is like a drop, and when a spiritual orgasm happens between a master and a disciple it is an oceanic feeling.
<p class="sutra">AFTER NINE YEARS I THOUGHT WITHOUT RESTRAINT OF WHATEVER CAME INTO MY MIND, AND SAID WITHOUT RESTRAINT WHATEVER CAME INTO MY MOUTH WITHOUT KNOWING WHETHER THE RIGHT OR WRONG, BENEFIT OR HARM WERE MINE OR ANOTHER'S, AND WITHOUT KNOWING WHETHER THAT MASTER WAS MY TEACHER OR NOT. EVERYTHING WAS THE SAME.</p>


First the good and bad disappeared, then benefit and harm disappeared, and then the idea: Who is who? You and me, I and thou, they disappeared.


Martin Buber has written a beautiful book, I AND THOU. Jewish mysticism comes to this point then remains stuck there. It is one of the very high points, where the disciple and the master are the seeker and the whole. They come to a point of direct dialogue between 'I' and 'Thou', but they remain there. Eastern mysticism takes the final jump -- 'I' and 'Thou' also disappears. The dialogue disappears. There is only silence. EVERYTHING WAS THE SAME. Now Lieh Tzu was not even aware whether Lao Tzu was his master or not. He was not aware whether he was a disciple or not.


In such moments many unbelievable things have happened in the history of Zen. The master always hits the disciple many times in many years. Sometimes he throws him out of the door and kicks him! Zen masters are very harsh. And then the disciple becomes enlightened, after twenty or thirty years of hard work and discipline with the Master. And he comes and he slaps the master -- this has never happened anywhere before. And the master laughs, a belly laugh, and he says: Exactly right. You did well.


It happened once that a disciple was going on a journey and the master called him and hit him hard on the head and slapped him. And the disciple said: This is too much. I have not done anything. I have not even uttered a single word. I entered your room and you started hitting me. This is too much. The master said: No! You are going on a journey and I can see that the moment you come back, you will be enlightened. And this is my last chance to hit you!
<p class="sutra">NOW YOU COME TO BE MY DISCIPLE -- SAID LIEH TZU TO YIN SHENG -- AND BEFORE EVEN A YEAR HAS GONE ROUND YOU ARE INDIGNANT AND RESENTFUL TIME AND TIME AGAIN.</p>


It took twenty-four years for Lieh Tzu to come to a point where the master pulled him onto his mat, and opened his heart and the hidden-most secret of his being. And this disciple had only been here for one year and he felt resentful, aggressive, angry, because Lieh Tzu wouldn't answer his questions and wouldn't give him the secrets he was hankering for.


What is one year in the infinite expanse of eternity? Nothing. But your hurry makes it look very, very long. Twenty-five centuries have passed since Lieh Tzu was. If he came back, he would not be able to believe that it has become almost impossible for people to wait for even one year. I have come across people who say: We have come only for three days. I have come across the people who meditate once, and then they come to me and they say: Nothing has happened yet.


Man has become more and more stupid, vulgar. You can get small things easily, they are like seasonal flowers: you put the seed in the soil, and within three weeks they sprout. But, by the season's end, they will be gone. They are momentary. You can have instant coffee: you cannot have instant meditation. In the mind of the West particularly, time is too important, too heavy. The West is time obsessed. Listening to these Eastern tales, you may enjoy them, but you must be aware about your own time obsession. In the West everything is done in such a hurry that you cannot enjoy anything. You move from one place to another, always on the go, traveling fast. The faster you go, the less significance there is in traveling, because you go from one point to another and all that is in between is lost. To travel by a bullock-cart has a beauty of its own. To travel by a jet plane is foolish because it is not travel at all. It may be a business trip. That's okay. For business it's okay. You save time. But for traveling, for traveling you have to move slowly. There is nothing like wandering on your feet, then you enjoy each moment of it -- each tree that passes by. You become one with millions of things, and you are enriched through it.


Because of time obsession, speed has become the only goal. You don't know where you are going, but you are very happy because you are going fast. The direction is lost but speed is in your hand.


This mind will not be able to seek the ultimate because the ultimate means the eternal. It is not like a seasonal flower: it is the ultimate, eternal tree. For it to become a soil, and for it to take roots in you, infinite patience and waiting is needed. If you can only wait, then all else, I can promise, will come. You simply wait with me, and everything will follow. But don't be in a hurry and don't ask for secrets -- they will be given to you when you are ready. They are always given. In fact, to say that they are given is not exactly right. When you are ready, you will suddenly find that whatsoever you were trying to achieve was already within you. You had it always: it was already the case. The master is just a catalytic agent; he sits, silently, quietly, not doing anything. Spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
			

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