Today I want to help you understand the meaning of a Sufi story.
A murid had been pestering a fakir for a long time: “Teach me the secret of freedom from suffering.”
At last the pir said to him one day, “There is a very simple device. Find a man who says, ‘I am the happiest man of all,’ and ask for his robe and wear it.”
So the disciple set out in search of happiness. After years and years of wandering he found a fakir sitting under a date palm, a cloth covering his face.
When he asked, the fakir said, “Yes, I am the happiest man of all.”
But when the robe was requested, he laughed and said, “Look, my son—where is a robe on my body?”
Saying this, he removed the cloth from his face.
The young man saw it was the very same pir who had given him the secret of happiness. And that his body was naked.
Perhaps this is every person’s search. And there cannot be any other. Let us know this as the secret of supreme bliss. We are miserable and searching for happiness. If this young man asked a Sufi fakir, it is only the inner longing of humanity itself.
But asking is easy; the answer is not so easy—because the answer can only be given when the asker is ready. It is not enough that you ask to be able to receive an answer; the one who would answer must see whether you are ready for it or not. Anyone can ask a question; only a few have the capacity to bear the answer.
So the Sufi fakir first did this: he sent the youth on a search—go and look for the man who is supremely happy, who says, “I am supremely happy.” Ask for his robe. The moment you put on his robe, you too will be happy.
A Sufi fakir wants time. The youth is not ready. The answer could be given now; the fakir has it. But the customer is not present. There is curiosity, not mumuksha. Understand the difference.
One kind of curiosity is mere inquisitiveness—like little children who ask, “Why is this tree tall? Why is it green? Why are these flowers yellow?” Talk about something else for two minutes and they forget; they never ask again—perhaps not for a lifetime. There is no life in the asking; it is only the mind’s itch. If a question arises only out of the mind’s inquisitiveness, deep answers cannot be given.
So there is curiosity that is only of the mind; and there is a curiosity that is of the life-force. That curiosity is called mumuksha. Curiosity of the life-breath means: this is a matter of life and death for me. What I am asking—much depends on it: my survival or my undoing. If the curiosity is merely intellectual, you will wander into philosophy. And it is hard to find a jungle bigger than philosophy—an endless chain of theories. If you only have inquisitiveness, you will get lost in scriptures. Answers are there, and yet there are no answers. If your curiosity is mumuksha, you will be able to save yourself from the scriptures. Only then will you be able to find the true master.
Religion is born from mumuksha; philosophy from curiosity.
The Sufi fakir said, “Search for the man who says, ‘I am supremely happy.’ Ask for his robe.” The fakir wants to see whether this curiosity will last for some years. Your love doesn’t last—how will your curiosity?
A young man, newly recruited into a military unit, went to his commander and said, “I need leave. I’ve fallen deeply in love, and within a week or two I’ll get married and come back. It’s a matter of life and death—please don’t stand in the way.” The commander smiled and said, “Do this: if it truly is love, wait one year. If after a year you still say you must marry, I’ll give you leave—and it will be appropriate. Don’t be in a hurry. I say this from experience. Such love is like seasonal flowers—it withers.”
The youth agreed to wait. A year later he knocked on the office door again. “I need leave. The year is up.” The commander thought a moment. “Are you still in love?” “Yes! But the woman is different. And don’t delay now, because I’ve become experienced too. If you delay, next year there’ll be a third woman—and life will pass like this. When will the wedding happen?”
Even your love changes.
The fakir wanted to know whether this young man’s curiosity changes or not. If curiosity does not change, it is mumuksha. If curiosity changes, it is mere curiosity. If it is a matter of life and death, how can it change until liberation is attained? It will deepen. The quest for moksha—liberation—we have called mumuksha.
The search for liberation is greater even than the search for truth.
Because a seeker of truth may get lost in words, but a seeker of liberation cannot get lost in words—he has a touchstone. He will test every “truth,” because truth is only that which sets you free, and liberation is the touchstone. Any “truth” that binds you and makes you a slave is not truth; it is a sect.
The merely curious will get bound by some sect. He set out to seek truth and ends up with handcuffs. But if there is mumuksha, it will not stop until liberation is attained. If the thirst is real, the longer you remain thirsty, the deeper the thirst will grow. If the hunger is real, the longer you are hungry, the more intense it becomes.
But your curiosity is like your hunger. You eat every day at one o’clock; so at one o’clock, seeing the clock, you feel hungry. If the clock stopped at eleven, one o’clock will pass without hunger. If someone resets the clock so that eleven shows as one, hunger will come at eleven. And if you occupy yourself for fifteen minutes, hunger disappears.
Your hunger is only a mental habit. Its roots are not deep in the body. It does not arise from your digestive fire; it arises from the thought, “It’s one o’clock—time to eat; now it’s necessary to eat.” And when you go on stuffing food without hunger, there can be no taste—because taste is in hunger, not in food. In palaces, however exquisite the dishes, there is no taste; a beggar tastes. Even with dry bread—it is not about the bread; the deeper the hunger, the deeper the savor.
The deeper the mumuksha, the deeper the realization of truth.
This Sufi fakir had the truth now; he could have given it this very moment. But the taker was not present. And the taker must be tested. Time must pass. With time, curiosity ripens and becomes mumuksha. If the man changes midway, the fakir has saved himself needless labor. Time had to be allowed.
The fakir said, “Go and search. Find such people as have attained supreme bliss. And you need do nothing else—just wear their robe.”
This too needs to be understood: will you become happy by wearing the robe of one who has attained supreme bliss?
Wearing the robe is a Sufi symbol. To wear the robe means: when one finds a happy person, when one finds a master, then wear the master. Let the master cover you from all sides—this is the meaning of wearing the robe. Not a single hair should be left uncovered by the master. Let the master become your sky, your robe; let him surround you. Let there be no opening anywhere, no place left bare, naked. From all sides let the master encircle you. Do not leave even a tiny corner in your mind empty of the master.
To “wear” the true master means to wear the robe.
So when you find someone happy, do not delay—wear him. Because the moment you wear him, you will begin to change.
But wearing is difficult. You will have to disappear. The robe is very costly. If it were cheap, you’d buy it in the market. The robe is costly because nothing on this earth is harder than wearing the master. Even dying is easy. At least you remain! To wear the master means: you are utterly extinguished; you erase your line. Now the master is, you are not. You exist only as a shadow.
To live as someone’s shadow—that is discipleship.
But to live as someone’s shadow is extremely rare, extremely difficult. Because the ego will refuse. The ego will resist. The ego will contrive twenty-five tricks and arguments. First the ego will say, “This man claims to have attained happiness—but has he really? Who can say? Maybe he is lying! Maybe he’s just found a way to sell robes! Who knows—deception!”
First the mind will look for some way to prove that this man is not supremely happy. Then the hassle is over; you are spared from wearing the robe.
So the disciple first tries to prove that the guru is not a guru. It’s the easiest way out. The moment the mind is convinced that the guru is no guru, you are free. Your ego can live. Be cautious with any “guru” who has arrangements to gratify your ego—because your arguments are known on the other side too. It’s easy to plan a convincing behavior. A master who lies beyond your arguments—there a revolution may be possible.
When people came to Gurdjieff, he often behaved rudely—sometimes even crazily. Old disciples were upset: “Whenever newcomers arrive you act in such a way that they are driven away—why?” Gurdjieff said, “I don’t want to waste my time. Anyone who leaves because of some ‘wrong’ behavior of mine would have left later anyway, finding ‘faults’ in me. I want to be rid of him early. If someone hasn’t the patience to wait a little, if he decides so quickly…”
With a guru you cannot decide quickly. He is not gold you can test on a touchstone. And the deeper the guru, the greater the difficulty. Only one who lives on the surface can be tested by your stones. The deeper the life, the less your touchstones can reach. Only your heart can reach there. The day you make your heart the touchstone, you will recognize.
Some still stayed. Some, seeing Gurdjieff’s behavior, stayed and waited. Only when someone agreed to wait did Gurdjieff’s behavior toward him change. Slowly, his real manner would reveal itself.
Here is the irony: the guru who wants to deceive you will appear very good at first. The closer you come, the more the truth of his behavior shows—and the more trouble you find. The smaller the man, the larger he looks from afar; come close and he shrinks. The greater the man, the smaller he looks from a distance. This defies mathematics. As you come closer, he becomes greater. When you reach the very heart’s closeness, your guru will become God—nothing less. Only then know you are moving rightly: the nearer you come, the more vast he becomes. If he becomes smaller as you approach, he is an ordinary man. Politicians, who want to seem big, never let anyone come close; they keep distance. The farther you stand, the larger they appear. Go to the greatest of politicians and you will find a small man standing there.
The private conversations of Richard Nixon that have been published are alarming: he uses words that the basest people use—petty abuses in his private talk; schemes to belittle and destroy others. This is shabby stuff—unexpected from a president of America.
But don’t think this is Nixon’s flaw alone. It is the same with all presidents. Nixon got caught and things became public. If the inner conversations of your politicians were recorded, you’d find them all in the same tangle. They are small men. So distance must be maintained. One face is for the marketplace; another is private, seen only by intimates.
Go to a true master and at first you will not recognize him; he will seem absurd. Don’t be in a hurry. If you stay and come close—if you are given the chance—his real form will emerge. Living very close, when you earn the capacity, only then will his reality stand before you. This is no cheap bargain; therefore the true master is never in a hurry.
Wearing the robe means: the day the master becomes so important that you are ready to lose yourself and become like him, that day you have worn the robe.
When Sufi fakirs choose a successor, they give their robe. It is a symbol. The day the robe is given, the disciple has disappeared. Now only the master remains. Only when the disciple has utterly vanished is the robe bestowed.
So the fakir spoke rightly: the day you find a supremely happy person, take his robe. But he is putting the youth into a great tangle. The tangle is: first, to find the supremely happy person.
The youth surely must have gone first to palaces—because we all imagine that happiness lives there. Surely he knocked on the doors of the rich, met politicians, chased actors. The story doesn’t say this, but it must be so—where else would you search for the happy? You go to palaces, not huts.
He would have told the rich, “Give me your robe—you are so happy.” They must have said, “Take not one but four robes; but these robes won’t work, because we are not happy. We ourselves are in pain. We ourselves are searching. If you find such a person, let us know. We are tired—we have agreed to a life of pain. You are still young; your search is alive. If one day you discover someone whose robe brings happiness, we will buy that robe for everything we have.” He must have asked emperors; they would have said, “Not only a robe—we will give the whole empire. But it will not work, because we ourselves are miserable.”
The youth wandered much. After many years, asking and asking—yet he didn’t stop. He kept searching. His curiosity turned into mumuksha. His search became more fevered, more urgent. As age advanced, as time passed, his quest grew more intense—for time is short, and any moment life may be lost—and happiness still hasn’t been found.
It is astonishing that so many live on earth without ever finding happiness—and yet no search arises in them. This is the miracle. Why are you living? And if each day life is slipping from your hands—as it is—if each moment death is coming closer—then what are you waiting for? When will your search begin? You have gained nothing, yet you go on wasting time.
But this youth’s quest grew. When he sought in palaces and did not find, when he asked the wealthy and found no robe—there were robes aplenty—but where robes abound, human beings do not. Many mansions have piled up clothes, and the soul is lost. Man piles up things imagining perhaps happiness lies in accumulation, in possession. As if happiness were in collecting objects! As if one object brings a little happiness, two a bit more, three more—an infinity of objects, an infinity of happiness.
This arithmetic is strange, yet we all live by it. We never look into how false it is. If you have one car and found no happiness, how will four cars bring it? If a little were there, four would quadruple it. But the mind is astonishing and you go on believing its fraud. When you had no car, it said, “If I had a car, I’d be happy.” Now it says, “Two, four cars—then I’ll be happy.” When your safe was empty, it said, “If the safe is full, I’ll be happy.” Now it says, “Can happiness be in such a small safe? I need a bigger one.”
You never lay this arithmetic out to see where it stops. Your life will end; this arithmetic won’t. It is like the horizon—receding as you approach. It is like the rainbow—when you come near, it vanishes and appears farther off; the journey starts again. Desire is never fulfilled; it is forever unfulfillable.
He must have knocked at all the palaces. Then his eyes opened: half a life wasted—asking in the wrong places, asking the wrong people.
Then he began to go back to the fakirs. And one evening, when the sun had set and a little darkness had fallen, he found a man sitting on a rock by a river, playing a flute… The story doesn’t say this. But I know for certain he was playing a flute. And the melody of that flute was such that the youth felt: surely this man has found happiness. Happiness has a music, a flute that plays even without being played.
When you come to a happy man, there is no need to ask, “Are you happy?” We only ask that of the unhappy. The question itself is soaked in doubt. In the presence of a happy man you catch his fragrance. Your nostrils fill with it. Every hair of your body begins to feel his dance. The sound of his being is Omkar. The resonance of his being fills you, saturates you. Suddenly you find yourself near someone who is like a magnet; you are drawn. Happiness attracts. Near one supremely happy, you become like a moth circling the flame.
That evening he heard the flute. “Surely I have found the man—I will learn the secret of happiness.” For how could such sweetness arise unless the heart were overflowing with bliss? This was no ordinary flute. He sat at the man’s feet, waiting for the flute to stop so he could ask. “This is the one; it is time to get the robe.”
The flute ceased; the silence broke. The youth said, “I think you have attained happiness—you know its secret. Don’t deny it—I recognize it completely. Such notes cannot rise otherwise; I’ve searched the whole world. These are unique tones from the unknown. This flute is played from a very deep source. Don’t deceive me—I've wandered far.”
The man said, “Yes—the supreme bliss has come to me.” The youth must have grasped his feet: “Then give me your robe—let me wear your robe.”
The man laughed. “Bliss has come, but don’t ask me for a robe—look, I sit here naked.”
The darkness had grown thick, and his face was hidden in a cloth. These are meaningful symbols. Whoever attains supreme bliss—his face disappears.
Our face is a device to hide our misery. It is our cloth masking our sorrow. However much grief you carry, in the morning you shave and groom, apply scent and step out. Your face looks as if you are very happy. The fragrance does not come from you; it comes from perfume. The glow on the face is not yours; it is from the morning shave. The freshness in your eyes is artificial, practiced.
We live in faces. Our faces are cloths that hide our grief.
But one who attains supreme bliss loses his face. He becomes faceless. He no longer needs this face. This face was a cheat we wore for others. It was not ours. It is not your original face.
Zen masters tell their seekers: until you see your original face, continue the search.
“What is the original face?” a disciple asked his master.
He replied, “The face you had before you were born is your original face. Or the face that will remain after you die and your body is burned to ashes—that is the original face. Everything in between is false. There are many faces in between, but they are masks—worn. And there is not just one face—you have many, because needs are many. As needs change, the face must change.”
Turgenev has a short tale. Two policemen are walking down a road. In front of a hotel, a vagrant has grabbed a stray dog by the leg and is about to slam it down and kill it because it bit him. A crowd gathers; people are enjoying it. “Kill it,” they say. “This dog has troubled others too.” One policeman says, “Good—at last the dog is caught. It bothers us police as well. Vagrant. Kill it.”
But the other policeman whispers in his ear, “Wait! It looks like our officer’s dog.” The first man, who had been shouting, “Kill it, knock it down!”—as soon as he heard it might be the officer’s dog, he leapt to grab the vagrant by the neck: “What are you doing? Killing a dog?” He lifted the dog and hugged it—“It’s the officer’s dog!” The face changed!
Moments earlier he had said, “Kill it—it torments even the police.” But if it’s the officer’s dog, the story changes. Now the dog must not be killed; the man must be jailed. As soon as he put the dog on his shoulder, kissed and petted it, a bystander said, “No, mistake—it isn’t the officer’s dog.” Instantly the dog was thrown to the ground, the vagrant released: “Finish this dog—it’s a vagrant! It has bitten others; it’s a public menace.”
The crowd is startled; faces changing so fast is confusing. The vagrant can’t decide either. But since the policeman says it, he grabs the dog’s leg again, ready to smash it—just then another man says, “Forgive me—it does look like the officer’s dog.” Again the story changes. And so it goes—over and over. The vagrant is seized, then the dog is shouldered, they start toward the station; on the way someone says, “Hey! Carrying a stray on your shoulder? Seems you’re under the same illusion I once was—that it’s the officer’s. It isn’t.” The situation flips again.
Your face is not a real face that does not change. It is made and unmade by convenience, by circumstances. This face is not your soul. It is the cloth you hide in.
But when someone attains supreme bliss—when heaven descends into a heart—then the faces we know disappear. In one sense he becomes faceless; in another, his original face appears. Emptiness is the original face—no features, no form, the formless. That is the face. Hence the guru sits with a cloth over his face.
The fakir uncovered his face and said, “See—supreme bliss is mine. Take as much as you can—but don’t speak of the robe. I sit here naked.”
A big trouble! Those with robes have no happiness; the one with happiness has no robe!
The master’s robe cannot be some visible garment. It cannot be made of matter. The fakir must have looked closely at the youth: “Now what will he do?” For to wear the guru’s robe means to wear the guru himself, not his garment. The master himself is the robe; no other robe is needed.
And the youth is in a quandary—because this is the very man to whom, twenty or thirty years ago, when he was young—now he is old—he had come for the secret of happiness; and this is the same man. The youth would have said, “Sir! Why didn’t you say so then? Why did you make me wander so much?”
But life is such that until you wander through many doors, you cannot arrive at your own. And until you knock on every neighbor’s door, you cannot recognize which is yours.
Travelers report: until you roam other lands, you cannot recognize your own country. As I see it, travelers circle the world in search of happiness and, returning home, find it—what a rest it is. They are tired. But that fatigue is necessary. Otherwise they were already at home. For this happiness there was no need to go anywhere. But the recognition of home is lost—we have been too much in it, always there—so a little wandering is needed for recognition to return. You must go a little far so that your own house can be seen.
Those thirty years of wandering were necessary. Without getting lost, there is no arrival.
People come to me constantly. Those who have wandered to other gurus turn out to be more amenable to work. It is easier to take them deep. Those who come directly to me—there is some difficulty. But it is a tale of many lives. Almost everyone has wandered to many gurus—if not in this life, then in others. It is not a matter of thirty years, but thirty lifetimes.
Still, sometimes someone arrives who in no life has gone to any guru. With him, work is almost impossible. In the beginning, when you dig a well, stones and pebbles come up; then damp earth; then water. Likewise the master must excavate within you. First only stones come. To reach your soul takes patience and labor. One who has wandered at many doors has clearer recognition. He can see with which key which door opens. One who has tried many keys develops an eye for the right key. One whom many have deceived, and who has been deceived by many, becomes skilled at recognizing the true. That is why I say even the false guru is necessary—through him one reaches the true.
In this world nothing is unnecessary. He who deceives is also needed. He who runs a shop is also needed. He is necessary for you—so you may be deceived and pass through it, and that experience will make you mature. Nothing is unnecessary. Even he who misleads you from the path is needed—because through misdirection you will, for the first time, learn what the path is. Even he who wastes your time and life is needed—because through him urgency arises and the quest gains speed: “Life is passing; I have wandered too much.” Only when your eyes have recognized many illusions will they be able to recognize truth.
Before knowing truth, it is necessary to know the false.
Hence Krishnamurti repeatedly says: whoever clearly recognizes what is false, the recognition of the true dawns in him. Whoever knows what is illusory begins to have visions of truth. But you must pass through the false to be able to recognize.
The youth would have said, “What kind of joke is this! And this joke is deep—and dangerous. I could have gotten lost. You might not have survived either. If you had the secret, the key, why did you not give it that very day?”
No, it could not have been given that day. Asking is not enough to receive. The giver must see whether the vessel is ready. Pouring nectar into a cup filled with poison does nothing—nectar will become poison. Add nectar to poison and the poison will become immortal; that’s all. You won’t gain; the poison will.
That is why many physicians say: in illness, stop feeding—because the food doesn’t feed you, it feeds the illness. If your body is full of disease, the energy from food is taken by the disease, not by you. So many systems of healing stop food during treatment—so the illness gains no strength.
When this youth came he was ill, full of poison. His eyes were blind. His hands were not ready. If he had been given a diamond, he would have taken it for a burden and dropped it somewhere. It was easy for him to accept poison; it was difficult to accept nectar. We can receive only what is similar to us; what is dissimilar slips away. He was sick; he could take sickness, but health was difficult. Waiting was necessary.
When a guru sends you back from his door, it is not with joy. There is risk—will you return or not? If you return, will the guru still be alive? But the risk must be taken. It must—because only thus can you be prepared.
Without making mistakes, no one comes to the point of being right. In this world, making mistakes is not bad; repeating the same mistake is. In this world, wandering is not bad—without wandering, who will come to the right path? But making wandering a habit is bad. Only those miss who, fearful of making mistakes, don’t even get up—afraid that if they walk, something might go wrong.
I have heard: a farmer was sitting before his hut, smoking a hookah. A traveler passing through the village had lost his way by night and wanted to stay at the farmer’s house. “Stay, by all means,” the farmer said. To make conversation, to establish friendliness, the traveler asked, “How was the cotton this year?” The farmer said, “I didn’t sow—didn’t seem like cotton weather.” The conversation broke. The traveler asked, “Then wheat?” He said, “No—every year pests eat the wheat.” The traveler was at a loss. “Then… did you sow anything at all?” “I never do anything until it’s completely safe,” he said. “I sow nothing. I played it safe.”
Granted pests come; sometimes rains are too much, sometimes too little; crops do fail. But if you sit for fear, your crop will never come.
You all are in the condition of “playing safe”—avoiding trouble. Lest mistakes be made. You tiptoe through life. That tiptoeing is the great mistake. Such a person never arrives—because walking risks falling, getting lost—so he sits. The fear-ridden cannot reach truth. The erring can. The one who has strayed can return to the path; the one who never moved—how?
Those thirty years of wandering were necessary. The guru said, “Go—wander!”
Zen and Sufi masters have performed a unique experiment: they often send disciples to other masters—even to those who are their critics. A strange thing. After years of work, a master may say, “Stop. Now go to such-and-such a master—my ‘enemy.’”
It seems unbelievable that a master would send you to his enemy. But a master has no enemies. Perhaps they are playing a great game. Perhaps they deliberately say opposite things, creating a wind of polarity that people easily understand and divide themselves into sides—and then fall into the net of this master or that. Until someone falls into a net, work cannot begin.
When Bayazid’s master told him, “Go now to the master opposite to me,” he said, “What are you saying? I can’t even imagine this—he is the enemy.” The master said, “I have done all I could on one side of you. Now the opposite side in you remains. For that, my opposite is needed; I cannot do that work. The guru outside, to whom I send you, is opposite to me. The inner part of you that is opposite to what I have worked upon—only he can work there; and it lies hidden.”
Either one master must contain both polarities—then he can do the whole work. But then he will seem inconsistent—sometimes saying A, sometimes B; sometimes night, sometimes day—confusing you. Such a dialectical master can work from both ends. Otherwise, one end will be done by one, the opposite by another.
For thirty years this youth wandered, and came back to the place where it had begun.
There are deeper meanings here. In truth, returning is to the very place where you started; there is nowhere else to go. Where the first ray of life set out, there to return—that is religion.
If you return to where you started—what Jesus calls “become again like a child,” return to the womb, become innocent—the circle is complete. The first point of the journey becomes the final destination. You have arrived. There is nowhere else to go. You come back to where you began. There can be no other destination than where you began. That is your home.
In this story it is essential to understand: return to where your curiosity first began. Return to where the question first arose—within you.
There are many Zen stories. A man interrupted a guru in the middle of a talk and asked, “I keep hearing: soul… soul… God… go within… I don’t understand. Where is this ‘within’?”
The guru lifted his staff and said to the crowd, “Make way. This man won’t be convinced by words.” The man was a little alarmed, abashed, and the guru came down.
Zen masters are robust—they work eight hours a day in the garden or field. “No work, no food.” They dig, chop wood—strong men.
With staff in hand, the strong man advanced and the people gave way. The questioner grew uneasy. “Let it be—I only asked a question.”
“You asked; so an answer must be given. Close your eyes and search within for the place whence the question arose. If you cannot find it—this staff will help.”
The man must have closed his eyes. At first he was afraid—who knows when the staff will strike! But people like you understand only fear.
Sometimes fear makes you quiet. That quiet is not deep, but in fear thoughts stop. If someone puts a knife to your chest, thoughts cease—no room for them in the face of danger. Thought is a luxury; the more comfortable you are, the more you think—sitting idly, energy becomes thought. But where life is at risk…
The man stood with staff in hand. The questioner closed his eyes; the staff still visible in his mind—thoughts stopped. He looked within—he had no choice, or the man would strike. He followed the question down the stairs of his mind—within, within, within—to where the first sprout had pushed up. Questions don’t come out of the sky; they come out of you. As a sprout comes from a seed, the question comes from you—where, from what source? He must have found the root. His face grew calm; fear vanished. At the source there is no fear—there is nectar. What fear there? Danger disappeared. He forgot the guru, forgot the staff. He stood still. Moments passed, then more. People grew restless—but he became a statue of meditation.
The guru shook him and said, “Enough—have you received the answer? Do you know who you are?” They say that many times, in such a moment, nirvana has been attained; enlightenment has dawned.
Return to where the journey began. The first instant of curiosity will become the last instant of liberation. This guru did well—thirty years he made him wander, completing the circle. And when the disciple returned, he found the same place, the same master, the same spot where curiosity began.
The story says nothing further. There is nothing further to say—so it remains untold. What follows is this: he saw that there was no robe. And it was this man who had said, “Ask for the robe of one who says he is supremely happy.” There was no robe—and this was the very man. The matter became clear: wear this man. Fall at his feet.
And supreme bliss is attained only when even so much as the sense of possession is gone. The sense “mine” is enough to create hell—no big empire is needed. “My robe”—that alone is enough.
There is an old Indian tale. A renunciate came to King Janaka, sent by his guru. The guru was tired—his disciple’s curiosity didn’t settle, no liberation, no meditation. So the guru said, “We cannot help you. Go to Janaka—he is supremely wise.”
The disciple did not trust it—the guru was naked, an absolute renunciate. “If even he cannot help, what will Janaka do? He’s a king after all. Even if he knows a little, he is not free of possession. A man running an empire—what can he give me?” Still, he thought, “Since the guru has said so, I must obey.”
He went—not eagerly; duty-bound. At dusk he knocked. The doors opened onto revelry. Janaka on his throne; women half-naked dancing; courtiers drunk. “I knew this would happen. Where have I trapped myself—by obeying the guru!”
Often a disciple feels he erred in obeying his guru—because the guru sees the whole story; the disciple glimpses fragments without knowing their end. He wanted to leave; Janaka said, “Why so soon? Spend the night—don’t hurry. If your guru has sent you, he must have done so with meaning.” The renunciate said, “I will stay—but I will not ask what I came to ask.” Janaka said, “There is no need to ask.”
In truth, there is no need to ask a master. He knows what you have come to ask. Today or tomorrow he will answer. Your question is written on your face. It is carved in your eyes; he needs no words. It pulses in your heartbeat. Your question is you. Your problem is you.
When you come, your problem comes with you. Its vibrations accompany you. Just as samadhi has fragrance, problems have stink. Just as the peace of a questionless mind has a harmony, a mind full of questions has a discord. Its off-key drone plays.
No need to ask. Janaka said, “Now that you have come, we know why. Stay the night; don’t hurry. Your guru must have spoken rightly.”
It didn’t appeal. To stay even a moment in such a palace seemed sin. Where wine flows, where naked women dance, where this Janaka presides—what to expect? Ego always thinks this way. He saw what was around Janaka—not Janaka. The guru sent him to Janaka—not to what was around him. He wasn’t sent to ask the women, nor the wine bottles, nor the sprawling courtiers. They were not the destination; Janaka was. If only the renunciate had seen Janaka alone—the matter would have been resolved. He saw everything—except Janaka.
He slept that night. In the morning he asked leave. Janaka said, “You have slept; your body is stale. Come to the river to bathe, then you may go. I cannot give you meditation—because you refuse to receive it—but at least I can give you a bath.” The river ran behind.
They went to bathe. The renunciate left his loincloth on the bank; the king his rich garments. They entered the water. While they stood in the river, the renunciate suddenly shouted, “Janaka, run! Your palace is on fire—burning!” Janaka said, “Let us finish bathing. What is happening cannot be stopped. Palaces burn today or tomorrow—what of concern?” But the renunciate wasn’t listening. He ran out—to fetch his loincloth. Because soon the fire from the palace might reach the bank. He picked up his loincloth and returned.
Janaka said, “Do you see? The issue isn’t possession—it is attachment. A loincloth can bind as much as an empire. Your loincloth wasn’t even on fire; the fire was far. And if it burns—what is destroyed? But the sense of ‘mine’!”
The guru has no robe, sits naked—this means only this: there is no possessiveness. Nothing is “mine.” Only then does true nakedness appear. It is not necessary to remove your clothes, because removing clothes has nothing to do with nakedness. That brings bareness, not nakedness.
Nakedness is innocent—as with a child at birth. He does not know that anything is “mine.” He doesn’t even know he is.
This guru, to whom celestial music was playing, had nothing—this means only that he had no “mine.”
Remember: whether a master wears a robe or not is not the question; the point is: “my robe” is not there. There are many “masters” who will be found without robes. If you make a rule that you will accept only a naked guru, many will stand naked—for you can understand nakedness; then robes will become a hindrance. There have been naked masters; there have been robed masters; but all are naked—because they have no possessiveness. Even with an empire, Janaka is naked. What you have is not the point. As long as you think “mine,” you are worldly. The day you don’t think “mine,” and see all as God’s, that day you are renounced.
Renunciation means: everything is God’s, nothing is mine.
The worldly means: everything is mine, nothing is God’s—and what seems to be in God’s hands must be snatched today or tomorrow.
The worldly will never be content until all is his—and all will never be his. The renunciate is content each moment—because the race of possessiveness has dropped.
And the great secret of secrets is: when a little courtyard is let go, the entire sky becomes your courtyard. When a small roof is let go, the infinite grace of God becomes your shelter. The moment you drop the petty, the vast comes to your hand. It waits only because your hands clutch the trivial; your hands must be free. You grip the petty so tightly your hands cannot open—and the vast cannot pour upon you. Keep this in mind: the petty must be grasped; the vast can only be received by letting go.
The Upanishads and the Gita give a unique aphorism: tena tyaktena bhunjithah—by renouncing, enjoy. Those who give up attain supreme enjoyment. There is no more contradictory statement. If renouncers attain enjoyment, then what of the enjoyers? The enjoyers only rot in renunciation. They get nothing—only the idea that they are getting… hope—and nothing in hand. The renouncer lets go of all, and all becomes his. The day everything is dropped, that day everything is yours.
This guru sat naked. Everything was his—but not even a robe was “mine.” He had nothing he could call “mine”—nothing to give. If the disciple had remained foolish—though he could not have, for even obstinate foolishness turns wise when pursued for thirty years.
There is an Arab saying: if a fool persists in his folly, he becomes wise. Even stone gathers marks; even stupidity cracks if you practice it long enough. Experience dawns; awareness arises.
One who has searched for thirty years—he may have been unknowing at first, but not now. At once he would have seen the invisible robe the master wears. At once he would have seen the glory of the master—that glory is his robe. He would have seen the master’s aura—that is what is to be worn. Where supreme bliss is, that aura is present. You need only eyes to see. And wearing is not the issue; bowing is. Whoever bows wears the master. He must have bowed. He must have disappeared. He lost himself. In that very moment, supreme bliss must have showered on him too.
The story does not say this—because such things cannot be said. But the story gives the signs. It shows the path. It is silent about the destination. About the destination there is always silence. Where you will arrive is hard to say. How you will arrive—that can be told. If the path is right, you will arrive. The destination cannot be described—only the way.
Therefore the supremely wise give methods, not doctrines. They do not say, “There lies your goal—go.” They say, “Walk—here is the path.” If you walk rightly and keep walking, the destination arrives. Perhaps it is not far at all—only your wrong walking makes it seem far. Your wandering mind pushes it away. If your mind were to become still, perhaps this very moment, where you stand, is the destination.
If the youth had truly seen that first day, those thirty years of wandering would have been saved. That day too the flute was playing—but he had no ears. That day too the guru was naked—but he had no time to see the guru; he was tangled in himself. That day everything was present that is present today—but he lacked the capacity to see what is present.
The destination is not in the future; it is in the present. But you will need patience, because the cleansing of your mind is a long journey. The destination is here and now. If your mind becomes quiet this instant, it reflects it. But your mirror is covered with dust, and cleaning it takes time.
It does not take time to attain truth; it takes time to cleanse the mind. Time is your need. Truth is here and now. It is not that truth will be tomorrow. It was when you were not; it is now; it will be tomorrow. Truth is eternal. The day you are ready, the day you open your eyes, it will be revealed. Wherever you open your eyes, the path dissolves and the destination appears.
It is your closed eyes that create a path. Your inner darkness creates wandering. You are the world. How long you take depends on you. If you choose, revolution can happen this very moment. But perhaps you do not want it so soon. You have some attachments, some tasks to finish. You are not in such a hurry.
Perhaps this youth also was not in such a hurry. Otherwise, what need was there to go anywhere else? When the man said, “Whoever you find supremely happy, wear his robe,” the first thing was to grasp his feet and ask, “Since you know the key, have you yourself attained supreme happiness, or not?” He did not ask the second question—he set off! The man who gives the key—first ask him where he got it; surely he knows the lock. And if he gives you the key—where else to go? The going is over.
He reached a buddha and still went searching. He was deceived. The guru handed him a toy, and he started walking. He didn’t even ask, “From where does this news arise, whose word I am trusting to set out on a long journey—let me look into it! Has this man himself attained supreme happiness?”
Had there been just a little more awareness, he would have caught hold of the feet then and there: “Destination is finished—no going anywhere. Where is the robe? Give me the robe!” That very day he would have seen the guru naked—the guru was naked that day too.
Nakedness means: innocence. Nakedness means: like a small child. Nakedness means: one who has nothing of his own.
He would have caught his feet; the flute would have been heard that day too. But thirty years of arduous discipline were needed.
Discipline is to cut your mind—not to attain the goal. The goal is already attained.
Osho's Commentary
A murid had been pestering a fakir for a long time: “Teach me the secret of freedom from suffering.”
At last the pir said to him one day, “There is a very simple device. Find a man who says, ‘I am the happiest man of all,’ and ask for his robe and wear it.”
So the disciple set out in search of happiness. After years and years of wandering he found a fakir sitting under a date palm, a cloth covering his face.
When he asked, the fakir said, “Yes, I am the happiest man of all.”
But when the robe was requested, he laughed and said, “Look, my son—where is a robe on my body?”
Saying this, he removed the cloth from his face.
The young man saw it was the very same pir who had given him the secret of happiness. And that his body was naked.
Perhaps this is every person’s search. And there cannot be any other. Let us know this as the secret of supreme bliss. We are miserable and searching for happiness. If this young man asked a Sufi fakir, it is only the inner longing of humanity itself.
But asking is easy; the answer is not so easy—because the answer can only be given when the asker is ready. It is not enough that you ask to be able to receive an answer; the one who would answer must see whether you are ready for it or not. Anyone can ask a question; only a few have the capacity to bear the answer.
So the Sufi fakir first did this: he sent the youth on a search—go and look for the man who is supremely happy, who says, “I am supremely happy.” Ask for his robe. The moment you put on his robe, you too will be happy.
A Sufi fakir wants time. The youth is not ready. The answer could be given now; the fakir has it. But the customer is not present. There is curiosity, not mumuksha. Understand the difference.
One kind of curiosity is mere inquisitiveness—like little children who ask, “Why is this tree tall? Why is it green? Why are these flowers yellow?” Talk about something else for two minutes and they forget; they never ask again—perhaps not for a lifetime. There is no life in the asking; it is only the mind’s itch. If a question arises only out of the mind’s inquisitiveness, deep answers cannot be given.
So there is curiosity that is only of the mind; and there is a curiosity that is of the life-force. That curiosity is called mumuksha. Curiosity of the life-breath means: this is a matter of life and death for me. What I am asking—much depends on it: my survival or my undoing. If the curiosity is merely intellectual, you will wander into philosophy. And it is hard to find a jungle bigger than philosophy—an endless chain of theories. If you only have inquisitiveness, you will get lost in scriptures. Answers are there, and yet there are no answers. If your curiosity is mumuksha, you will be able to save yourself from the scriptures. Only then will you be able to find the true master.
Religion is born from mumuksha; philosophy from curiosity.
The Sufi fakir said, “Search for the man who says, ‘I am supremely happy.’ Ask for his robe.” The fakir wants to see whether this curiosity will last for some years. Your love doesn’t last—how will your curiosity?
A young man, newly recruited into a military unit, went to his commander and said, “I need leave. I’ve fallen deeply in love, and within a week or two I’ll get married and come back. It’s a matter of life and death—please don’t stand in the way.” The commander smiled and said, “Do this: if it truly is love, wait one year. If after a year you still say you must marry, I’ll give you leave—and it will be appropriate. Don’t be in a hurry. I say this from experience. Such love is like seasonal flowers—it withers.”
The youth agreed to wait. A year later he knocked on the office door again. “I need leave. The year is up.” The commander thought a moment. “Are you still in love?” “Yes! But the woman is different. And don’t delay now, because I’ve become experienced too. If you delay, next year there’ll be a third woman—and life will pass like this. When will the wedding happen?”
Even your love changes.
The fakir wanted to know whether this young man’s curiosity changes or not. If curiosity does not change, it is mumuksha. If curiosity changes, it is mere curiosity. If it is a matter of life and death, how can it change until liberation is attained? It will deepen. The quest for moksha—liberation—we have called mumuksha.
The search for liberation is greater even than the search for truth.
Because a seeker of truth may get lost in words, but a seeker of liberation cannot get lost in words—he has a touchstone. He will test every “truth,” because truth is only that which sets you free, and liberation is the touchstone. Any “truth” that binds you and makes you a slave is not truth; it is a sect.
The merely curious will get bound by some sect. He set out to seek truth and ends up with handcuffs. But if there is mumuksha, it will not stop until liberation is attained. If the thirst is real, the longer you remain thirsty, the deeper the thirst will grow. If the hunger is real, the longer you are hungry, the more intense it becomes.
But your curiosity is like your hunger. You eat every day at one o’clock; so at one o’clock, seeing the clock, you feel hungry. If the clock stopped at eleven, one o’clock will pass without hunger. If someone resets the clock so that eleven shows as one, hunger will come at eleven. And if you occupy yourself for fifteen minutes, hunger disappears.
Your hunger is only a mental habit. Its roots are not deep in the body. It does not arise from your digestive fire; it arises from the thought, “It’s one o’clock—time to eat; now it’s necessary to eat.” And when you go on stuffing food without hunger, there can be no taste—because taste is in hunger, not in food. In palaces, however exquisite the dishes, there is no taste; a beggar tastes. Even with dry bread—it is not about the bread; the deeper the hunger, the deeper the savor.
The deeper the mumuksha, the deeper the realization of truth.
This Sufi fakir had the truth now; he could have given it this very moment. But the taker was not present. And the taker must be tested. Time must pass. With time, curiosity ripens and becomes mumuksha. If the man changes midway, the fakir has saved himself needless labor. Time had to be allowed.
The fakir said, “Go and search. Find such people as have attained supreme bliss. And you need do nothing else—just wear their robe.”
This too needs to be understood: will you become happy by wearing the robe of one who has attained supreme bliss?
Wearing the robe is a Sufi symbol. To wear the robe means: when one finds a happy person, when one finds a master, then wear the master. Let the master cover you from all sides—this is the meaning of wearing the robe. Not a single hair should be left uncovered by the master. Let the master become your sky, your robe; let him surround you. Let there be no opening anywhere, no place left bare, naked. From all sides let the master encircle you. Do not leave even a tiny corner in your mind empty of the master.
To “wear” the true master means to wear the robe.
So when you find someone happy, do not delay—wear him. Because the moment you wear him, you will begin to change.
But wearing is difficult. You will have to disappear. The robe is very costly. If it were cheap, you’d buy it in the market. The robe is costly because nothing on this earth is harder than wearing the master. Even dying is easy. At least you remain! To wear the master means: you are utterly extinguished; you erase your line. Now the master is, you are not. You exist only as a shadow.
To live as someone’s shadow—that is discipleship.
But to live as someone’s shadow is extremely rare, extremely difficult. Because the ego will refuse. The ego will resist. The ego will contrive twenty-five tricks and arguments. First the ego will say, “This man claims to have attained happiness—but has he really? Who can say? Maybe he is lying! Maybe he’s just found a way to sell robes! Who knows—deception!”
First the mind will look for some way to prove that this man is not supremely happy. Then the hassle is over; you are spared from wearing the robe.
So the disciple first tries to prove that the guru is not a guru. It’s the easiest way out. The moment the mind is convinced that the guru is no guru, you are free. Your ego can live. Be cautious with any “guru” who has arrangements to gratify your ego—because your arguments are known on the other side too. It’s easy to plan a convincing behavior. A master who lies beyond your arguments—there a revolution may be possible.
When people came to Gurdjieff, he often behaved rudely—sometimes even crazily. Old disciples were upset: “Whenever newcomers arrive you act in such a way that they are driven away—why?” Gurdjieff said, “I don’t want to waste my time. Anyone who leaves because of some ‘wrong’ behavior of mine would have left later anyway, finding ‘faults’ in me. I want to be rid of him early. If someone hasn’t the patience to wait a little, if he decides so quickly…”
With a guru you cannot decide quickly. He is not gold you can test on a touchstone. And the deeper the guru, the greater the difficulty. Only one who lives on the surface can be tested by your stones. The deeper the life, the less your touchstones can reach. Only your heart can reach there. The day you make your heart the touchstone, you will recognize.
Some still stayed. Some, seeing Gurdjieff’s behavior, stayed and waited. Only when someone agreed to wait did Gurdjieff’s behavior toward him change. Slowly, his real manner would reveal itself.
Here is the irony: the guru who wants to deceive you will appear very good at first. The closer you come, the more the truth of his behavior shows—and the more trouble you find. The smaller the man, the larger he looks from afar; come close and he shrinks. The greater the man, the smaller he looks from a distance. This defies mathematics. As you come closer, he becomes greater. When you reach the very heart’s closeness, your guru will become God—nothing less. Only then know you are moving rightly: the nearer you come, the more vast he becomes. If he becomes smaller as you approach, he is an ordinary man. Politicians, who want to seem big, never let anyone come close; they keep distance. The farther you stand, the larger they appear. Go to the greatest of politicians and you will find a small man standing there.
The private conversations of Richard Nixon that have been published are alarming: he uses words that the basest people use—petty abuses in his private talk; schemes to belittle and destroy others. This is shabby stuff—unexpected from a president of America.
But don’t think this is Nixon’s flaw alone. It is the same with all presidents. Nixon got caught and things became public. If the inner conversations of your politicians were recorded, you’d find them all in the same tangle. They are small men. So distance must be maintained. One face is for the marketplace; another is private, seen only by intimates.
Go to a true master and at first you will not recognize him; he will seem absurd. Don’t be in a hurry. If you stay and come close—if you are given the chance—his real form will emerge. Living very close, when you earn the capacity, only then will his reality stand before you. This is no cheap bargain; therefore the true master is never in a hurry.
Wearing the robe means: the day the master becomes so important that you are ready to lose yourself and become like him, that day you have worn the robe.
When Sufi fakirs choose a successor, they give their robe. It is a symbol. The day the robe is given, the disciple has disappeared. Now only the master remains. Only when the disciple has utterly vanished is the robe bestowed.
So the fakir spoke rightly: the day you find a supremely happy person, take his robe. But he is putting the youth into a great tangle. The tangle is: first, to find the supremely happy person.
The youth surely must have gone first to palaces—because we all imagine that happiness lives there. Surely he knocked on the doors of the rich, met politicians, chased actors. The story doesn’t say this, but it must be so—where else would you search for the happy? You go to palaces, not huts.
He would have told the rich, “Give me your robe—you are so happy.” They must have said, “Take not one but four robes; but these robes won’t work, because we are not happy. We ourselves are in pain. We ourselves are searching. If you find such a person, let us know. We are tired—we have agreed to a life of pain. You are still young; your search is alive. If one day you discover someone whose robe brings happiness, we will buy that robe for everything we have.” He must have asked emperors; they would have said, “Not only a robe—we will give the whole empire. But it will not work, because we ourselves are miserable.”
The youth wandered much. After many years, asking and asking—yet he didn’t stop. He kept searching. His curiosity turned into mumuksha. His search became more fevered, more urgent. As age advanced, as time passed, his quest grew more intense—for time is short, and any moment life may be lost—and happiness still hasn’t been found.
It is astonishing that so many live on earth without ever finding happiness—and yet no search arises in them. This is the miracle. Why are you living? And if each day life is slipping from your hands—as it is—if each moment death is coming closer—then what are you waiting for? When will your search begin? You have gained nothing, yet you go on wasting time.
But this youth’s quest grew. When he sought in palaces and did not find, when he asked the wealthy and found no robe—there were robes aplenty—but where robes abound, human beings do not. Many mansions have piled up clothes, and the soul is lost. Man piles up things imagining perhaps happiness lies in accumulation, in possession. As if happiness were in collecting objects! As if one object brings a little happiness, two a bit more, three more—an infinity of objects, an infinity of happiness.
This arithmetic is strange, yet we all live by it. We never look into how false it is. If you have one car and found no happiness, how will four cars bring it? If a little were there, four would quadruple it. But the mind is astonishing and you go on believing its fraud. When you had no car, it said, “If I had a car, I’d be happy.” Now it says, “Two, four cars—then I’ll be happy.” When your safe was empty, it said, “If the safe is full, I’ll be happy.” Now it says, “Can happiness be in such a small safe? I need a bigger one.”
You never lay this arithmetic out to see where it stops. Your life will end; this arithmetic won’t. It is like the horizon—receding as you approach. It is like the rainbow—when you come near, it vanishes and appears farther off; the journey starts again. Desire is never fulfilled; it is forever unfulfillable.
He must have knocked at all the palaces. Then his eyes opened: half a life wasted—asking in the wrong places, asking the wrong people.
Then he began to go back to the fakirs. And one evening, when the sun had set and a little darkness had fallen, he found a man sitting on a rock by a river, playing a flute… The story doesn’t say this. But I know for certain he was playing a flute. And the melody of that flute was such that the youth felt: surely this man has found happiness. Happiness has a music, a flute that plays even without being played.
When you come to a happy man, there is no need to ask, “Are you happy?” We only ask that of the unhappy. The question itself is soaked in doubt. In the presence of a happy man you catch his fragrance. Your nostrils fill with it. Every hair of your body begins to feel his dance. The sound of his being is Omkar. The resonance of his being fills you, saturates you. Suddenly you find yourself near someone who is like a magnet; you are drawn. Happiness attracts. Near one supremely happy, you become like a moth circling the flame.
That evening he heard the flute. “Surely I have found the man—I will learn the secret of happiness.” For how could such sweetness arise unless the heart were overflowing with bliss? This was no ordinary flute. He sat at the man’s feet, waiting for the flute to stop so he could ask. “This is the one; it is time to get the robe.”
The flute ceased; the silence broke. The youth said, “I think you have attained happiness—you know its secret. Don’t deny it—I recognize it completely. Such notes cannot rise otherwise; I’ve searched the whole world. These are unique tones from the unknown. This flute is played from a very deep source. Don’t deceive me—I've wandered far.”
The man said, “Yes—the supreme bliss has come to me.” The youth must have grasped his feet: “Then give me your robe—let me wear your robe.”
The man laughed. “Bliss has come, but don’t ask me for a robe—look, I sit here naked.”
The darkness had grown thick, and his face was hidden in a cloth. These are meaningful symbols. Whoever attains supreme bliss—his face disappears.
Our face is a device to hide our misery. It is our cloth masking our sorrow. However much grief you carry, in the morning you shave and groom, apply scent and step out. Your face looks as if you are very happy. The fragrance does not come from you; it comes from perfume. The glow on the face is not yours; it is from the morning shave. The freshness in your eyes is artificial, practiced.
We live in faces. Our faces are cloths that hide our grief.
But one who attains supreme bliss loses his face. He becomes faceless. He no longer needs this face. This face was a cheat we wore for others. It was not ours. It is not your original face.
Zen masters tell their seekers: until you see your original face, continue the search.
“What is the original face?” a disciple asked his master.
He replied, “The face you had before you were born is your original face. Or the face that will remain after you die and your body is burned to ashes—that is the original face. Everything in between is false. There are many faces in between, but they are masks—worn. And there is not just one face—you have many, because needs are many. As needs change, the face must change.”
Turgenev has a short tale. Two policemen are walking down a road. In front of a hotel, a vagrant has grabbed a stray dog by the leg and is about to slam it down and kill it because it bit him. A crowd gathers; people are enjoying it. “Kill it,” they say. “This dog has troubled others too.” One policeman says, “Good—at last the dog is caught. It bothers us police as well. Vagrant. Kill it.”
But the other policeman whispers in his ear, “Wait! It looks like our officer’s dog.” The first man, who had been shouting, “Kill it, knock it down!”—as soon as he heard it might be the officer’s dog, he leapt to grab the vagrant by the neck: “What are you doing? Killing a dog?” He lifted the dog and hugged it—“It’s the officer’s dog!” The face changed!
Moments earlier he had said, “Kill it—it torments even the police.” But if it’s the officer’s dog, the story changes. Now the dog must not be killed; the man must be jailed. As soon as he put the dog on his shoulder, kissed and petted it, a bystander said, “No, mistake—it isn’t the officer’s dog.” Instantly the dog was thrown to the ground, the vagrant released: “Finish this dog—it’s a vagrant! It has bitten others; it’s a public menace.”
The crowd is startled; faces changing so fast is confusing. The vagrant can’t decide either. But since the policeman says it, he grabs the dog’s leg again, ready to smash it—just then another man says, “Forgive me—it does look like the officer’s dog.” Again the story changes. And so it goes—over and over. The vagrant is seized, then the dog is shouldered, they start toward the station; on the way someone says, “Hey! Carrying a stray on your shoulder? Seems you’re under the same illusion I once was—that it’s the officer’s. It isn’t.” The situation flips again.
Your face is not a real face that does not change. It is made and unmade by convenience, by circumstances. This face is not your soul. It is the cloth you hide in.
But when someone attains supreme bliss—when heaven descends into a heart—then the faces we know disappear. In one sense he becomes faceless; in another, his original face appears. Emptiness is the original face—no features, no form, the formless. That is the face. Hence the guru sits with a cloth over his face.
The fakir uncovered his face and said, “See—supreme bliss is mine. Take as much as you can—but don’t speak of the robe. I sit here naked.”
A big trouble! Those with robes have no happiness; the one with happiness has no robe!
The master’s robe cannot be some visible garment. It cannot be made of matter. The fakir must have looked closely at the youth: “Now what will he do?” For to wear the guru’s robe means to wear the guru himself, not his garment. The master himself is the robe; no other robe is needed.
And the youth is in a quandary—because this is the very man to whom, twenty or thirty years ago, when he was young—now he is old—he had come for the secret of happiness; and this is the same man. The youth would have said, “Sir! Why didn’t you say so then? Why did you make me wander so much?”
But life is such that until you wander through many doors, you cannot arrive at your own. And until you knock on every neighbor’s door, you cannot recognize which is yours.
Travelers report: until you roam other lands, you cannot recognize your own country. As I see it, travelers circle the world in search of happiness and, returning home, find it—what a rest it is. They are tired. But that fatigue is necessary. Otherwise they were already at home. For this happiness there was no need to go anywhere. But the recognition of home is lost—we have been too much in it, always there—so a little wandering is needed for recognition to return. You must go a little far so that your own house can be seen.
Those thirty years of wandering were necessary. Without getting lost, there is no arrival.
People come to me constantly. Those who have wandered to other gurus turn out to be more amenable to work. It is easier to take them deep. Those who come directly to me—there is some difficulty. But it is a tale of many lives. Almost everyone has wandered to many gurus—if not in this life, then in others. It is not a matter of thirty years, but thirty lifetimes.
Still, sometimes someone arrives who in no life has gone to any guru. With him, work is almost impossible. In the beginning, when you dig a well, stones and pebbles come up; then damp earth; then water. Likewise the master must excavate within you. First only stones come. To reach your soul takes patience and labor. One who has wandered at many doors has clearer recognition. He can see with which key which door opens. One who has tried many keys develops an eye for the right key. One whom many have deceived, and who has been deceived by many, becomes skilled at recognizing the true. That is why I say even the false guru is necessary—through him one reaches the true.
In this world nothing is unnecessary. He who deceives is also needed. He who runs a shop is also needed. He is necessary for you—so you may be deceived and pass through it, and that experience will make you mature. Nothing is unnecessary. Even he who misleads you from the path is needed—because through misdirection you will, for the first time, learn what the path is. Even he who wastes your time and life is needed—because through him urgency arises and the quest gains speed: “Life is passing; I have wandered too much.” Only when your eyes have recognized many illusions will they be able to recognize truth.
Before knowing truth, it is necessary to know the false.
Hence Krishnamurti repeatedly says: whoever clearly recognizes what is false, the recognition of the true dawns in him. Whoever knows what is illusory begins to have visions of truth. But you must pass through the false to be able to recognize.
The youth would have said, “What kind of joke is this! And this joke is deep—and dangerous. I could have gotten lost. You might not have survived either. If you had the secret, the key, why did you not give it that very day?”
No, it could not have been given that day. Asking is not enough to receive. The giver must see whether the vessel is ready. Pouring nectar into a cup filled with poison does nothing—nectar will become poison. Add nectar to poison and the poison will become immortal; that’s all. You won’t gain; the poison will.
That is why many physicians say: in illness, stop feeding—because the food doesn’t feed you, it feeds the illness. If your body is full of disease, the energy from food is taken by the disease, not by you. So many systems of healing stop food during treatment—so the illness gains no strength.
When this youth came he was ill, full of poison. His eyes were blind. His hands were not ready. If he had been given a diamond, he would have taken it for a burden and dropped it somewhere. It was easy for him to accept poison; it was difficult to accept nectar. We can receive only what is similar to us; what is dissimilar slips away. He was sick; he could take sickness, but health was difficult. Waiting was necessary.
When a guru sends you back from his door, it is not with joy. There is risk—will you return or not? If you return, will the guru still be alive? But the risk must be taken. It must—because only thus can you be prepared.
Without making mistakes, no one comes to the point of being right. In this world, making mistakes is not bad; repeating the same mistake is. In this world, wandering is not bad—without wandering, who will come to the right path? But making wandering a habit is bad. Only those miss who, fearful of making mistakes, don’t even get up—afraid that if they walk, something might go wrong.
I have heard: a farmer was sitting before his hut, smoking a hookah. A traveler passing through the village had lost his way by night and wanted to stay at the farmer’s house. “Stay, by all means,” the farmer said. To make conversation, to establish friendliness, the traveler asked, “How was the cotton this year?” The farmer said, “I didn’t sow—didn’t seem like cotton weather.” The conversation broke. The traveler asked, “Then wheat?” He said, “No—every year pests eat the wheat.” The traveler was at a loss. “Then… did you sow anything at all?” “I never do anything until it’s completely safe,” he said. “I sow nothing. I played it safe.”
Granted pests come; sometimes rains are too much, sometimes too little; crops do fail. But if you sit for fear, your crop will never come.
You all are in the condition of “playing safe”—avoiding trouble. Lest mistakes be made. You tiptoe through life. That tiptoeing is the great mistake. Such a person never arrives—because walking risks falling, getting lost—so he sits. The fear-ridden cannot reach truth. The erring can. The one who has strayed can return to the path; the one who never moved—how?
Those thirty years of wandering were necessary. The guru said, “Go—wander!”
Zen and Sufi masters have performed a unique experiment: they often send disciples to other masters—even to those who are their critics. A strange thing. After years of work, a master may say, “Stop. Now go to such-and-such a master—my ‘enemy.’”
It seems unbelievable that a master would send you to his enemy. But a master has no enemies. Perhaps they are playing a great game. Perhaps they deliberately say opposite things, creating a wind of polarity that people easily understand and divide themselves into sides—and then fall into the net of this master or that. Until someone falls into a net, work cannot begin.
When Bayazid’s master told him, “Go now to the master opposite to me,” he said, “What are you saying? I can’t even imagine this—he is the enemy.” The master said, “I have done all I could on one side of you. Now the opposite side in you remains. For that, my opposite is needed; I cannot do that work. The guru outside, to whom I send you, is opposite to me. The inner part of you that is opposite to what I have worked upon—only he can work there; and it lies hidden.”
Either one master must contain both polarities—then he can do the whole work. But then he will seem inconsistent—sometimes saying A, sometimes B; sometimes night, sometimes day—confusing you. Such a dialectical master can work from both ends. Otherwise, one end will be done by one, the opposite by another.
For thirty years this youth wandered, and came back to the place where it had begun.
There are deeper meanings here. In truth, returning is to the very place where you started; there is nowhere else to go. Where the first ray of life set out, there to return—that is religion.
If you return to where you started—what Jesus calls “become again like a child,” return to the womb, become innocent—the circle is complete. The first point of the journey becomes the final destination. You have arrived. There is nowhere else to go. You come back to where you began. There can be no other destination than where you began. That is your home.
In this story it is essential to understand: return to where your curiosity first began. Return to where the question first arose—within you.
There are many Zen stories. A man interrupted a guru in the middle of a talk and asked, “I keep hearing: soul… soul… God… go within… I don’t understand. Where is this ‘within’?”
The guru lifted his staff and said to the crowd, “Make way. This man won’t be convinced by words.” The man was a little alarmed, abashed, and the guru came down.
Zen masters are robust—they work eight hours a day in the garden or field. “No work, no food.” They dig, chop wood—strong men.
With staff in hand, the strong man advanced and the people gave way. The questioner grew uneasy. “Let it be—I only asked a question.”
“You asked; so an answer must be given. Close your eyes and search within for the place whence the question arose. If you cannot find it—this staff will help.”
The man must have closed his eyes. At first he was afraid—who knows when the staff will strike! But people like you understand only fear.
Sometimes fear makes you quiet. That quiet is not deep, but in fear thoughts stop. If someone puts a knife to your chest, thoughts cease—no room for them in the face of danger. Thought is a luxury; the more comfortable you are, the more you think—sitting idly, energy becomes thought. But where life is at risk…
The man stood with staff in hand. The questioner closed his eyes; the staff still visible in his mind—thoughts stopped. He looked within—he had no choice, or the man would strike. He followed the question down the stairs of his mind—within, within, within—to where the first sprout had pushed up. Questions don’t come out of the sky; they come out of you. As a sprout comes from a seed, the question comes from you—where, from what source? He must have found the root. His face grew calm; fear vanished. At the source there is no fear—there is nectar. What fear there? Danger disappeared. He forgot the guru, forgot the staff. He stood still. Moments passed, then more. People grew restless—but he became a statue of meditation.
The guru shook him and said, “Enough—have you received the answer? Do you know who you are?” They say that many times, in such a moment, nirvana has been attained; enlightenment has dawned.
Return to where the journey began. The first instant of curiosity will become the last instant of liberation. This guru did well—thirty years he made him wander, completing the circle. And when the disciple returned, he found the same place, the same master, the same spot where curiosity began.
The story says nothing further. There is nothing further to say—so it remains untold. What follows is this: he saw that there was no robe. And it was this man who had said, “Ask for the robe of one who says he is supremely happy.” There was no robe—and this was the very man. The matter became clear: wear this man. Fall at his feet.
And supreme bliss is attained only when even so much as the sense of possession is gone. The sense “mine” is enough to create hell—no big empire is needed. “My robe”—that alone is enough.
There is an old Indian tale. A renunciate came to King Janaka, sent by his guru. The guru was tired—his disciple’s curiosity didn’t settle, no liberation, no meditation. So the guru said, “We cannot help you. Go to Janaka—he is supremely wise.”
The disciple did not trust it—the guru was naked, an absolute renunciate. “If even he cannot help, what will Janaka do? He’s a king after all. Even if he knows a little, he is not free of possession. A man running an empire—what can he give me?” Still, he thought, “Since the guru has said so, I must obey.”
He went—not eagerly; duty-bound. At dusk he knocked. The doors opened onto revelry. Janaka on his throne; women half-naked dancing; courtiers drunk. “I knew this would happen. Where have I trapped myself—by obeying the guru!”
Often a disciple feels he erred in obeying his guru—because the guru sees the whole story; the disciple glimpses fragments without knowing their end. He wanted to leave; Janaka said, “Why so soon? Spend the night—don’t hurry. If your guru has sent you, he must have done so with meaning.” The renunciate said, “I will stay—but I will not ask what I came to ask.” Janaka said, “There is no need to ask.”
In truth, there is no need to ask a master. He knows what you have come to ask. Today or tomorrow he will answer. Your question is written on your face. It is carved in your eyes; he needs no words. It pulses in your heartbeat. Your question is you. Your problem is you.
When you come, your problem comes with you. Its vibrations accompany you. Just as samadhi has fragrance, problems have stink. Just as the peace of a questionless mind has a harmony, a mind full of questions has a discord. Its off-key drone plays.
No need to ask. Janaka said, “Now that you have come, we know why. Stay the night; don’t hurry. Your guru must have spoken rightly.”
It didn’t appeal. To stay even a moment in such a palace seemed sin. Where wine flows, where naked women dance, where this Janaka presides—what to expect? Ego always thinks this way. He saw what was around Janaka—not Janaka. The guru sent him to Janaka—not to what was around him. He wasn’t sent to ask the women, nor the wine bottles, nor the sprawling courtiers. They were not the destination; Janaka was. If only the renunciate had seen Janaka alone—the matter would have been resolved. He saw everything—except Janaka.
He slept that night. In the morning he asked leave. Janaka said, “You have slept; your body is stale. Come to the river to bathe, then you may go. I cannot give you meditation—because you refuse to receive it—but at least I can give you a bath.” The river ran behind.
They went to bathe. The renunciate left his loincloth on the bank; the king his rich garments. They entered the water. While they stood in the river, the renunciate suddenly shouted, “Janaka, run! Your palace is on fire—burning!” Janaka said, “Let us finish bathing. What is happening cannot be stopped. Palaces burn today or tomorrow—what of concern?” But the renunciate wasn’t listening. He ran out—to fetch his loincloth. Because soon the fire from the palace might reach the bank. He picked up his loincloth and returned.
Janaka said, “Do you see? The issue isn’t possession—it is attachment. A loincloth can bind as much as an empire. Your loincloth wasn’t even on fire; the fire was far. And if it burns—what is destroyed? But the sense of ‘mine’!”
The guru has no robe, sits naked—this means only this: there is no possessiveness. Nothing is “mine.” Only then does true nakedness appear. It is not necessary to remove your clothes, because removing clothes has nothing to do with nakedness. That brings bareness, not nakedness.
Nakedness is innocent—as with a child at birth. He does not know that anything is “mine.” He doesn’t even know he is.
This guru, to whom celestial music was playing, had nothing—this means only that he had no “mine.”
Remember: whether a master wears a robe or not is not the question; the point is: “my robe” is not there. There are many “masters” who will be found without robes. If you make a rule that you will accept only a naked guru, many will stand naked—for you can understand nakedness; then robes will become a hindrance. There have been naked masters; there have been robed masters; but all are naked—because they have no possessiveness. Even with an empire, Janaka is naked. What you have is not the point. As long as you think “mine,” you are worldly. The day you don’t think “mine,” and see all as God’s, that day you are renounced.
Renunciation means: everything is God’s, nothing is mine.
The worldly means: everything is mine, nothing is God’s—and what seems to be in God’s hands must be snatched today or tomorrow.
The worldly will never be content until all is his—and all will never be his. The renunciate is content each moment—because the race of possessiveness has dropped.
And the great secret of secrets is: when a little courtyard is let go, the entire sky becomes your courtyard. When a small roof is let go, the infinite grace of God becomes your shelter. The moment you drop the petty, the vast comes to your hand. It waits only because your hands clutch the trivial; your hands must be free. You grip the petty so tightly your hands cannot open—and the vast cannot pour upon you. Keep this in mind: the petty must be grasped; the vast can only be received by letting go.
The Upanishads and the Gita give a unique aphorism: tena tyaktena bhunjithah—by renouncing, enjoy. Those who give up attain supreme enjoyment. There is no more contradictory statement. If renouncers attain enjoyment, then what of the enjoyers? The enjoyers only rot in renunciation. They get nothing—only the idea that they are getting… hope—and nothing in hand. The renouncer lets go of all, and all becomes his. The day everything is dropped, that day everything is yours.
This guru sat naked. Everything was his—but not even a robe was “mine.” He had nothing he could call “mine”—nothing to give. If the disciple had remained foolish—though he could not have, for even obstinate foolishness turns wise when pursued for thirty years.
There is an Arab saying: if a fool persists in his folly, he becomes wise. Even stone gathers marks; even stupidity cracks if you practice it long enough. Experience dawns; awareness arises.
One who has searched for thirty years—he may have been unknowing at first, but not now. At once he would have seen the invisible robe the master wears. At once he would have seen the glory of the master—that glory is his robe. He would have seen the master’s aura—that is what is to be worn. Where supreme bliss is, that aura is present. You need only eyes to see. And wearing is not the issue; bowing is. Whoever bows wears the master. He must have bowed. He must have disappeared. He lost himself. In that very moment, supreme bliss must have showered on him too.
The story does not say this—because such things cannot be said. But the story gives the signs. It shows the path. It is silent about the destination. About the destination there is always silence. Where you will arrive is hard to say. How you will arrive—that can be told. If the path is right, you will arrive. The destination cannot be described—only the way.
Therefore the supremely wise give methods, not doctrines. They do not say, “There lies your goal—go.” They say, “Walk—here is the path.” If you walk rightly and keep walking, the destination arrives. Perhaps it is not far at all—only your wrong walking makes it seem far. Your wandering mind pushes it away. If your mind were to become still, perhaps this very moment, where you stand, is the destination.
If the youth had truly seen that first day, those thirty years of wandering would have been saved. That day too the flute was playing—but he had no ears. That day too the guru was naked—but he had no time to see the guru; he was tangled in himself. That day everything was present that is present today—but he lacked the capacity to see what is present.
The destination is not in the future; it is in the present. But you will need patience, because the cleansing of your mind is a long journey. The destination is here and now. If your mind becomes quiet this instant, it reflects it. But your mirror is covered with dust, and cleaning it takes time.
It does not take time to attain truth; it takes time to cleanse the mind. Time is your need. Truth is here and now. It is not that truth will be tomorrow. It was when you were not; it is now; it will be tomorrow. Truth is eternal. The day you are ready, the day you open your eyes, it will be revealed. Wherever you open your eyes, the path dissolves and the destination appears.
It is your closed eyes that create a path. Your inner darkness creates wandering. You are the world. How long you take depends on you. If you choose, revolution can happen this very moment. But perhaps you do not want it so soon. You have some attachments, some tasks to finish. You are not in such a hurry.
Perhaps this youth also was not in such a hurry. Otherwise, what need was there to go anywhere else? When the man said, “Whoever you find supremely happy, wear his robe,” the first thing was to grasp his feet and ask, “Since you know the key, have you yourself attained supreme happiness, or not?” He did not ask the second question—he set off! The man who gives the key—first ask him where he got it; surely he knows the lock. And if he gives you the key—where else to go? The going is over.
He reached a buddha and still went searching. He was deceived. The guru handed him a toy, and he started walking. He didn’t even ask, “From where does this news arise, whose word I am trusting to set out on a long journey—let me look into it! Has this man himself attained supreme happiness?”
Had there been just a little more awareness, he would have caught hold of the feet then and there: “Destination is finished—no going anywhere. Where is the robe? Give me the robe!” That very day he would have seen the guru naked—the guru was naked that day too.
Nakedness means: innocence. Nakedness means: like a small child. Nakedness means: one who has nothing of his own.
He would have caught his feet; the flute would have been heard that day too. But thirty years of arduous discipline were needed.
Discipline is to cut your mind—not to attain the goal. The goal is already attained.
For today, enough.