The Master of Masters

 

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Patanjali is talking about the phenomenon of God. God is not the creator. For Patanjali, God is the ultimate flowering of individual consciousness.

Everybody is on the way to become a god. Not only you, but the stones, the rocks, every unit of existence is on the way to become a god. Some have become already; some are becoming; some will become.

God is not the creator, but the culmination, the peak, the ultimate of existence. He is not in the beginning: he is in the end. And, of course, in a sense, he is in the beginning also, because in the end only that can flower which has always been from the very beginning as a seed. God is the potentiality, the hidden possibility: this has to be remembered. So Patanjali has not a single God, he has infinite gods. The whole existence is full of gods.

Once you understand Patanjali's conception of God, then God is not to be really worshipped. You have to become one; that is the only worship. If you go on worshipping God, that won't help. In fact, that is foolish. The worship, real worship, should consist in becoming yourself a god. The whole effort should be to bring your potentiality to the point where it explodes into an actuality - where the seed is broken and that which was hidden from eternity becomes manifested. You are God unmanifested, and the effort is how to bring the unmanifested to the manifested level - how to bring it to the plane of manifestation.

When you talk about a thing, the greatest danger is that you may start believing that you know. In the beginning when you start to talk, to teach - and teaching has some appeal because it is very ego-fulfilling - when somebody listens to you attentively, deep down it fulfills your ego that you know and he doesn't know. You are the knower and he is ignorant.

It happened: a priest, a great priest, was called into a madhouse to say a few words to the inmates of that house. The priest was not expecting much, but he was surprised. One madman listened to him so attentively, that he had never seen any man listen to him so attentively. He was just bending forward; each word he was taking into his heart. The man was not even blinking. He was so attentive - as if hypnotized.

When the priest has finished his sermon, he saw that the same man reached to the superintendent and said something to him. He was curious. As soon as possible, he asked the superintendent, "What that man was saying to you? Was he saying something about my sermon?" The superintendent said, "Yes." Asked the priest, "Would you mind to tell me what he said?" The superintendent was a little bit reluctant, but then he said, "Yes. The man said, 'See? I am in and he is out?"

A teacher is exactly in the same place, in the same boat, as you are. He is also an inmate. He has nothing more than you - just a little more information. Information means nothing. You can accumulate; ordinary, average intelligence is needed to accumulate information. One need not be a genius, one need not be very talented. Just average intelligence is enough. You can accumulate information. You can go on accumulating; you can become a teacher.

A teacher is one who knows without knowing. He attracts people, if he is a good talker, a good writer, if he has a personality, if he has a certain charisma about him, magnetic eyes, a forceful body. And by and by he becomes more and more skillful. But the people around him cannot be disciples, they will remain students. Even if he pretends that he is a Master, he cannot make you a disciple. At the most he can make you a student. A student is one who is in search of more information and a teacher is one who has accumulated more information. This is the first type of master - who is not a Master at all.

Then there is a second type of Master - who has known himself. Whatsoever he says, he can say like Heraclitus: "I have searched." Or like Buddha he can say, "I have found." Heraclitus is more polite. He was talking to people who could not have understood if he had said like Buddha, "l have found." Buddha says, "I am the most perfect enlightened man that has ever happened." It looks egoistic, but it is not and he was talking to his disciples who could have understood that there was no ego at all.

Heraclitus was talking to people who were not disciples - just ordinary people. They will not have understood. Politely he says, "I have searched," and leaves the other part - that, "I have found" for your imagination. Buddha never says, "I have searched." He says, "I have found! And this enlightenment has never happened before. It is utterly absolute."

One who has found is a Master. He will accept disciples. Students are prohibited; students cannot go there by themselves. Even if they drift and reach somehow, they will leave as soon as possible because he will not be helping you to gather more knowledge. He will try to transform you. He will give you being, not knowledge. He will give you more being, not more knowledge. He will make you centered, and the center is somewhere near the navel, not in the head.

Whosoever lives in the head is eccentric. The word is beautiful: the English word eccentric means off center. Really, he is mad whosoever lives in the head - head is the periphery. You can live in your feet or you can live in your head: the distance from the center is the same. The center is somewhere near the navel

A teacher helps you to be more and more head-rooted; a Master will uproot you from the head and re-plant you. Exactly it is a re-planting, so much pain is there - bound to be - suffering, anguish, because when you re-plant, the plant has to be uprooted from the soil. It has always been. And then, again, it has to be planted in a new soil. It will take time The old leaves will drop. The whole plant will pass through anguish, uncertainty, not knowing whether he is going to survive or not. It is a rebirth With a teacher there is no rebirth; with a Master there is a rebirth.

Socrates is right: he says, "I am a midwife." Yes, a Master is a midwife He helps you to be reborn. But that means you will have to die: only then you can be reborn. So a Master is not only a midwife - Socrates says only the half thing. A Master is a murderer also - a murderer plus a midwife. First he will kill you as you are, and only the new can come out of you then. Out of your death, the resurrection.

A teacher never changes you. Whatsoever you are, whomsoever you are, he simply gives you more information. He adds in you; he retains the continuity. He may modify you, he may refine you. You may become more cultured, more polished. But you will remain the same: the base will be the same.

With a Master, a discontinuity happens. Your past becomes as if it was never yours - as if it belonged to somebody else, as if you dreamed it. It was not real; it was a nightmare. The continuity breaks. There is a gap. The old drops and the new comes, and between these two there is a gap. That gap is the problem; that gap has to be passed. In that gap many simply become scared and go back, run fast and cling to their old past.

A Master helps you to cross this gap, but for a teacher there is nothing like that; there is no problem. A teacher helps you to learn more; a Master - the first job is to help you to unlearn: that is the difference.

Somebody asked Raman Maharshi that, "I have come from very far to learn from you. Teach me" Raman laughed and said, "If you have come to learn, then go somewhere else because here we do the unlearning. Here we don't teach. You already know too much; that is your problem. More learning and there will be more problems. We teach how to unlearn, how to unwind."

A Master attracts disciples, a teacher - students. What is a disciple? Everything has to be understood minutely; then only you will be able to understand Patanjali. Who is a disciple? What is the difference between a student and a disciple? A student is in search of knowledge, a disciple in search of transformation, mutation. He is fed up with himself. He has come to a point to realize that, "As I am, I am worthless - dust, nothing else. As I am it is of no value."

He has come to attain a new birth, a new being. He is ready to pass through the cross, through the pangs of death and rebirth; hence, the word disciple. The word disciple comes from discipline. He is ready to pass through any discipline. Whatsoever the Master says, he is ready to follow. He has followed his own mind up to now, for many lives, and he has reached nowhere. He has listened to his own mind, and he got more and more into trouble. Now a point has come where he realizes that, "Enough of this"

He comes and surrenders to the Master. This is the discipline, the first step. He says, "Now I will listen to you. I have listened enough of my own; to my mind I have been a follower, a disciple, and it leads nowhere. I have realized this. Now you are my Master." That means, "Now you are my mind. Whatsoever you say, I will listen. Wherever you lead, I will go. I will not question you because that question will come from my mind."

A disciple is one who has learned one thing through life - that your mind is the troublemaker, your mind is the root cause of your miseries. Your mind always says, "Somebody else is the cause of my miseries, not me." A disciple is one who has learned that this is trick, this is a trap of the mind. It always says, "Somebody else is responsible; I am not responsible." This is how it saves itself, protects, remains secure. A disciple is one who has understood that this is wrong - this is a trick of the mind.

Once you feel this whole absurdity of the mind... It leads you into desire: desire leads you into frustration. It leads you into success: every success becomes a failure. It attracts you towards beauty, and every beauty proves ugly. It leads you on and on; it never fulfills any promise. It gives you promises... No, not even a single promise is fulfilled. It gives you doubt: doubt becomes a worm in the heart - poisonous. It does not allow you to trust, and without trust there is no growth. When you understand this whole thing, then only you can become a disciple.

When you come to the Master, symbolically you put your head into his feet. This is dropping your head: this is putting your head into his feet. Now you say, "now I will remain headless. Now, whatsoever you say will be my life." This is the surrender. A Master has disciples who are ready to die and be reborn.

Then there is third - a Master of Masters. A teacher of students first; a Master of disciples second; and then the third, a Master of Masters. Patanjali says when a Master becomes a god - and to become a god means one who transcends time; for whom time does not exist, ceases to exist; for him there is no time; one who has come to understand the timelessness, the eternity; who has not only changed and become good, who has not only changed and become aware, who has gone beyond time - he has become a Master of Masters. Now he is a god

What will he be doing then, a Master of Masters? This stage comes only when a Master leaves the body - never before it. Because in the body you can be aware, in the body you can realize that there is no time. But body has a biological clock. It feels hunger, and after a time gap again hunger - satiety and hunger, sleep, disease, health. In the night the body has to go to sleep; in the morning it has to wake. Body has a biological clock. So the third Master happens only when a Master leaves the body - when he is not to come back to the body again.

Buddha has two terms. First he calls it nirvana, enlightenment, when Buddha became enlightened but remained in the body. That is enlightenment, nirvana. Then after forty years he left the body; he calls it the absolute nirvana - mahaparinirvana. Now he becomes a Master of Masters, and he has remained a Master of Masters.

Every Master, when he leaves the body permanently, when he is not to come back again, he becomes a Master of Masters. Mohammed, Jesus, Mahavira, Buddha, Patanjali, they have remained Master of Masters, and they have continuously been guiding - Masters not disciples.

Whenever somebody becomes a Master on the path of Patanjali, immediately there is a contact with Patanjali whose soul floats into the infinite, the individual consciousness, which he calls God. Whenever a person following Patanjali's path becomes a Master, enlightened, immediately there is a communication with the original Master who is now a god.

Whenever somebody following Buddha becomes enlightened, immediately a relationship comes into existence. Suddenly he is joined with Buddha - Buddha who is no more in the body, Buddha who is no more in time and no more in space, but still is - Buddha who has become one with totality, but still is.

This is very paradoxical and very difficult to understand because we cannot understand anything which is beyond time. Our whole understanding is within time; our whole understanding is within space. When somebody says Buddha exists beyond time and space, it makes no sense to us.

When you say Buddha exists beyond space, it means he does not exist anywhere in particular. And how somebody can exist without existing anywhere in particular? He exists, simply exists You cannot indicate where; you cannot say where he is. In that sense he is nowhere and in that sense he is everywhere. For the mind which lives in a space, it's very difficult to understand something beyond space. But whosoever follows the methods of Buddha and becomes a Master, immediately has a contact. Buddha still goes on guiding people who follow his path; Jesus still goes on guiding people who follow his path.