Disciple Hood
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 the 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 stay 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. It was also thirsty. It looked into the river, it saw
another dog there -- its own image -- and became afraid. It would
bard and run away, but his thirst was so much that he would come
back. Finally, despite his fear, it 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, and 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 knowledge ability.
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 Disciple
hood 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."
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