How can we be contemporary fellow travelers with an ever-changing master?

Beloved Osho, you are an ever-changing, unpredictable master -- how can we be your contemporary fellow travelers?

In the same way! Be unpredictable and be ever-changing. Never stop changing and never stop being unpredictable, and only then can life be a joy. The moment you become predictable, you become a machine. A machine is predictable. It was the same yesterday, it is the same today, it will be the same tomorrow. You can predict about it: it is unchanging. It is only man's prerogative to be changing every moment. The day you stop changing, in a subtle way you have died. And many people in the world die nearabout the age of thirty. Then they go on living -- perhaps forty years, forty-five years more -- but that is posthumous living, it is not really living. They have stopped living at thirty. But there is no need to stop living until the breathing itself stops. In the first world war it happened that for the first time…

Osho, we know the old masters through tradition, which is very easy; to recognize a living master requires a highly evolved discernment. Somehow, wandering, we have drifted to you. And even while being close, how are we to truly know you?

You don’t really know the old masters either. It only seems as if you know; there is an impression of knowing—but do you actually know? If you truly knew, the old would at once become new. Then how would the old remain old? If you know Buddha, he becomes contemporary—not someone who lived twenty-five hundred years ago; he is here now, standing beside you. If you recognize and know Jesus, the distance of time disappears. No gap remains; you become fellow travelers. You don’t recognize the old either. If you could even recognize the old, where would there be any difficulty in recognizing the new? Tradition only creates an impression. You appear to know, granted—but you do not know. Born in a Jain home, you feel you know Mahavira—stories heard since childhood. Born in a Hindu home, you feel you know Krishna. Born in a Muslim home, you feel you…

Question: OUR BELOVED MASTER, WHEN THE NOVICE MONK, GAO, FIRST CALLED ON YAKUSAN, YAKUSAN ASKED HIM, "WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?" GAO SAID, "FROM NANYUE." YAKUSAN ASKED, "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" GAO REPLIED, "TO JIANGLING TO RECEIVE THE PRECEPTS." YAKUSAN THEN ASKED, "WHAT IS THE AIM OF RECEIVING PRECEPTS?" GAO ANSWERED, "TO ESCAPE BIRTH AND DEATH." YAKUSAN SAID, "THERE IS SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T RECEIVE THE PRECEPTS AND HAS NO BIRTH AND DEATH TO ESCAPE -- DO YOU KNOW?" GAO ASKED, "THEN WHAT IS THE USE OF THE BUDDHA'S PRECEPTS?" YAKUSAN SAID, "THIS NOVICE STILL HAS LIPS AND TEETH." AT THIS, THE NOVICE BOWED AND WITHDREW. DOGO THEN CAME FORWARD AND STOOD BY YAKUSAN, WHO SAID TO HIM, "THAT LIMPING NOVICE WHO JUST CAME, AFTER ALL HAS SOME LIFE IN HIM." DOGO SAID, "HE'S NOT TO BE ENTIRELY BELIEVED YET -- YOU SHOULD TEST HIM AGAIN FIRST.

Question: BELOVED OSHO, A TALK TO THE ASSEMBLY (PART THREE) DON'T REMEMBER WHAT I'VE SAID, AND CONSIDER IT RIGHT. TODAY I SPEAK THIS WAY, BUT THEN TOMORROW I'LL SPEAK OTHERWISE. AS SOON AS YOU'RE THUS, I AM NOT THUS; WHEN YOU'RE NOT THUS, THEN I AM THUS. WHERE WILL YOU SEARCH OUT MY ABIDING PLACE? SINCE I MYSELF DON'T EVEN KNOW, HOW CAN ANYONE ELSE FIND WHERE I STAY? THIS IS THE LIVING GATE: YOU CAN ENTER ONLY WHEN YOU'VE PUT TO DEATH YOUR FABRICATED "REALITY." YET STUDENTS CONSIDER PAYING HOMAGE TO THE BUDDHA, UPHOLDING THE SCRIPTURES, AND DISCIPLINING THEMSELVES IN BODY, MOUTH, AND MIND, AS THEIR SUSTENANCE, HOPING TO FIND REALIZATION. WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

Osho, I want to walk in your footsteps. I seek your blessing.

Your hem is many-colored; each hue carries a fresh fragrance. The hope in my heart is old; the thirst upon your body is new. Be the butterfly of the garden, swinging from flower to flower, deepening love with each bud, forgetting the griefs of each season. One and the same enchantment holds you—be it monsoon or mustard bloom. Your youth is a riddle; your longing is newly fresh. Your hem is many-colored; each hue carries a fresh fragrance. In face and form you flaunt a frank, playful charm; beauty poised upon every limb. Alongside it, the sheen of unseen dreams waves. At every turn of life your longing weaves a new romance. Your hem is many-colored; each hue carries a fresh fragrance. You tire of one flight, yet weigh yourself again and again; one gait does not please you—you sway at every step. Even so, my foolish heart sings only…