Note—about 30 years back, I listened to Jap Ji Sahib Translation of OSHO –Acharya Rajneesh. Almost the entire audio cassette got erased due to inadvertent re recording. But some portion-- 8 minutes of that cassette remained intact. I listened to it in Hindi again recently. And following is its translation in English………
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UNDERSTANDING FROM A GURU—AN EXCERPT FROM OSHO’S DISCOURSE
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For “understanding” from a Guru you will have to be fully prepared and earnestly focused. You will have to practice the art of sitting silently and calmly in front of Him. When you go to Him, leave your head in your home. If you carry your head (intellect), you will not be able to listen to His instructions. Even if you hear, you will not be able to “understand” Him. Your intellect will modify and manipulate everything He says. He will say something and you will understand something totally different. Because the teachings of a Guru are not meant to be listened by the brain. Brain has nothing to do with the message that Guru gives.
When Guru gives his discourse, you do not have to think whether he is right or wrong, correct or incorrect. That is why His sayings are meant to be listened with trust, faith and devotion. Since the Speaker is the Guru, He is saying the Truth. You are not the thinker and the judge to decide whether what He is saying is right or wrong. If you feel that you have to “think” about what He is saying or said, then you are in the presence of a teacher and not a Guru. You are in a school and not in “Sadh-Sang”. In school, you have the liberty to ask what is right or wrong—be a questioner, do a debate and argue.
The purpose of coming to a Guru is that ‘I’ am tired of my own decision making. “I” can no longer reach my conclusions. The purpose of going to a Guru is that “I” am fed up by my own thinking. A stage has arrived that “I” cannot think by myself. “I” am troubled by my own self and that “I” have come to “leave” that self. Briefly, this is a state of “shraddha”---faith imbued with supreme love, respect , gratitude and humility.
You go to a Guru when you are convinced that your own affairs are in a mess. There is no point in going to a Guru, if you still believe that you are a man of wisdom. You are then your own guru and still meant to be a vagrant and a vagabond. You are required to suffer more for sometime with your own doubts, disbelief and suspicions. This means more heat and pain is required to cast you in the right mold.
Go to the Guru only when your self gets fully fatigued and fed up. Going to a Guru with half baked mind is very agonizing. Many go to the Guru, when they are not ready. By lack of readiness-- it means-- they trust their own thinking power. They will analyze whether what Guru has said is right or wrong. They believe they still have the right to choose. Such persons will abide by what they consider is right and reject what they sense is wrong. So they are under the command of their own will. It cannot be called faith and conviction. It cannot be understood even a “surrender”. You have “left” nothing. The objective of going to a Guru is that you are ready to “leave” your own self. Then what Guru is saying or said is the only “right” thing. You have to consider or decide nothing. Only then you will be to “understand” from Him and only with such a heart “understanding” can come.
Sikh is the one who has “understood”. Sikh word is a very loving—it is derived from the Sanskrit word “Shishya”---the one who is ready to “seek” and the one who is “understood” is Sikh. The one who is playing with his own intellect and is not ready to seek, cannot become a Sikh. You can robe/attire yourself like a Sikh—but that solves nothing. You may pose like a Sikh but nothing can be achieved with that posturing. Because to be a “Sikh” is a inner mutation-- a mega transformation of mind and heart.
Says Guru Nanak Sahib –“Matt Vich Ratan Jawahr Maanik, Je Ik Gur Ki Sikh Suni.”
Listening to even thousands ideas is of no avail. But listening about the “ONE” that Guru says means totality of “Understanding”. ---(acquisition of spiritual treasure)
You have listened to so many talks and ideas and nothing has happened. Read so much and still no change is felt. The reason is simple that you have not heard from where it is meant to be heard.
There are two channels of hearing—one from the head and the other from the heart. When intellect hears, duality/multiplicity manifests—it analyses-- whether it is true or false, whether what is said is worth accepting or rejecting. Intellect cannot cross the barrier of ego and arrogance. Intellect considers heart foolish. Intellect can never trust heart. That is why all of you have crushed the heart. Heart cannot be trusted as it may entrap us in crisis in future and for that one may have to pay very dearly.
On the way, when one sees a hungry beggar, heart melts and says “give”—but the intellect says no— let me first make sure that the man is not a swindler or an employed beggar and if he is fit and fine why does not he earn? Intellect will raise thousands reservations and the sentiments of compassion will be buried by the intellect. When love beats in the heart, intellect will promptly pounce that love is a very dangerous emotional happening—oh, man—where you are going! Beware-- be careful-- lest you repent. Love has destroyed many!!
The path of intelligence is wide and safe like a Raj-Path—a royal high way, but the lane of love is circuitous route of a hillock going to the top, where it can get lost in jungles. Reason and logic says-- go ahead where the crowd is moving as that appears to be much safer-- Proceed where all are going.
Love is the lane of loneliness. That is why love needs privacy. It wants to be ‘alone”. Love urges “give all”—intellect will demand application of mind and thought. “First Find”—and then consider about giving (surrendering) will be inner voice of cerebrum.
In this way nothing can be given. Love says surrender, bow your head on the feet and eliminate the self. Intellect will argue how is that possible as this world is full of deceit and deception. In the name of faith and trust many are robbing others.
But just consider what you have that will be ‘robbed’ of. What is that you possess that you will be deprived of? Poverty of mind and thought are your only possessions —and that you are trying to preserve? And if you continue to hear the intellect, slowly but surely the heart starts shrinking and finally it gets crushed—so to say –in pieces. You fail to hear the voice of heart as intellect bolts it with manifold doors. And then when you love, that too happens with the involvement of brain. Just introspect and you will realize that the origin of your love is in the cerebrum. Even if you say “I love thee with all my heart and mind”—but these words are readily pouring out from the power of intellect. When you feel the pulse of your heart, you will find it has no pull, dance, song or vibration.
“Understanding” from the Guru can only be acquired by the heart. That is why Kabir has said that the one who “cuts” his head can only be worthy of becoming a Sikh.
