How can I find a guru and determine if they are the right master for me?

How can I find a guru, a master? How am I to be certain that someone is the right master for me? What are the criteria to judge? How am I to know whether this is the man to lead me? How can I be certain? And if one is not certain, then how can one surrender?

Remember, no harm is going to happen to you if you surrender. Surrendering, in itself, is a miracle. Even if you have surrendered to a false master, you may learn many things from him. In this existence, nothing is a wastage. Even living with a false master is a learning. You are growing, you are becoming aware of certain things that you would never become aware of with an authentic master. You are maturing, you are becoming adult. And now, after learning from a false master, no false master will ever appeal to you again. At least you will now be able to judge who is false. You may not be able to judge who is true, but the other half has already been learned: you can now judge who is false. And this is something worth learning! Now you can eliminate the false teachers, and the true teacher will…

Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!

You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…

Osho, to whom should one surrender? How can one be sure whom to surrender to? And until then, what should one keep doing?

Assurance will never come. Because the very mind that asks for assurance is, by nature, never satisfied. It will always find a flaw. You have passed by Buddha, by Krishna, by Mahavira. You are not on the earth for the first time. No one has ever been able to give you assurance. Had anyone ever satisfied you, you would not be here. You found faults in all—not because faults were there, but because you are adept, skilled at finding them. You can see errors even where there are none. Then the interpretation is in your hands. Facts are seen only by those whose mind is gone; you interpret the facts. And you see only what you want to see, what you can see. A friend of mine was a drawing teacher in a high school. For some reason he landed in jail. When he returned and I went to the…

Osho, a master can always know the spiritual state of a seeker longing for liberation, but how can the seeker know whether the master has attained truth or not? And if the disciple ever feels he has lost the gamble in his choice, can he go to another master? Please clarify your view.

The scripture says: eat once a day—so they eat once. Two garments—so two garments. Don’t travel after sunset—so they don’t. Don’t drink water at night—so they refrain. Rise before dawn—so they rise. They rehearse what the scripture prescribes; through this, they match your idea and seem suitable. If your conception springs from the same scripture, the match is exact. Hence the odd spectacle: the guru of one sect does not seem like a guru at all to another sect. But to his sect he appears the supreme guru. Their conceptions match. Understand the trick. You study the same shastra… Consider an actress who came to see me: “What do you say about the Bhrigu Samhita?” I asked why. She said, “In Delhi they read my Bhrigu. I noted what they said of my past lives, and future too. Some things about this life were true. Others aren’t yet, but the…

A friend has asked: How can we, who are ignorant, possibly search for a true Master?

Remember this: in the vast orchestration of the Divine nothing is useless. What appears useless also points toward the meaningful. If there are false masters, they too serve as the background against which the true Master shines; otherwise even he would not be seen. Life is made of opposites. The search for truth also proceeds along the path of untruth; the right is found by passing through the door of error. So do not be afraid—be fearless, and remain open. Out of fear people close up. They remain afraid lest they get connected to a wrong person. Because of this fear they remain closed. A closed person does not connect with the wrong, but neither does he ever connect with the right. An open person may connect with the wrong, but because he is open he soon goes beyond the wrong; and due to his openness and the experience of…