What happens when I start to fear my spiritual teacher?

Beloved Osho, since you initiated me into sannyas, I have begun to fear you a little. Before that this fear was not there, although I have been frightened throughout my entire life. I know too that the freedom and love I have found in being close to you were not available to me even around my parents. If in the shadow of your overflowing love I am not going to find freedom from fear, then where else? How is this freedom from fear possible?

No, I am not talking of that love. I am talking of a love which is not related to anybody in any way, which is unassociated. This does not mean that you will run away from your wife, or keep the children at a distance, if this love is born in you. If this love is born in you, just your ideas of the wife as wife will dissolve; the very idea that your son belongs to you will dissolve. The ideas will be replaced by an understanding that everyone belongs to the universe, that you are just instrumental; and your love will go on showering, day in, day out. Questions about who is worthy of your love and who is unworthy will all wither away. You will flow like a river, and whoever is thirsty will be able to fill his cup and take it away with him. Your…

Osho, ever since I took initiation from you, I have also begun to feel afraid of you. Earlier this fear was not in me, though I have been afraid all my life. I also know that the love and freedom I have found in your presence I never found even around my parents. And if, even in the shade of a master as utterly love-filled as you, I do not become free of fear, then where else will I? How is this freedom from fear possible?

Take this as a touchstone: if the reason for which you went to the master is the very reason he accepts and works upon, he too is standing in darkness. You have come to me because of fear—I know. But it is not my task to lessen your fear; it is to awaken abhaya. You did not come for abhaya. You came for nirbhayata, a little courage to fight—you would be satisfied with that. You are easily satisfied; your discontent is not very deep. A drowning man is content with a straw. You are looking for a straw; I know that no one is saved by a straw. Perhaps because of the straw you will drown—whoever takes a straw for a boat stops looking for a real boat. Whoever mistakes a false shore will find the true shore very far. Whatever reason you have come with is not my concern.…

Beloved Osho, when I come to your darshan, I feel a fear, as if of death. But with your presence, fear disappears and I feel life. Osho, what is happening?

The ancient seers have a very strange statement. I have asked shankaracharyas -- because they are technically the representatives of those ancient seers -- but none of them has been able to explain even a simple statement. The statement is that "The master is nothing but death." But it is only a half statement; the remaining half is that the master is a resurrection too. Coming to me, you feel the fear of death. That is absolutely as it should be. I am going to be a death to you. My whole function is to kill you because whatever you are is not your reality. It has to be destroyed, dismantled, burned. So just like a phoenix bird -- out of the tire which is burning your old personality, a new being is born. Hence, the master is also life. That's why when you are here you feel life. And…

Beloved Osho, I am afraid to meet you. Trembling, shocked, alone... It means death.

The meeting with the master has always been a kind of death, death to all that you have been, death to your past, death to your ego, death to your personality. But it is not only death, it is also resurrection: the birth of the new, the birth of the fresh and the innocent, a new sunrise on the horizon, a new unfoldment of your being. But naturally, first you have to meet the death, you have to pass through it. Resurrection can only be afterwards. The death is what you pay for your resurrection; hence, your question is significant. You are feeling afraid coming closer to me. This is not new. This has nothing to do with you or me. This is as old as man. The ancientmost scriptures in the world are the VEDAS. They describe the master as death, but a death which opens the door to…

Question: OSHO, WHY AM I AFRAID OF YOU? Yogesh, IT IS A GOOD SIGN: it means something is on the way. You become afraid of me only when you start coming closer to me; it is natural. To be close to a Master is to be close to a certain kind of death. Only stupid people are not afraid because they can't see what is going to happen: that I am taking you slowly slowly to the cliff. And once you are there and enjoying a joke, I will push you! Sitting in an armchair at his club, a retired British colonial army officer was recounting one of his heroic adventures to a young captain. "There I was, me boy, stalking through the jungle, when out jumps this enormous great tiger right in front of me." "Gosh, golly, sir, what happened?" "It stood there and went 'ROAR'!