Osho – The East has respected the Master tremendously. The West is absolutely unaware of the phenomenon of the Masters. It knows the teachers, it is perfectly aware about the teachers, but not about the Masters. Even people write about jesus as a great teacher – western scholars write about Buddha as a great teacher – not knowing the difference. The difference is immense; the difference is so immense that it is unbridgeable. The Master is a totally different world.
The teacher is part of the ordinary, day-to-day existence. He knows more than you know: the difference is of quantity, not of quality. You can know more by just a little more effort. The teacher is just a little ahead of you as far as learning, knowledge, information, is concerned, but his being is the same as yours.
The Master may not know more than you, he may not know even that much as you know, but he IS more – he has more being. The difference is of quality: he exists on a different plane. He has entered a totally different dimension of which you are completely oblivious. He knows only one thing, that is his own inner being. And that knowing cannot be called knowledge for the simple reason because knowledge needs three things: the knower, the known and between the two exists the knowledge. The relationship between knower and the known: that is knowledge. But when you know yourself; the knower is the known, the knower is the knowledge; there is no distinction at all. There is no subject and no object. There is unity, not division.
The Master is one who has become united in the fundamental sense of ultimate consciousness. He is simply conscious. This consciousness gives him a totally different world view; with this consciousness everything else changes. He sees things in a new light, his eyes are unclouded. He has clarity, he is transparent, he is a pure mirror, crystal clear – not even a thought moves in his consciousness. Hence there is no more any veil, no more any obstruction.
The teacher is so full of thoughts that he is just the opposite end of the Master. Never call Buddha a teacher or Jesus a teacher or Lao Tzu a teacher – they are Masters. Moreover, they don’t teach at all – why call them teachers? They don’t impart any new knowledge to the world. Albert Einstein can be called a great teacher, Newton can be called a great teacher. Darwin can be called a great teacher, Marx, Freud – these people can be called great teachers: they have taught many things.
What Lao Tzu has taught? What Buddha has taught? What Zarathustra has taught? Nothing at all! But they have imparted a new vision, a new style of life. They have touched people’s heart, and they have transformed those hearts. They don’t give you information, they give you transformation. What they say is not important, what they are is important. What they say is only a device; their silence is important.
If you want to understand Buddha, Lao Tzu, Ko Hsuan, Kabir, Nanak, you will have to learn how to read between the lines. You will have to learn how to understand silence and the music of silence. You will have to be silent. It is a totally different kind of learning – in fact, it is un-learning. Whatsoever you know you will have to drop. You will have to drop all your beliefs, ideologies, philosophies. All that has been given to you by your teachers from the kg to the university level, you will have to get rid of it, you will have to transcend it. You will have to transcend all your teachers, only then you will be able to understand a Master. A Master is against all teachers.
The East has not respected teachers; its total respect goes to the Masters. The teachers are utilitarian; they are experts. If something goes wrong in your bathroom you call the plumber. He knows more than you as far as plumbing is concerned, but that is no reason to pay him great respect and call him ”venerable”. Something goes wrong with your body, you call the doctor. He is another kind of plumber: he fixes your body. If you want to learn mathematics you go to a teacher.
You go to a Master only when you are tired of all this utilitarian existence. When you have come to see that there is something more, when you have felt a deep urge, a great longing, to know that which is non-utilitarian, which has intrinsic value, which can neither be sold nor purchased, which has no price but immense value, when you have come to feel the existence of the mysterious, of the miraculous, then only you are capable of contacting a Master.
In fact, the ancient Egyptian scriptures say: When the disciple is ready the Master appears himself. And when the disciple is ready? When he is tired of the utilitarian world. In the world everything has a utility; but God has no utility, truth has no utility, love has no utility, bliss has no utility, beauty has no utility. What is the utility of a rose Flower? An atom bomb has utility, a sword has utility. What is the utility of a beautiful sunset? There is no utility in it. Only when you start feeling the longing for the non-utilitarian you are capable of being with a Master; otherwise you will go on moving from one teacher to another teacher.
To be with a Master needs tremendous preparation. And the greatest thing required is the longing for the unknown, the longing for that which is not of this world. The longing seems to be almost mad to those who are concerned with money, power, prestige. They will think you have gone crazy if you become interested in meditation, if you become interested in silence. if you become interested in a Master. But the East has paid tremendous respect to the Masters.
Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol 2″