According to Osho, a disciple isn’t a student collecting ideas, but one who risks everything to become truth and love. He relates to a master through the heart, surrenders ego, melts into nothingness, and becomes totally receptive. A disciple drops defenses and prejudices, creates inner discipline - a space to learn - and trusts absolutely, allowing the master’s presence to penetrate and transform his being.
Being a disciple means opening your heart, dropping ego and fixed ideas, and trusting a wise guide so you can truly change instead of just collecting information.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, what is a disciple?
A disciple comes to a state where he feels that either he has to commit suicide or he has to change his whole life so that there is some significance, some fragrance, some beauty, some individuality, some decisiveness, something that you have done. Your birth you are not responsible for, your death you will not be responsible for -- two of the most important things in life are not in your hands -- but you can commit suicide; that is a decisive point. To commit suicide is to accept failure, is to accept that you are defeated. But it is only in such a situation of the mind that a man starts looking -- perhaps there are ways of living other than how he has lived up to now, perhaps there are alternative styles of life. This search for an alternative style of life.... Because he can see all around…
Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A DISCIPLE? Prem Samadhi, it is one of the most delicate mysteries. No definition is possible of a disciple, but a few hints can be given, just fingers pointing to the moon. Don't cling to the fingers -- look at the moon and forget the fingers. A disciple is a rare phenomenon. It is very easy to be a student because the student is searching knowledge. The student can only meet the teacher, he can never meet the master. The reality of the master will remain hidden to the student. The student functions from the head. He functions logically, rationally. He gathers knowledge, he becomes more and more knowledgeable. Finally in his own turn he will become a teacher, but all that he knows is borrowed, nothing is really his own. His existence is pseudo; it is a carbon-copy existence.
Osho, what is the first experience of samadhi like?
You will know only when it happens. It cannot be said; at most a few hints can be given. It is as if, in the dark, a lamp is suddenly lit. Or as if a dying patient, right at the edge of death, suddenly finds a medicine that works; life’s wave, life’s thrill spreads again—so it is. As if a corpse becomes alive—such is the first experience of samadhi. It is the taste of nectar. The experience of the ultimate music. But it will be only when it happens; and only then will you understand. You will not understand by my saying it. It is as with love. How can anyone explain it? To someone who has never loved, never known love, no matter how many explanations you offer—he will hear it all and still ask, “I haven’t understood; please explain a little more.” It is like explaining light to…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, HOW CAN I BECOME A DISCIPLE? What is the need to become a disciple? Why should you ask such a question? Do you feel your life is meaningless, that you need some meaning? Do you feel your life is empty and you would like fulfillment? Do you feel you are in darkness and you would like to be in the light? The whole thing depends on you. If you are contented as you are, if you are not missing anything as you are, there is no need to be a disciple. Why bother a master, and why go into an unnecessary search? But if you have emptiness, meaninglessness, anxiety, anguish, confusion, darkness; if you feel your whole life is nothing but misery, then to become a disciple is very simple.
To be a disciple is a great art. One can even say the greatest, because Its requirement is the surrender of the ego Which is the hardest thing in life. One can do everything for the ego: One can climb mountains and go to the moon. Everything is easy if it is for the ego. But to drop the ego is really an uphill task It goes against our natural instinct. But it is the beginning of real spirituality. The first requirement for a disciple Is to surrender, to say to the master 'Now I am no more, only you are!' A total yes to the master, an absolute trust -- That's what makes a disciple. There are many students but very few disciples. And only disciples can be transformed Students can only be informed.