We’re pulled to real masters because the person steps aside, God’s light shines through, and our hearts recognize it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, why are people drawn here as if by a magnet? Why are people held here? Is it our need? Or is it your magnetism? Sometimes I think you are a god who is playing for us and I am joyful. Then I think you are a sinister magician manipulating us and I am afraid and resentful. I wish I could believe totally in your disinterestedness. Is this all just my creating more nonsense?
And beyond that bridge, one day, the sunrise. And you see me as just pure emptiness. And through that emptiness, God's flowing -- God who is beyond God and evil, beyond good and bad, beyond sin and virtue. I WISH, you say, I COULD BELIEVE TOTALLY IN YOUR DISINTERESTEDNESS. Do you think God is disinterested in the world? Then why did he create it? The gospels say God created the world in six days, then he looked at the world and said, "It is good. It is beautiful." He created it and loved it. From where have you got this idea of disinterestedness? God is utter interest. We cannot say he is interested in the world because you will misunderstand it. It is better to say he is absolute interest, not that there is somebody who is interested: his whole being is interest. He is in tremendous love -- he…
Osho, what is that unknown force that is drawing us toward you?
Everything in life is unknown—even that which we think is known. Socrates once said: When I was young I thought I knew a great deal. As I grew older, my knowing grew too. But alongside it, step by step, another strange thing kept happening: the more I came to know, the more I realized how little I knew. And finally there came a moment in life when I had only one sentence left to say: I know only this much—that I know nothing. These are among Socrates’ last words. A lifelong journey in search of knowledge, and the outcome—the innocence of a small child who knows nothing. In Greece there is the temple of Delphi. In those days it was very famous; now only its ruins remain. The priestess of Delphi must have been like Ramakrishna. Sometimes, singing and dancing, she would fall unconscious. And what she uttered in that…
Osho, I am amazed to see how people are coming to your place of pilgrimage from countries far and wide, undertaking long journeys. And you, it seems, never even step out of your room! What is this miracle? Please explain.
So from the outside it seems that people are coming to this pilgrimage place from distant lands. They are coming because something within their hearts has begun to happen—and the heart recognizes no distances. The heart has never acknowledged distance. Distance is a measuring of the mind. But the heart can cross seven seas, for the heart knows how to dare. The intellect is a coward; it fears, it hesitates; it ties the boat with a strong chain to the shore, lest the boat slip away unknowingly. There are storms on the ocean—and there are always storms on the ocean, sometimes less, sometimes more. And the boat is small, the ocean vast; and the other shore is not visible. But at times the voice of that unseen shore can be heard. At times a glimpse of that unseen shore begins to descend within. At times the beauty of that unseen…
Osho, why are so many people attracted towards you from all parts of the world?
DON'T know! I am also surprised; it should not be so. The government is against me, the society is against me, all the religions are against me, and still people go on coming. All kinds of barriers are created, still people go on coming. Something mysterious is happening, something which cannot be explained. Something is transpiring which is elusive. That's why those who come as observers or spectators or journalists cannot catch hold of it. So they collect rumors in the town from people who never come here, and they go on reporting. Almost all over the world, in almost all the languages, there are rumors and rumors. This is very strange! The people have not experienced what is happening here, they have not been participants, and yet they think they have understood. There are things which can be understood only when you participate. You cannot know what love is…
Beloved master, what is it in a person that draws them to you and to what you represent? On the one hand, it seems that anyone with any intelligence and openness should be here. On the other hand, I can't claim to have found you through being either particularly intelligent or open. It seems I came to you in spite of myself, rather than because of myself.
That's the right thing to do -- coming to me in spite of yourself. Yes, there are people who come because of their openness, receptivity. There are people who come with their intelligence, with their rationality. But these are not going to be closest to me. You are fortunate that you are here in spite of yourself. That means neither a conviction of the head has brought you here, nor an openness of the heart has brought you here, but something which can only be called a magnetic pull between two beings. That's why you are puzzled: it is unexplainable. It is one of the greatest mysteries. Two beings can find each other -- pulled against their minds, against their logic, against everything -- nothing can prevent them. Something far more powerful than openness, than intelligence has made them aflame. Yes, there are a few people who are here just…