How Does The Guru Choose his Students?
Questioner: Praveen Vashisth from Pune. Acharya Ji Sat Sat Naman. I'm blessed that you chose me as your student. I had this pain in my heart for a very long time that I could not meet Rajanish Ji (Osho) when his body was alive. After going through many, many lives, I have somehow now come across your presence. I'm a fool. Please shed light on how and when the guru chooses the student. Naman.
Acharya Prashant: Just remain what you are when you are asking this question. When you are asking this question, you are a student, and you are saying you are a fool. Remain that way. Don't try to be intelligent enough to comprehend how the guru chooses the student.
You cannot say you are a fool and yet ask a very wise question. Keep all wisdom aside. If the guru has to choose the student, whose task and burden is it? The guru's. Leave the guru alone to do it. If the student starts speculating about the functioning of the guru, then he would not merely speculate but would also interfere — if not actively, then passively. It is inevitable because the student, being a student, is both foolish and motivated.
The student has desires and motives of his own, and to fulfill those desires and motives, he would do everything possible in his power. He would interfere with the functioning of the guru. So it is best that the student does not try to speculate about the guru. That alone is called surrender. That alone is an honest admission of the student's smallness. That alone constitutes the right relationship between the student and the guru.
Merely saying "I am a fool" does not suffice. One has to live in veneration. One has to live in constant humility.
The guru has already chosen you. Otherwise, how would such humility have been possible to you? The ego knows no humility. It is the touch of the guru that brings humility in the student. And look at your question — it is a humble one. From where did this humility come? Why are you still groping in the dark? Why do you still want to intellectualize about the guru?
The guru has already touched you. You are already chosen. The question is not how you are chosen or were chosen. The question is, would you please stop your efforts to get unchosen? That is the default state of affairs, the guru chooses the student. And the guru never rejects. By default, he always selects, he always chooses, he says "Yes, I am prepared to bless the student."
What else is the task of the guru? What else does the guru exist for?
If you want to give a meaning to the existence of a guru, the meaning is: the welfare of the student. The guru is the one who has gone beyond the imperatives of his own welfare. He seeks no personal improvement anymore. But he still is — for what? For whom? For the student.
So why do you ask: how does the guru choose the student — as if the guru has a stake in not choosing the student, as if the guru has stakes somewhere else?
The guru is constantly choosing the student. It is the student who is often determined to ensure that he is unchosen. I don't know whether a word like that exists in the English dictionary, but it's a very important word in the spiritual realm. We must coin this word if it doesn't exist — don't get unchosen.
The house of the guru has no gates at all. How will he even throw you out? The guru is such a helpless being, his house has no gates. Suppose he wants to throw you out — what can you do? Throwing out is possible only when there are a few gates at least, then you can be thrown out, and the gates can be bolted. Now there are no gates. There is just open space. That's how the guru looks at the world, that it is just open space.
But that same open space, in the eyes of the student, is walls, barriers, doors, windows, rooms, separations, so much. It's just open space that the student is seeing as all these divisions and diversities. So it is possible that the student can get himself thrown out of a door that the student himself created.
Please — in the world of the guru, in the dimension of the guru, in the eyes of the guru, there are no walls or houses or doors at all. So he cannot throw you out. But in the world of the student, doors and houses and separations and barriers and walls do exist. So the student can ensure that there is a separation between him and the teacher.
From the side of the teacher, there is never going to be a separation. From the side of the student — yes, a separation is very much possible. So it is a little absurd when the student says, "Kindly do not go away." The guru wonders, "Even if I want to go away, where would I go? What place do I have to go to?"
In an absolute sense, the guru is everywhere. So he cannot go to any place. He's helpless. It is the student who is not everywhere. So the student can come close to the guru and also go away to some place where the student thinks that the guru is not.
The guru very well knows that certain things are absolute. In the world of the student, absoluteness does not exist. The world of the student is a relative world. So the student can surely escape. He says, "The guru is here and not there. So if he is not there, then I can go there and find a space free of the guru."
Such delusions do not occur to the guru. They occur only to the student. So it is the student who goes away. Are you getting it? Do not ask that the guru chooses you. Be kind to the guru and don't unchoose him.
It's a love affair, in which the breakup comes only from one side always. There is one side that is forever the lover, and there is another side that plays hide and seek. It sometimes is so very excited, euphoric, hopeful, it wants to come very quickly to the guru. At other times, when its expectations are not met, when its personal world is not satisfied, then it says, "I'm going away. Breakup."
Praveen, only one side would break up, if ever — and that side is not the guru's side.
The grace of the Absolute is always there. You must find out what all you do to screen yourself against that grace. If grace does not reach you, it is almost like saying that sunlight does not reach you even at noon. You surely must be hiding under some rock or in some cave. It takes a lot to hide under a rock.
You better come out. The sun is pleasant. And the cave is dark, damp, humid, and full of all kinds of insects and filthy things. Why are you buried there? Come out in the sun. Let's talk of caves and stones rather than the sun. The sun is there — ready and present, brilliant and available as always. By talking about the sun's availability, we are trying to hide something.
We must come to the right topic. The right topic is stones and caves. We must talk of our little holes. We must talk of our filthy abodes. We must talk about where we take shelter, where we hide. We must talk of the mental sanctuaries we call our homes.
The sun is shining brightly. Even that which you call the night is just your part of the Earth turning its face away from the sun. The sun doesn't decide to turn its face away from you. Does the sun ever set? No, the sun does not set. The place where you are turns away from the sun, and then you call it a sunset.
What else is ego? I-centric world view. I-centric universe. I will not say that I have moved away from the sun. I will say that the sun has set. The sun never sets. You go away. Don't go away.
Questioner: Acharya Ji, does the self have compassion for the ego?
Acharya Prashant: You can't even call it compassion, because probably even compassion has limits. Compassion must be something that can be spotted, and that's why it has a name.
The question is: does the self have compassion for the ego? Because sometimes the ego needs to be helped. That's what Shreen has asked.
I'm saying what the self has for the ego cannot even be called as compassion, because compassion too has its limits. Compassion too can be spotted, and that's why compassion has a name.
You sometimes say, “Ah! this is an act of compassion.” Compassion too probably begins and ends. What the self has for the ego has neither a beginning nor an end. If you want to call it compassion, call it absolute compassion, call it unending compassion. We must not talk of what the self has for the ego. We must talk of what the ego has for the self.
What does the ego have for the self? You tell me? Fear, Hatred. “Oh my God! He will consume me. His compassion is an invitation, and this invitation is a destruction. If I respond to his compassion, I will have to go to him. And if I go to him, I'll be dissolved.”
What the self has for the ego cannot be named, and it should not even be an object of inquiry. For most of the time, on most occasions, we do not live as the self, as the truth. We live as the ego. So we must ask questions that are more directly relevant to us.
If I live mostly as the ego, then I must rather ask: what does the ego have for the self? What do I have for the self? That is a genuine object of inquiry. What do I have for him? Forget about what he has for you. What do you have for him? Ah! Come on, don't say you have undiluted love and nothing but love for him. Come on. I wish you were so innocent actually. No — you have more than that for him.
I won't say you have less than love for the self. I say you have more than love for the self. You have love and much more. You have love and lust for power, and possessiveness, an urge for security, and a tendency towards continuation, and a need for fulfillment of desires. That is what the ego has for the self. No? That's why we go to temples. Who goes to the temple? The ego goes to the temple. Why does the ego go to the temple? Because the ego loves truth? Is that so? No — the ego goes to the temple because the ego wants a new car.
So that's the moot question to ask: what does the ego have for the self? Don't ask, “What does God have for me?” Ask, “What do I have for God?” You don't merely have love for God. You don't merely have love for the truth or the absolute. You have a lot more towards the absolute. You have even fear towards the absolute. Is that not true? Aren't we often afraid of God? And —
Ego has reasons to be afraid, because God is the dissolution of ego. God is the very culmination of ego.
So we are afraid — “Oh my God, he will destroy me!” If we fear even God, are we capable of loving anything, anybody? Yes, there is unlimited compassion from the self towards the ego. Now let the ego rightly reciprocate.
