SELF-APPOINTED MASTER

I AM NOT A "SELF-APPOINTED MASTER". Whenever there is a master, he is recognized, not appointed.

When the rose flowers, you don't make it flower, but you can recognize the fragrance. Even in your sleep you can feel that the night is over and the sun has arisen. You are just hanging between sleep and waking. You may take time to wake up, but somewhere deep down in you, you know it is time to wake up.

I am not appointed by anybody -- TO BE APPOINTED IS AN INSULT. And I am not appointed by myself, because what is the need? -- I know it.

The word "master" in the world of spirituality has a totally different meaning. It is not the same as a schoolmaster. A MASTER in the spiritual sense IS ONE WHO HAS MASTERY OVER HIMSELF, who does not function unconsciously, whose every act -- even the smallest gesture -- is conscious, alert. HE MAY NOT HAVE A SINGLE DISCIPLE -- it doesn't matter.

Do you see the point? The word "master" creates the idea of the disciple, the follower. How can there be a master without a disciple, a follower? But in the spiritual sense of the word "MASTER" MEANS MASTERY OF ONESELF. It has no relationship with any following; it does not depend on the crowd. A master can be just alone.

I had started alone, and then slowly people started joining my caravan. I was really surprised -- I am still surprised. Surprised, because how did these people recognize the fragrance, the flowering of self-mastery? They are not awake, but one thing is certain: they are not asleep either. Just the early morning hours... You know, everybody knows, that you are awake and still pretending to sleep.

You would have loved to sleep, but what to do?

I HAVE NEVER SAID THAT I AM A MASTER. It is something others have to understand. I am not like Jesus who goes on proclaiming himself to be the messenger of God, the only begotten son of God, and all that crap.

Of course, it is Christian crap. I am not like Mohammed, who says "I am the messenger of God, and the last messenger. After me there is going to be no change in the message." Did God die fourteen hundred years ago, when Mohammed declared, "I am the last prophet"?

I DO NOT CLAIM ANYTHING, and I am criticized for things which I have never claimed. I am not a prophet, I am not a messiah, I am not a messenger from any God -- because there is no God. Yes, I am an alert, conscious, ordinary man.

The whole beauty is that I have not proclaimed anything, and still you have heard it. I have not said it, and you have understood it. I have not knocked on your doors, I have not tried to convince you about anything. I have never bothered about any respectability. I HAVE JUST LIVED IN MY OWN WAY, according to my own consciousness.

I don't claim that you are my followers. All followers are blind -- only the blind need to follow. Without any claim on my side, lot  of people around the world have come closer and closer to me. It is a miracle.

What is more important, the practice of life or the theory? Is it possible for someone as ignorant as I am, who used to be a really devoted roman catholic, fifty years old, to attain to enlightenment without taking much time to study all which is between heaven and earth?
The first thing: life cannot be practiced. That which can be practiced is always the theory. Life has to be lived; there is no way to practice it, there is no way to prepare and rehearse it. Life is spontaneous. Only theories, dogmas, philosophies are to be practiced; they are unreal. The unreal has to be practiced so that you can create an illusion of its reality. The real has to be lived.

If you believe in some theory of love, then you will have to practice it. Love need not be practiced, you can simply float in it. To be in love you will have to drop all theories of love, otherwise you will never be in love. And to be in the thick of life, in the intensity and passion of life, you will have to drop all philosophies of life. Otherwise you will remain clouded in your words.

The problem is not arising out of life; the problem arises out of Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism. The problem arises out of the "ism". Life is very simple. Even animals can live it; it must be simple. Even trees are living it; it must be simple. It cannot be very complicated; even birds, even rocks and rivers are living it. Why has it become so complicated for man? Because man can theorize about it. Man can weave and spin doctrines around it. Those doctrines are poisonous.

If you are a Christian, you cannot live life. If you are a Hindu, no, life is not for you. To be alive one need not be a Hindu or a Christian. One simply needs to be, one needs just to be.

The two explorers were going through the jungle when a ferocious-looking lion appeared on the track in front of them.
"Keep calm," said the first explorer. "Remember what we read in that book on wild animals: if you stand absolutely still and look a lion straight in the eyes, he will turn tail and run away."
"Fine," said the second explorer. "You have read the book, I have read the book, but has he read the book?"

The books create problems, the books puzzle you. And the thing is very absurd: they puzzle you in the name of trying to clarify things. They puzzle you through their explanations. You are caught in those explanations because you think that unless you have the explanations, how are you going to live?

Have you heard the famous anecdote about a centipede who was walking? It was a sunny morning and it was beautiful, and the centipede was happy and must have been singing in his heart. He was going, almost drunk with the morning air.

A frog sitting by the side was very puzzled -- he must have been a philosopher. He asked: "Uncle, wait! You are doing a miracle. A hundred legs! How do you manage? Which leg comes first, which comes second, third -- and so on and so forth, up to a hundred! You don't get puzzled? How do you manage? It looks impossible to me."

The centipede said: "I have never thought about it. Let me brood." And standing there, he started trembling and he fell down on the ground. He himself became so puzzled -- a hundred legs! How is one going to manage?

Philosophy paralyzes people.

You are paralyzed by your philosophies. Life needs no philosophy, life is enough unto itself. It needs no crutches; it needs no support, no props. It is enough unto itself.

This is the first thing I would like to convey to you; this is my understanding, not my theory; this is how I feel life to be. It is not a mind thing, it is my existential experience. Trust life. And if you trust in life, I call you religious. Trust in life is trust in God. God becomes a theory; when you dissolve that theory only life is left in its tremendous mystery, shimmering, just surrounding you within and without.

And you are part of it, part of its ecstasy.

"What is more important," the questioner has asked, "the practice of life or the theory?"

Practice is needed only for a theory. Life needs no practice. You have simply to live it without brooding, without bringing the mind in. Once you bring the mind in you have started distorting life.

"Is it possible for someone as ignorant as I am to attain to enlightenment?"

It is possible only for those who recognize their ignorance -- because those are the innocent people, who recognize their ignorance. The recognition of ignorance is the very door to enlightenment. If you think you know, then you will be debarred.

Pundits have never become enlightened -- they cannot. They have too much knowledge, they are burdened too much with knowledge. They are like donkeys carrying scriptures -- that's what Jalaluddin Rumi has said. And a donkey remains a donkey -- whether he carries a Koran on his back or not does not matter. You can carry scriptures in your memory, but memory is not knowledge. To memorize a thing is not to know it. To memorize a thing is a way to avoid knowing it. It is very cheap. A computer can do it; there is nothing human about it, nothing special. The computer can do better. All that your mind can do the computer can do better. So there is nothing special about it, nothing human, nothing divine. It is a mechanical thing.

You can remember, you can memorize as much information as available, but that is not going to help you. You can become a walking Encyclopedia Britannica, but the donkey will be carrying the Koran unless you become aware that life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved. Then you approach in a totally different way; the approach becomes qualitatively different. Then you approach through awareness, not through knowledge. Then you approach immediately, directly. You look into life without any clouds hindering your eyes -- Christian, Mohammedan, Hindu. No clouds; just pure eyes, just looking like an innocent child....

To become that innocent child the first requirement is to understand that you are ignorant. It is one of the most difficult things.

It is simple to renounce riches, but very difficult to renounce knowledge.

Many people renounce riches: they renounce their families, their homes, the world, but they don't, they never renounce their knowledge.

I used to know a man who renounced the world. We were together in the university. After a few years I came across him in a city; I went to see him. He had renounced everything, he had become a Jain monk. I asked him: "Are you still a Jain?"

He said: "Why not? I am a Jain, I was born a Jain."

I said: "I was thinking you had renounced everything, but knowledge you have saved? You have renounced your parents, but you have not renounced that which your parents have taught you. This is something! You have renounced your home, but you are still carrying subtle impressions of the home. That's what being a Jain is! If you had been brought up in a Mohammedan family, you would have been a Mohammedan. If you were never told by anybody that you are a Jain, you could not have become a Jain. You have renounced the family, you say. You say: 'I have renounced my mother, father, my wife, my children.' Then why are you carrying knowledge that was given by them? Renounce that too!"

He looked puzzled. He said: "That is difficult."

It is easy to renounce riches because they are outside; knowledge is an inner richness.

It is easy to renounce the worldly things because they are like clothes -- you can undress. But to renounce knowledge is like renouncing your skin; it is not so easy. It is painful, very painful.

And from where does the pain come? The pain comes from the ego -- because knowledge is the food for the ego. It is the subtlest food for the ego. The more you know, the more you feel powerful.

Lord Bacon has said: "Knowledge is power." It is very difficult to renounce power. Money too is power, but nothing compared to knowledge -- because money can be robbed: the government can change, communists can come, money can be distributed. You cannot rely on the money; the bank can go broke.

But knowledge is more secure: no government can take it away, no change of politics can take it away, nobody can rob you of it, and you cannot go so easily bankrupt. Knowledge seems to be more secure. And any day, if you have knowledge, you can produce money -- not otherwise. Knowledge can bring money, not otherwise. Money may not be able to bring knowledge, so knowledge is more of a richness, a greater wealth, more powerful -- and the subtlest possession inside. The ego feels very good: "I know." That's why it is one of the most difficult things to recognize that "I don't know".

The moment you recognize that you don't know, you become innocent, you become available...the ego disappears.

The question is from Deva Geeta. She is an old Sannyasin. And she says: "Is it possible for someone as ignorant as I am to attain to enlightenment?" It is only possible for those who know that they are ignorant -- this is the beginning of real knowledge, the first sunray of wisdom penetrating into the darkness of your soul. The ego is the darkness, and this recognition that "I don't know" is the first ray of wisdom.

Socrates is reported to have said: "When I was young, I thought I knew everything. When I became a little more mature I started to feel that I knew only a few things. When I became old, one day I recognized that I don't know anything at all." That day he declared: "My ignorance is utterly ultimate and profound, and I don't see any way that I can get out of my ignorance."

Because truth is mysterious and unknowable, and cannot be analyzed and dissected. There is no way to know it. You can be the truth, but you cannot know it -- because for knowing, distance is needed. For knowledge, truth has to be there as an object, you have to be there inside as a subject, and between you two happens knowledge.

Knowledge divides the world into three parts, a trinity: the knower, the known, and knowledge.

Truth is one. Neither is there anything to know, nor is there anybody to know it, so how is knowledge possible? Truth is, existence is, life is, and we are part of it.

Socrates says: "Now I can say I don't know anything." The day he declared this, the oracle in Delphi said to some people: "Socrates is the greatest man of wisdom alive on the earth." Those people came back and said to Socrates: "Blessed you are! The oracle of the temple of Delphi has declared you the greatest wise man of the world."

Socrates laughed and said: "It is too late now. I know that I know nothing. There must be some mistake. At least this time the oracle has missed. You go back and tell the oracle that Socrates himself refuses it."

Those people were very puzzled because they were thinking they were bringing good news. What more could there be? When the gods declare Socrates to be the wisest man of the world, what more can you expect? And here is this fool; he says: "I don't know anything. And it is too late. And you go and say that something has gone wrong; the oracle is not right."

Those people, puzzled, confused, went back. They said to the god of the temple: "Socrates denies; he says: 'I am absolutely ignorant.'" And there was laughter in the temple, and God said: "That's why we declared him the greatest and the wisest man in the world. That's why! There has been no mistake."

If you can understand this, then ignorance becomes innocence. Don't call it ignorance; ignorance has a wrong association. Ignorance means that still you are thinking in terms of knowledge, still you are thinking that something is missing, something is lacking. Drop that word. That word is not right.

Innocence, childlike innocence.... And I know Deva Geeta is a childlike old woman.

"Is it possible for someone as ignorant as I am to attain to enlightenment without taking much time to study all which is between heaven and earth?"

There is no need to study anything. Everything is revealed; you just need clear eyes. Study is not needed. You are not to go into the books, you have just to see the greenery of the trees, smell the fragrance of the flowers, listen to the birds, and the sound of running water, and the beautiful clouds floating in the sky....

Everything is so perfect and everything is so tremendously beautiful. You just approach this great shrine of God. God is enshrined here in every stone, and every stone is a sermon, and He is flowering in every flower, and He is breathing in every heart. You just approach with innocence, and everywhere you will find it is holy ground.

Every bush is afire with God -- because life itself is what God is all about; the totality, the wholeness of life is what God is all about. You just approach with clear, childlike, innocent eyes. That will do. The universe is your university. And the Koran and the Vedas and the Bible and the Geeta are irrelevant -- God's greatest book is just in front of you. Turn its pages.

When you move from the trees and you look up to the sky you have turned a page. When you look at the sun, you have turned another page. When you look at your child, into his eyes, you have turned another page.

This is what the real Veda, the real Koran, the real Bible is. This is the book, and all other books are man-made.

Only this universe is the book that God has written Himself.

Have you observed that all religions claim that their books are not man-made? Hindus claim that the Vedas are aporsheya: not made by man but made by God Himself; and Sanskrit is the divine language, not human. You will find the same type and the same foolish claim everywhere. Mohammedans say the Koran has descended from God, and so with Jews and Christians. Everybody is trying to claim that his book is the divine book and nobody bothers to look at the real divine book.

You are also a page in that divine book! And everything is part of it. These books are beautiful; I am not saying that anything is wrong with them. The Koran is beautiful -- recite it, sing it. The Vedas are beautiful, but remember, don't be lost in them. Let them be stepping-stones towards the real book of life.
 by
k.jagadeesh 
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Email: jagadeeshkri@gmail.com