The true birth is through the master.
A master is a mother, he is not a father. With a father you are related only intellectually, with a mother your relation is total. You have been part of your mother, you belong to her totally. The same is the case with a master in the reverse order. You have come out of the mother, you will go into the master. It is a returning back to the source.
When you are here with me, you are again in another womb, you are again waiting for another birth. That is the function of a Master — to give you another birth, to make you DWIJA, twice born. One birth is from mother and father, another birth is from the Guru, the Master. You are again in another womb, a spiritual womb. You have to close accounts with your physical womb completely. You have to drop all hang-overs with your physical birth so you can be totally herenow with me.
Nobody can put you right except you yourself. The master simply teaches you to be a master of yourself — that is the true function of a master. He does not want you to depend on him. But the mind goes on playing these mischiefs. The mind wants you to depend. The mind is always in search of a father figure or a mother figure; you want somebody to hold your hand. You want somebody to guide, to lead. The master can only indicate. He is a finger pointing to the moon. But the mind plays a mischief: it clings to the finger — you may even start sucking the finger.
A disciple is one who trusts himself. Out of his trust he comes to learn from somebody who has gone a little further than himself. He is not a follower, he is not an imitator and he is not seeking security — he is seeking understanding. Even if that understanding brings more insecurity, he is ready for it. A follower is never ready for insecurity; he comes to a guru, to a master, to seek protection, shelter, to hide behind him. He is seeking a father figure. A disciple is seeking a master, not a father figure. He wants to learn what life is. Even if life is insecurity, he is ready to learn. Even if life implies death, he is ready to learn. The follower just wants a map. The disciple wants to go on an adventure. He is not worried about the map, he simply wants a challenge. ‘Challenge me!’ says the disciple. ‘Pull me out of my stupor,’ says the disciple. ‘Send me on a venture,’ says the disciple. The follower says, ‘Protect me, never leave me alone. Without you I am lost. Don’t send me away! Just let me hide behind you.’ Remember, the disciple is a seeker, the follower is simply sick with fear.
The transfer between a master and a disciple is exactly like the transfer between a lover and the beloved. The lover initiates, but the beloved becomes the womb. The lover initiates, starts, and the beloved completes it. Then the child is born. The child neither belongs to the father alone nor to the mother alone: it belongs to both. The father started, the mother completed it. Between the master and the disciple something exactly like that is happening. Whatsoever I am saying here, if you just try to understand it from the outside, you will miss. It is not for outsiders, it is only for insiders. Hence my insistence for sannyas. Sannyas is just a gesture that you have become part of my family, that you are married with me, that now we can take the responsibility of a child, that we can father and mother a child — a new being is possible.
A woman in her ultimate flowering becomes a mothering energy… she can mother the whole existence. She feels blessed, and she can bless the whole existence. When a man arrives at the ultimate point he does not become a father, he does not become a mother, he simply becomes a master: master of his own being.
A small child has to trust his father; the father takes his hand and the child follows. He is not worried; wherever the father is going, he goes on, happy. What is going to happen he is not worried about — that is trust. If the child stops and says, “Where are you going and where are you leading me? And what do you mean by trust, how can I trust you?” the child will stop growing immediately, there is no possibility of growth. The child has to trust the mother, the father. A master is nothing but a father into the unknown. Again you are learning to walk, again you are learning to search and seek, again you are moving into something — you don’t know what it is, where you are headed.
This real birth I have called sannyas. One birth is from the mother and the father; another birth is that which happens between the disciple and the master. And the second birth opens all the doors and all the secrets to explore. Life becomes a continuous adventure, a moment to moment excitement, a day and night ecstasy. Neither life disappears into death nor day dies into the darkness of the night. Suddenly you become aware that day and night are two wings of the same bird, that life and death are two wings of the same bird. The whole sky of consciousness is yours. You don’t have to be a Christian, you don’t have to be a Hindu, you don’t have to be a Mohammedan. You only have to be a child. Master also gives a new birth, but it is the birth of consciousness, which knows only a beginning — and there is no end to it.
All that is needed is an atmosphere of absolute trust — and in that trust, things start happening on their own; neither does the disciple do them nor does the master. The disciple receives them. The master is the vehicle of the universal forces — just like a hollow bamboo that can become a flute. But the song is not of the hollow bamboo; the hollow bamboo can have the credit only of not destroying the song, of allowing it. The master is a medium of the universal consciousness.
The old seers of India have been singing that “The master is the mother, the master is the father, the master is the brother.” The master is everything.
When a man meets a Master, all other relationships are dissolved. Then there is no more any father, no more any mother, no more any son, wife, husband. Then all relationships ARE dissolved. Then all other relationships are only drama, games. Then all relationships are dissolved into one relationship… and that is with the Master.
One birth you have received from your parents, your father and mother; another birth you receive from your Master: you are born as a spiritual being. Much has to be cut, much has to be dropped. Only the very essential has to be saved: the non-essential has to be completely; destroyed. And the essential you don’t know; you are identified with the non-essential.
A Master will be needed to hammer. You will need somebody whom you can love more than you love your father, whom you love more than you love your mother. You will need a Master — only then. The Master can go to those deepest layers of your being where conditioning has happened, and he can destroy. Unless the Master becomes more significant than your parents, it is not possible, it is not psychologically possible. That’s why Buddha says, ‘Until you destroy and kill your father and mother, you cannot come to me.’ A strange statement. Jesus says, ‘If you don’t hate your father and mother you can’t follow me.’ It does not look very good. Jesus, the apostle of love and peace, Buddha, the most compassionate human being that has ever walked on earth, talking about hating? — not only hating, but killing?
Meditation is a deep listening, listening to the inner voice. As you become silent, voices cease. Chuang Tzu goes to his home, Buddha goes to his home, Jesus is no longer there, your father and your mother are really gone; everybody goes, only you are left, alone in your emptiness. Then your nature asserts itself — and that is a flowering. As a seed breaks and comes out, sprouting, so your inner voice comes out, sprouting. And then follow it: wherever it leads, follow it. Don’t listen to anybody; that is your way to God. And all that a master can do is to bring you to your inner voice. The master should not become the substitute, otherwise you will become even more crowded than you were before.
Old Hindu scriptures say that to be with a Master is to be in his womb. That energy field is his womb, and when you are in his womb you are being transmuted, transformed, transfigured; a new being is born. Through the Master, one attains to a new birth — one becomes dwij, twice-born. One birth is attained through the father and the mother, the parents — that is the birth of the body. Another birth is attained through the Master — that is the birth of the spirit, the soul.
Once even a little stirring in your consciousness starts happening the process is triggered. Then it goes on growing on its own. The first step is the most difficult. The seed falling into the soil, ready to die, that is the most difficult step. Once that has ben taken and the seed has died in the soil, the sprout starts growing. Just two leaves come in the beginning and then soon a great foliage and many branches and a huge tree with millions of flowers…. Initiation into sannyas is just like a seed falling into the soil. The disciple has to die in the master, he has to disappear as an ego, and then the work starts. Then you are really born. The first birth is through the mother and the father, the second, the true birth, is through the master.
The guru kills the disciple — completely! He kills him outright — no father’s blows that fall only on the body. Just as water cleanses the body from outside, the father superficially cleanses the life of his son, but the guru hits hard and deep within. He bores inside you to your utmost depth, and will not rest until your ego is completely melted. Until you find such a guru, know that whatever master you follow you will never be able to forgive. Sooner or later it will dawn on you that this man has been wasting your time.
