When the great Sufi mystic, Hasan, was dying, somebody asked "Hasan, who
was your master?"
He said, "I had thousands of masters. If I just relate their names it will
take months, years and it is too late. But three masters I
will certainly tell you about.
One was a thief. Once I got lost in the desert, and when I reached a
village it was very late, everything was closed. But at last I
found one man who was trying to make a hole in t he wall of a house. I
asked him where I could stay and he said 'At this time of
night it will be difficult, but you can say with me - if you can stay with
a thief'
And the man was so beautiful. I stayed for one month! And each night he
would say to me, 'Now I am going to my work. You
rest, you pray.' When he came back I would ask 'Could you get anything?' He
would say, 'Not tonight. But tomorrow I will try
again, God willing.' He was never in a state of hopelessness, he was always
happy.
When I was meditating and meditating for years on end and nothing was
happening, many times the moment came when I was
so desperate, so hopeless, that I thought to stop all this nonsense. And
suddenly I would remember the thief who would say
every night, 'God willing, tomorrow it is going to happen.'
And my second master was a dog. I was going to the river, thirsty and a dog
came. He was also thirsty. He looked into the
river, he saw another dog there -- his own image -- and became afraid. He
would bard and run away, but his thirst was so much
that he would come back. Finally, despite his fear, he just jumped into the
water, and the image disappeared. And I knew that
a message had come to me from God: one has to jump in spite of all fears.
And the third master was a small child. I entered a town and a child was
carrying a lit candle. he was going to the mosque to
put the candle there.
'Just joking,' I asked the boy, 'Have you lit the candle yourself?' He
said, 'Yes sir.' And I asked, 'There was a moment when
the candle was unlit, then there was a moment when the candle was lit. Can
you show me the source from which the light came?'
And the boy laughed, blew out the candle, and said, 'Now you have seen the
light going. Where has it gone? You will tell me!'
My ego was shattered, my whole knowledge was shattered. And that moment I
felt my own stupidity. Since then I dropped all
my knowledgeability.
It is true that I had no master. That does not mean that I was not a
disciple -- I accepted the whole existence as my master. My
Disciplehood was a greater involvement than yours is. I trusted the clouds,
the trees. I trusted existence as such. I had no
master because I had millions of masters I learned from every possible
source. To be a disciple is a must on the path. What
does it mean to be a disciple? It means to be able to learn. to be
available to learn to be vulnerable to existence. With a master
you start learning to learn.
The master is a swimming pool where you can learn how to swim. Once you
have learned, all the oceans are yours."
