God willing, tomorrow it is going to happen
When a great Sufi mystic, Hassan, was dying, somebody asked, ‘Hassan, who was your Master?’
He said, ‘Now it is too late to ask. Time is short, I am dying.’ But the
inquirer asked, ‘You can simply say the name. You are still alive, you
are still breathing and talking, you can simply tell me the name.’
He said, ‘It will be difficult because I had thousands of Masters. If I
just relate their names it will take months and years. 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 the village it was very late. Half the night
was already gone; shops were closed, caravanserais were closed. There
was not a single human being on the roads. I searched for somebody to
inquire of. 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, “I am a thief,
and you look like a Sufi mystic to me.”‘ His robe, his aura. ‘And the
thief said, “Right now it will be very difficult to find any place to
stay, but you can come to my home. You can stay with me — if you can
stay with a thief.”
Hassan said, ‘I hesitated a little bit. Then I remembered. If the thief
is not afraid of a Sufi, then why should the Sufi be afraid of a thief?
In fact, he should be afraid of me. So I said, “Yes, I will come.” And I
went, and I stayed with the thief. And the man was so lovely, 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, you do your work.” And
when he would come back I would ask, “Could you get anything?” He said,
“Not tonight. But tomorrow I will try again.” And he was never in a
state of hopelessness.
‘For one month continuously he came empty-handed, but he was always happy. And he said, “I will try tomorrow. God willing, tomorrow it is going to happen. And you also pray for me. At least you can say to God, ‘Help this poor man.'”
And then Hassan said, ‘When I was meditating and meditating for years on
end, nothing was happening, and many times the moment came when I was
so desperate, so hopeless that I thought to stop all this nonsense.
There is no God, and all this prayer is just madness, all this
meditation is false — and suddenly I would remember the thief who would
say every night, “God willing, tomorrow it is going to happen.”
‘So I tried one day more. If the thief was so hopeful, with such hope and trust, I should try at least one day more.
And many times it happened, but the thief and the memory of him helped
me to wait one day more. And one day, it happened, it DID happen! I
bowed down. I was thousands of miles away from the thief and his house,
but I bowed down in his direction. He was my first Master.
‘And my second Master was a dog. I was thirsty and I was going
towards the river, 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 barked and the other dog barked, too. But his thirst was so much
that he would hesitate and go back.
He would come again and look into the water and find the dog there. But
the thirst was so much that he suddenly jumped into the water, and the
image disappeared. He drank the water, he swam in the water — it was a
hot summer. And I was watching. I knew that a message had come to me
from God. One has to jump in spite of all fears.
‘When I was on the verge of jumping into the unknown, the same fear was
there. I would go to the very edge, hesitate, and come back. And I would
remember the dog. If the dog could manage, why not I? And then one day I jumped into the unknown. I disappeared and only the unknown was left behind. The dog was my second Master.
‘And the third Master was a small child. I entered into a town
and a small child was bringing a candle, a lit candle, hiding it in his
hands and 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, jokingly, “Can you tell me from where the light came?"
"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 you have lit it, so you must have seen the light coming —
from where?”
And the boy laughed and blew out the candle, and said, “Now you have seen the light going, where has it gone? You tell me!”
And my ego was shattered, and my whole knowledge was shattered. And that moment I felt my own stupidity. Since then I dropped all knowledgeability.’
Hassan talked about three Masters. And he said,"There have been many more, and no time is left for me to talk about all of them."
Moral : Yes, its true. There can be millions of Masters. One has to learn from every possible source.
If you can be that kind of disciple you need not have a Master. But remember, it is not that you do not have a Master. Either you choose one or you choose all, but in any case you have to be a disciple.
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. What actually happens when you choose a Master..? You start learning how to learn. And with one Master, slowly you get in tune, and slowly slowly you see the point that in the same way you can get in tune with the whole existence.
The Master is just a miniature of the whole. Coming closer to the Master you start becoming aware of the beatitude, of closeness, of love, of intimacy, of involvement, of commitment. And slowly slowly you see the point that if just being so close to one single person can be such a tremendous joy, how much more it will be when you are close to the whole. The Master is just the beginning, the Master is not the end. And the true master is only a door - through you pass or go beyond. The true Master helps us to go beyond him.
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