If you listen and do not put this listening into your life then it will not change from knowledge to knowing. But when you are listening in the presence of a living master and not in the videocassette, not in the audiocassette but sitting in front of the living master, then there is a difference. Even though you are listening, there is something of his living presence that has an effect on you. And that is more important. So, it is not that we gather the knowledge through listening or through reading; it is something more than that, which happens when you are sitting in front of the living master, of the living presence.

So I would prefer that you just try as much as possible to be with a living presence, with whom you can get something plus. Only words cannot help you because it gives you a concept, which creates knowledge that remains there as a dead knowledge; it does not change into knowing. That is why I insist that you should try to find a living presence not only here but also anywhere and just be in that living presence, so that something plus creates some effect on you.

And that helps for your growth, for your awakening because when something is spoken through a living presence and you listen, it has a different effect. It starts giving you some transformation, some understanding inside, which is only possible in the living presence. The Importance of a Living Master in your Search is that he Puts the Sugar on your Tonque for you to taste it. The words coming from a living master creates a living feel inside you. Reading his words in the books may create or enhance your thirst; it may intensify your thirst and take you in the direction to find the sugar.

But if you want to taste it you will have to find a living presence. You will not get that experience and that feel unless you find a living expression there. So the books definitely create the thirst, they definitely intensify the thirst. But it should definitely lead you towards the source where you can taste the sugar. When you read Osho’s book or any other master’s book it can intensify your thirst, it can take you towards the search, but the fulfillment is only possible when you come across a living expression.

A living expression has the capacity to connect you to the source. No words have the capacity to connect you to the source. Words can connect you up to the mind, up to your emotional point but not beyond that. Even when you connect to the last point of emotions by reading the words you will not get to the fulfillment. It will definitely intensify your thirst to the maximum. It can make you restless, it can make you disturbed but it cannot bring you the fulfillment. So reading has its own limitations; books have its own limitations.

But when you meet someone who is expressing this living-expression it has the capacity to fulfill you, to bring you that feel where your whole search ends. The search ends when you are connected to a living presence. Then everything becomes your knowing and that is the freedom from the knowledge. You know the sweetness and this knowing is your freedom from the knowledge about sugar. When you taste the living presence you are free from all the scriptures. You don’t have to carry any words because you know the essence.

But the books have their own importance because they can reach to the corners of the world. They can reach wherever there is a thirsty person and definitely intensify his thirsty in a way to put this person in search of some living water, some living expression where his thirst can be quenched. So this is fine as long as you don’t misunderstand that just gathering the knowledge is sufficient. The knowing is freedom, but the knowledge is a burden on you.  

Whatever becomes your own knowing, your own understanding, and your own clarity makes you free from all the searches. If you misunderstand that gathering the knowledge from the books is enough to feel that you know it, then this is not going to fulfill you. This is just knowledge and knowledge always becomes a burden, becomes bondage. It is not liberation; it is not freedom at all. And this thirst inside, this longing for freedom inside will not allow you to rest until you are fulfilled, until you are really free.

The Master gives you the Guidelines for you to walk on your own Journey. In the beginning you need a guide, not a master. The master understands that at certain point he has to be a guide. But you misunderstand the guide as the master and take him as a guarantee. Then you totally depend on him and the guide is gone. To be guided means that you take his guidelines to walk on your own journey. When you take the master as master and start following him you think that because you are surrendering to him he will take care of you.

Then you just sit totally on his shoulders while he walks. If you look at the child when he is learning how to walk you will see that in the beginning the child needs the finger of the mother because it is her finger that gives the child the confidence and the courage to walk.  If the child does not walk even while holding the finger of the mother, then it is of no use. The child has to take the steps. The confidence and the courage that is given by the finger have to be applied into his practical life. If he hangs on the finger because it is comfortable then he cannot learn how to walk.

 Then he will remain all his life crippled. The disciples are wiser and clever than the child; they do not only hang on the master’s finger but they also jump on his shoulders. When you become a follower you are doing nothing but jumping on the shoulders of the master. If you just remain as a co-traveler, he walks with you and you also walk with him. He just gives you some guidance while you are walking.  You have your own life to live and what you are doing is dropping it. You are escaping from life thinking that if you surrender to the master and follow him, it will be enough to take you there.

The child has to walk and in the same way the disciple has to live. To live means that you have to remain with life in whatever situation it is creating for you. If you remain an escapist with the excuse that you are following a master, then you are not going to learn how to live. Then during the entire time you will be dependent, enjoying sitting on the shoulder of the master and only walking when he is also walking. It is when the master becomes a part of you ego. And when the master becomes a part of your ego you start claiming that you are the disciple of the best master in the world.
 
Many people are trying to prove that his master is the greatest master in the world, so that they can be the greatest disciples in the world. This is a mind game, this is an ego game and this is an escape from life, because the mind is all the time trying to escape from the responsibilities of life. And for that it finds all the excuses available, like to be a follower, to surrender to somebody and all these spiritual excuses.  The Master is Just waiting for you to Get Tired.

When you are tired of your doings, of your meditations or whatever you are practicing, when you finally understand the whole point of getting yourself tired, the master asks you to go back to life and start living with acceptance. But before you understand it if he asks you to go back to life and just start living with acceptance you will not accept this. So, the period that you stay with the master is the time when the master is waiting for you to get tired. He waits till you can listen to his language and go back to the world, go back to life and live with this understanding, the way you are, wherever you are and with whatever you have.

He waits till you take your own time. How much time you are going to take will depend upon how strong your mind is, how strong your ego is. It may take years and years to get you tired, because maybe in that moment your mind plays its game and you might just change the technique or the master. There are so many possibilities that can happen, because the mind does not want to go through the nightmare. It keeps changing the dreams very fast. Only when your dreams reach to the point of a nightmare and become unbearable, whatever you do takes you to the ultimate point. Not before that.

Note: "This article is published with the permission from www.kiranji.com. Audios, videos of Kiran Bhai are available in the website for the seekers. (Highly recommended for sincere seekers)
 

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