Pythagoras, The golden verses of Pythagoras, Vol. 1 Philosophia Perennis Chapter 4: I Mean Business!, Question 5

The fifth question

Question 5

OSHO, YOU ONCE SAID THAT WE CANNOT FOLLOW A DEAD MASTER, SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO IF YOU LEAVE YOUR BODY ONE DAY? WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOUR FOLLOWING? SHOULD WE SEARCH FOR A LIVING MASTER? PLEASE EXPLAIN.

Barry Boudreaux,

YOU ARE NOT YET A DISCIPLE and you are worried. The living Master is here! and you are not yet a disciple, and you are worried whether when I leave my body you will have to search for a living Master. Just look at the nonsense the mind goes on spinning. And if you can find one, again you will ask the same question!

Yes, it is true: you cannot follow a dead Master. So while I am alive, become a disciple. And there are two ways to find a living Master.

The easier one is when a living Master is there -- dissolve into him. Only one percent of effort is needed from your side; ninety-nine percent of the work is done by the Master. But if a living Master is not available, then it is very difficult: ninety-nine percent of the work will have to be done by you, and only one percent can be done by a Master who is no more alive.

For example, you can follow Christ, you can follow Buddha, but ninety-nine percent of the work will have to be done by you; only one percent can be done by Buddha. You will have to create such intensity, such passion; you will have to become afire. In becoming afire, in becoming a tremendous longing for truth, you will make Buddha alive again -- through your intensity. He is there! dissolved into existence, no more residing in a body. Not that he is not there: he is there, bodiless. Christ is there bodiless.

If you can create a tremendous longing, that very longing will function as a body for Christ. He will become alive for you! If you really love Christ and you are ready to die for him, he is living for you, because you will become his body. You will start functioning as HIS body. But that is a tremendous work. Very rarely has a person been able to do it: a St. Francis, a Teresa, an Eckhart. Very rarely. Down the centuries, twenty centuries after Jesus, not more than five people have been able to do that. In four centuries, one person only. It is very rare.

Many have done the same with Buddha. Twenty-five centuries have passed, but those many can be counted on the fingers -- they are not really many, few and far between.

If your intensity is such that you can say, "It is total. My love has no doubt, no lingering shadow, it is shadowless," then a dead Master becomes ALIVE in you, and you can follow him. Then your innermost core becomes his vehicle.

The easier way is to find a living Master who is still in the body. You need not become his body. You can contact him easily because he is visible. Now about Jesus... you cannot even trust whether this man ever happened, whether he was really historical. There is no proof, there is no certainty, that he was a historical person. How will you drop your doubt?

And what Christians say makes his existence even more doubtful; they don't help. They say he was born out of a virgin -- now see the stupidity of it. It makes things more difficult! To conceive the idea you will need such an idiotic mind -- because it is simply nonsense. Children are not born out of virgins. Now this makes his existence more doubtful, seems to be a myth, seems to be a story, a legend. And in fact there are a few scholars who say that it was just a drama that was played -- a Christ drama -- it was never a reality; just a story, a play written by some unknown Shakespeare of olden days.

Christians say that after the crucifixion, after three days as a dead body he was resurrected again. Now they make things even more difficult. And all the stories of miracles... and Christ disappears as a historical person.

Buddha seems to be more historical -- more historical than Christ. Of course, he is five hundred years before Christ, but still he seems to be more historical. No virgin birth, no resurrection after death. But Buddhists make their story implausible in their own way. They say he was born when his mother was standing, and the first thing he did was that he declared, standing... after birth the first thing he did: he walked seven steps and then he declared, "There is nobody higher than me -- not on the earth, not in the heavens!"

Now the newly born child walking seven steps and declaring, "Nobody is higher than me, here or anywhere else...." To declare such nonsense, one needs seventy years of experience -- seven steps won't do!

It is said about Lao Tzu that he lived in his mother's womb for eighty-two yearS. Now, just think of the mother also, poor mother. Nine months is too much -- eighty-two years! He was born with white hair, an old man.

Now, these people make things impossible -- how can you believe these stories? You cannot believe them. And because of these stories, if you come across a living Buddha you will not believe in him either -- because you will ask these foolish questions: "Were you born out of a virgin mother?" And the living Buddha cannot say yes because that will be untrue. "And did you walk seven steps immediately after birth? Did you declare? Did you live in your mother's womb for eighty-two years?"

And, of course, all the answers are going to be no, no, no. Then the question arises, "Then what kind of a Buddha are you?"

These stories will not allow you to believe in the ancient Buddhas, and these stories will not allow you to believe in the living Buddha either. These stories have been a great poison, a great calamity. It will be difficult for you to connect with a dead Master -- dead only in the sense that he has no body any more. Otherwise he is there! Nothing is ever lost. The fragrance is there: the flower is gone. And if you cannot smell the fragrance while the flower is there, it will be thousands of times more difficult to smell the fragrance when the flower is gone.

That's all that I meant, Boudreaux.

You say: YOU SAID THAT WE CANNOT FOLLOW A DEAD MASTER.

I repeat it again: it will be almost impossible for you to follow a dead Master -- because then you will have to become his vehicle. And if you are capable of becoming the vehicle of a Christ, then why can't you become a Christ yourself? If you are capable of contacting a Buddha who disappeared twenty-five centuries ago, then who can prevent you from becoming a Buddha on your own?

So, it will be impossible for you to follow a dead Master. And these twenty centuries or twenty-five centuries or fifty centuries that have passed, thousands of pundits and priests have been destroying the sources, distorting, polluting, projecting their ideas, imposing their interpretations. You don't know what Jesus looked like -- all that you know is what Christians make him look like. And Christians have nothing to do with Christ, just as Buddhists have nothing to do with Buddha.

You will not be able to search for a dead Master. Easier it is, more pragmatic it is, to find a living Master. But the difficulty with the living Master is that you have to surrender. And that's why ego resists. With the dead Master you can go on playing the game that you are following. The Master is not there to prevent you, to disturb your game. So you can go on; it is a monologue -- you can go on talking to yourself, whatsoever you want. You ask the question, you answer the question -- the Master is not there.

But when you are with a living Master, he is constantly at your neck. He is bent upon it to destroy you as an ego. That is very painful. To avoid it, we go on asking unnecessary questions.

YOU ONCE SAID, you ask, THAT WE CANNOT FOLLOW A DEAD MASTER, SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO IF YOU LEAVE YOUR BODY ONE DAY?

I have not left my body yet, Boudreaux. Tomorrow I may leave, so today is the only day, this moment is the only moment. Why are you worried about tomorrow? And I am saying that you can become enlightened this very moment -- if you are ready to surrender totally, in that VERY surrender enlightenment happens. You ARE enlightened, only the ego has to be taken away.

It is the ego that does not allow you to see the point that you are already enlightened, that enlightenment is your self-nature. The false ego goes on hiding your real self behind it. Surrender the ego -- that is sannyas, that is becoming a disciple -- and you are enlightened. What is the need of searching for another Master? The need will arise only if you have not been with THIS Master totally. And if you have not been with this Master totally, even if you find another you will not be totally with him either. You don't know how to be totally with someone, you don't know how to love, you don't know how to trust.

You ask: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOUR FOLLOWING? SHOULD WE SEARCH FOR A LIVING MASTER? PLEASE EXPLAIN.

I am here... partake of me. No other explanation is going to help. Experience me! Why are you asking for an explanation? When experience is possible, why ask for an explanation?

Pythagoras

VOL. 1, PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS

Chapter-4

I Mean Business!