Osho on Shaktipat – Is Psychic exploitation possible in the name of Shaktipat by Gurus

Question : Is Psychic exploitation possible in the name of Shaktipat? How is it possible and how is the meditator to guard against it?

Osho : It is possible. Much spiritual exploitation is possible in the name of shaktipat. In fact, where there is a demand, a declaration, there is always exploitation. When a person declares that he will give, he will take something in return also, because giving and taking go together. Then whatsoever form it is in – in the form of wealth, in the form of reverence, in the form of trust – he will take. Where there is giving with insistence, then for sure there is taking.

And he who claims to give is bound to take more in return, or else there was no need for him to shout in the marketplace. A fisherman puts a worm on the hook of his rod because the fish does not eat the hook. Perhaps someday the fish may be coaxed into swallowing the hook directly, but it is the worm that attracts the fish to the rod and it swallows the hook with the intention of eating the worm.

It is only after swallowing it that it comes to know that the hook was the main thing and the worm was only a bait. But by then it is caught. So whenever you come across anyone who claims to do shaktipat, who claims to give you wisdom and take you to samadhi, who makes a thousand other claims, beware. Be aware, because he that belongs to the realm of the beyond makes no claims for himself.

If you tell such a person, ”Because of you I experienced grace,” he will say, ”How can it be? I do not even know. You must be mistaken. It must have happened by the grace of God.” So your thanks will not be acknowledged by such a one; he won’t even acknowledge that he was a medium for the happening. He will insist that grace descended because you were worthy of it – that was God’s compassion falling on you.

Who is he? Where does he stand? What is his worthiness? He does not come in at all: that is what he will say. Jesus was passing through a town. A sick man was brought to him. Jesus embraced him and he was cured of all his ills. This man told Jesus, ”How can I thank you? You have rid me of all my woes.”

Jesus replied, ”Do not speak thus. Give thanks where it is due. Who am I and where do I come in?” The man said, ”But there is no one else except you here.”
Jesus said, ”You and I are not. You are unable to see he who is – and all happens through him. He has healed you.”

Now, how can such a man exploit? The hook has to be covered with the worm in order to exploit. He is not even ready to own the worm, let alone the hook. So wherever a person claims results, be on your guard. When he claims to do this for you and that for you, he is only covering the hook with the worm. He is raising your expectations; he is inciting your hopes and desires. And when you are possessed by desire

and you say, ”Oh, beloved master, give…!” he will begin his demands. Very soon you will come to know that the worm was just on the top and the hook was inside. So watch your step wherever there are miraculous claims. It is dangerous territory. Avoid the path where some one waits to be your guru. There is fear of entanglement there. So how is the seeker to guard himself?

He should guard himself from those who make big claims, and thus he will save himself from all evil. He should not seek those who claim wonderful results; otherwise he will be in difficulty, because such men are also seeking. They are on the lookout for those who will fall into their trap. There are persons such as these going about everywhere. Do not ask for any spiritual gains and do not accept any spiritual claims.

What you have to do is entirely a different matter. You have to prepare yourself from within. And the day you are ready the happening is bound to take place. Then it will happen via any medium. The medium is secondary; he is like a hook. The day you acquire a coat the hook is ready to hang it by. Then the hook is not very important. If there is no hook you can hang your coat on the door. If there is no door you can hang it on the branch of a tree.

Any hook will work; the main question is of the coat. But we do not have the coat, while the hook calls out: ”Come here! I am the hook.” You will be caught if you go. You do not have the coat so what will you do by going to the hook? There is every danger of your hanging yourself on it. You have to seek your own worthiness, your own capability.

You have to make yourself ready in order to be able to receive grace when it comes. You do not have to worry about the guru at all; that is not your concern. That is why what Krishna
says to Arjuna is correct. He says, ”Carry out your action and leave the fruits to the divine.”

You have not to worry about the result of your action; that will become a hindrance. Then all kinds of complexities will arise: concern over what your action will yield, over what will be the result. And in your anxiety about the result your performance will go off. That is why the action itself should be our main concern.

We should be concerned about our own worthiness and receptivity. The moment our effort is complete – just as when a seed has reached its point of bursting – that very moment all is achieved. The moment the bud is ready to burst and blossom into a flower the sun is always ready, but we do not have the bud that breaks into a flower. Then even if the sun shines brightly in the sky it is of no use.

So don’t go seeking the sun; get involved in developing your bud. The sun is there for ever and is always available. No vessel remains unfilled for even a moment in this world. Any kind of receptacle becomes filled immediately. In fact, to be receptive and to be filled are not two happenings; they are the two sides of the same happening. If we were to remove all air from this room, fresh air from outside would at once fill the vacuum.

These are not two happenings, because as we remove the air in the room the outside air rushes in. Such are also the laws of the inner world. We are hardly even ready on our side when the fulfillment of our efforts begins to descend. Our difficulty is, however, that our demands start long before our preparedness. Then there are always false supplies for false demands.