News For Every Seeker

The words of the master... a deadly enemy!

 by Osho

Your attitude towards the verbal teachings of the buddhas and the great masters must be as hostile as that toward a deadly enemy.

The implication is that you should not believe in the word, but look for the experience. The word may be coming from the greatest master, but still, it is a word. And howsoever Buddha may have found himself, his nourishment is not going to be your nourishment. If he has quenched his thirst, all that he can say is, "Water has helped me to quench my thirst." You can go on repeating "H20" as a mantra but your thirst will not be quenched.

Zen says:

Think of all
the great words and great teachings
as your deadly enemy.
Avoid them,
because you have to find
your own source.

Intense fire of inquiry

You have not to be a follower, an imitator. You have to be an original individual; you have to find your innermost core on your own, with no guide, no guiding scriptures. It is a dark night, but with the intense fire of inquiry, you are bound to come to the sunrise. Everybody who has burned with intense inquiry has found the sunrise. Others only believe. Those who believe are not religious, they are simply avoiding the great adventure of religion by believing.

Being an individual seeker

Zen wants you to be an individual seeker. Throw away all the scriptures, burn all the scriptures, never take anybody's word as your truth. It is a great challenge, and it needs strength, it needs integrity, it needs a love for truth at any cost. Only those who gamble everything for truth are the blessed ones. The world of religion is not the world of the businessman. It is the world of the gambler, who risks everything on the unknown -- he does not know what is going to happen.

Gambling for an unknown result

A man who can gamble everything for the unknown result -- that's exactly the situation of a religious man. You are renouncing all the scriptures and all the great masters' words, and you are going into your own inner world without any guide, without any map, without any companion, alone, on a path never walked by anybody. Your inner path is your path; nobody else can walk on it.

Osho, excerpted from Turning In #6

In this Osho quote about the teachings of a master it is shown that every seeker's way is unique. A seeker cannot rely on the master's words, he has to gamble his was into the unknown.