disciple

1. Much is needed on the part of the disciple, because unless the disciple is ready — through deep meditation and purification, through deep catharsis and cleansing — even if the Master is there, you will not allow him to put your pot right-side up.  You will resist, you will not surrender, you will not be in a let-go. The disciple needs to be in deep, trust; only then can the Master do something in the innermost being of the disciple. It is a great turning, a conversion, so much is needed on the part of the disciple. Only then, is initiation possible.
2. The disciple needs receptivity; he has to receive. Even the male disciple has to function almost in a feminine way. With the Master he is a womb, a receiver, a receptacle. Hence the woman proves to be the perfect disciple.
3. Seeing a Buddha, you have seen your own possible Buddhahood. That’s what faith is… but it is not enough. Then you have to work hard to make it real. The seed has to fall into the earth, die into the earth, be born as a sprout. And a thousand and one difficulties have to be crossed: winds are there, thunder is there, animals are there, and the new sprout is very fragile, very weak — with infinite potentiality to become strong, but right now it is not strong. It will need somebody’s help; it will need a gardener. That is the meaning of a Master. When you choose a Master, you choose a gardener. And you say, “Protect me until I have become strong enough to go my own way.” But faith is just the door.
4. The disciple is receptive, vulnerable, unguarded; he drops all armor. He drops all defense measures. He is ready to die. If the master says, “Die!” he will not wait for a single moment. The master is his soul, his very being; his devotion is unconditional and absolute. And to know absolute devotion is to know God. To know absolute surrender is to know the secret-most mystery of life.
5. The master does nothing. It is in your becoming a disciple that the whole mystery lies. It is in your surrender of the ego that the whole search comes to an authentic point. It is in putting your mind aside.
6. Sannyas means disciplehood. It means merging and melting into the master, forgetting your self, your separate entity. The master is only an opportunity to help you to get rid of the ego. Once you are free of the ego you have passed through the master, through the gate, you have entered into god. The master is only a gate, but without passing through the gate nobody en into the temple of god.
7. The Master has disappeared as an ego; he is pure joy. And the disciple sits by the side of the Master slowly slowly partaking of his joy, of his being, eating and drinking out of that eternal, inexhaustible source: AIS DHAMMO SANANTANO. And one day…and one cannot predict when that day will come; it is unpredictable. One day suddenly it has happened: a process has started in you which reveals the truth of your being to you. You come face to face with yourself. God is not somewhere else: he is now, here.
8. If you really want to seek a master, drop greed and drop your beliefs. Go to a master completely nude in the mind, with no beliefs; as if you are a tree in the fall with no leaves, naked, standing against the sky. You go and seek a master with a naked mind, with no leaves, with no beliefs. Only then, only then, I say, will you be able to see without projection; only then will something penetrate into your life from the above. Then nobody can deceive you.
9. To seek a master is to seek somebody in whom you can recognize, somebody who becomes the proof — in whose being you can taste something of the divine; in whose eyes you can glimpse and see something of the divine; in whose love you can feel something being showered; in whose song you can feel, you can know beyond doubt, that the infinite is flowing. The master is nothing but a reed, a flute — an empty flute, an emptiness. God flows through him. If you can recognize it, already you yourself have become one with it. Now others can recognize it in you and it can spread.
10. Become a little more silent, learn how to be in communion with me. It is a love affair to be with a master, a love affair which is inexpressible in words; but one can get attuned, it is an attuning. Slowly slowly, the disciple falls into accord with the heart of the master. He breathes the way the master breathes, his heart beats in the same rhythm as the master’s heart. Then understanding comes so naturally; just as your shadow follows you, understanding follows silence.
11. The disciple is not asking anything, and the master is not promising anything; yet there is thirst in the disciple and there is promise in the master. It is a closeness in which nobody is higher and nobody is lower — yet the disciple is a woman, always a woman, because the disciple is nothing but an opening, a womb, a receptivity. And the master is always a man, because the master is nothing but a giving, a giving for no other reason than that he is so full. He has to give. He is a rain cloud. Just as the disciple is in search, the master is also in search. The disciple is in search of where he can open himself without any fear, without any resistance, without holding anything back — totally. And the master is also in search of such a human being who can receive the mysterious, who is ready to be pregnant with the mysterious, who is ready to be reborn.
12. You need somebody who can possess you unexpectedly, who can shatter your ideas — who can shatter you, who can take the very earth from beneath your feet. Only very courageous people become interested in a master. To be with a master is dangerous. One never knows what he is going to do, one never knows what he is going to say. He himself does not know! Things are happening. He is in tune with the whole, so whatsoever happens happens.