A Good Disciple and Stories About an Avadhoota

Characteristics of a good disciple

Q: As a Guruji, do you want your devotees to be independent or dependent?

Mohanji: I would like my people to be self-sufficient. So, that we have a permanent relationship. When they are too dependent on me, sometimes they become blinded. I would like them to connect to me with awareness. If somebody connects to me just by looking at my form, they get nothing. But, if they connect to me as a consciousness, they get everything. There is a big difference between these two. I would like my people to be fully connected with awareness. When you stop being you, you become me. Me is not this this body, but the consciousness that I represent. As long as the mind is running the show, there are a lot of limitations. We are already always in frames.

When the frame is removed, that moment we embrace, we become one, and that is eternal. There is no way there can be separation. And that is not something which you understand with the mind, this is something which you experience on a daily basis. You know that you are fully and 100% I, me and my consciousness. That is why people talk about miracles. It is not just dreams, or this kind of things. It is because the unity of consciousness has projected the whole thing into another dimension. That is what is miracle.

If Baba left his body almost 100 years ago, how is he so active even now? The barrier of the body is broken. And even when he was in his body he used to attend quite a lot of things around the world. But, there is no way that he can be bound by the body. The expression becomes explicit when he actually shed the body. That is the time when he actually came to our notice. The man does not exist in the body, but the man exists. That gives a lot of awareness into the whole thing. However, when the person is in the body, you tend to get connected to the body and then you miss the show.

So, if you connect to the consciousness while the person is in the body, there is nothing more than that. You are connecting to the body and you are connecting to the consciousness, which means that you have no conflict with the body (body in a sense personality also), and at the same time you are totally occupied with the consciousness. That is a beautiful state for which you need to have pure awareness. 

First of all faith should be firm. Faith is like a bridge you create between two entities. And then through faith, you add the subtle aspect, the dimensional aspect. You say: ‘All these are expressions and this is me. I and my guru are one.’ Like Jesus said: ‘I and my Father are one. Through me you reach my Father.’ The guru is connected to the supreme consciousness, in that way the guru is supreme consciousness. I am connected to the guru, so I am connected to the supreme consciousness. That means you are fully occupied in the consciousness. Then there is no separation between the guru and disciple – when the guru thinks, the disciple acts. That kind of disciple is a big blessing to any guru (smiles).

A story 1

I will give you an example. There was one master. I think he left his body in 70s or 80s. He was a great physician and he was an avadhoota. All the time he was smoking. He was sitting and smoking. Sometimes his dhoti would have gone, he wouldn’t remember. He was a great physician, so whatever he had in hand he would give to people as a medicine. He wouldn’t even go to fetch the medicine. 🙂 If somebody came with an ailment, maybe he had peanuts or cashew nuts, he would give those couple of cashew nuts and said that it was ok, and they would get healed. One of his disciples was talking to me. He said it was very, very difficult to manage him because he had no order. There was one central minister who had some problem and was coming to see him.

The avadhoota told his disciple: ‘That car that is coming with the police, tell them that physician is dead.’

Disciple: ‘I can’t go and tell them the physician is dead, you are sitting here, smoking. How can I tell them that you are dead?’

Avadhoota: ‘Then what kind of a disciple are you? You don’t even follow what I say.’

Disciple: ‘I can’t lie.’

Avadhoota: ‘I made you lie. Then I am taking the karma why aren’t you obeying it?’

Disciple: ‘I will not go.’

Then this master/avadhoota went himself. Without a shirt just a dhoti. He went there and the minister was coming out, so he said: ‘What brings you here?’

Minister: ‘I came to see the physician.’

Avadhoota: ‘Oh, I am so sorry, he died.’

So, they left. The disciple came back and the master was sitting there, smoking.

The disciple asked: ’Why did you send this guy off?’

Avadhoota answered: ‘You know that man is like a mosquito. He is sucking everybody’s blood. He is a bad guy. I don’t want to keep him alive for a longer time.’

He was telling the truth. He said: ‘That man is actually a parasite, so why should I treat him and give him more life, so that he can suck more blood? I will not do that.’

Like that, the disciple was saying: ‘Many times I did not understand my guru. Whole life I lived with him and I never understood him because I always considered him as mad. Because he was behaving like this.’

A story 2

He told another incident. A group of tribal people came from the forest.  There are siddhas meditating inside. These people are connected with the siddhas, they don’t even come to the open. Deep in the forest in the area of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. They came and wanted to establish a temple in one of the caves. He told his disciples: ‘A tribal group is coming and we must really take care of them.’ So this tribal group came. They were hardly any dressed, they wore only dhoti. The master said: ‘Come on, get tea, coffee,…’ They seated them, gave them food, etc.

The disciple was surprised, what’s going on. Because they did not even discuss what they came for and the guru was treating them and giving them food. (laughs) Whenever they tried to say why they came, he would object. They needed support for building the temple. They just wanted two murtis, I think, because that was a cave. So, before they spoke, he would object, blocked it and they could not speak at all.

Then it was evening and they wanted to leave, but he said: ‘No, you are not going, you are staying here.’ And all these tribal people stayed in the ashram. Again they gave them food and everything. These people said: ‘When can we get to speak to him?’

In the morning, at six o’clock, the guru came, woke up everybody and asked: ‘Why are you sleeping here?’ Then they did not know what to say. 🙂 ‘You should have gone yesterday. Now it’s already very late. Go, go, go.” He sent everybody back. Then one of them said: ‘Swami we wanted some money or support with the murti.’ The guru said: ‘Do you think I have any money? I have no money.

You should ask people who have money, not me. Go.’ They looked at the disciples who were feeding them and they were all looking to the other side. 🙂 They didn’t know what to do. 🙂 It was terrible embarrassment, right?

A Story 3

The disciple said: ‘I had never understood this guru.’ The story is that one night the guru called his disciples and said: ‘Put a white cloth here, I am dying.’ So far they had experienced so many things and they never believed whatever he said. (laughs) They said: ‘You will never die. You will smoke and sit here all the time.’ But he said; ‘No, no, no I am dying. I am going to die. Put the white cloth.’

The disciple said: ‘You are not dying. Many times you felt you would die, you never died.’ Then he himself went inside, took a white cloth, spread it and he lay down. He said: ‘Call the ambulance. Take me to the hospital.’ (laughs) The disciples thought, ‘What would they say? It will be like making fun.’ They didn’t want to do it, but he insisted. Then he himself called the ambulance and they came. The disciples said: ‘There is some drama going on.’ The ambulance came, took him and put him. He was talking all the way to the hospital. He said: ‘At this place we should have a cowshed here, we should have this here, etc. ‘

He gave all the instructions for the land. The moment the ambulance reached the hospital, he closed his eyes. The doctors said, ‘He died two hours ago.’ Actually, the moment he lay on the cloth he died, but he continued to talk and act and he gave all the instructions. That is exactly how they made the ashram later.

My point is that disciples may not even understand the guru while the guru is in the body because they get too preoccupied with the personality. What happens then is that suddenly the guru dies and that is the time when the whole thing falls into place.

A Story 4

This guy was crying. He said Mohanji: ‘I am a sufficient idiot. I lived with him and all the time I cursed him because he was always putting me into problems.’ Sometimes a vehicle would come to deliver something and he would not pay the man. And he would keep the vehicle there the whole night. Then these people had to serve him food and other things and all the time they would be cursing the driver. In the morning he would say: ‘Why are you keeping the truck here? Why are you not paying?’ So, very, very crazy.

A Story 5

Next to the room where I was staying in the ashram there was a tree. I stayed in the doctor’s room because I was ‘VIP’ supposedly. So, I stayed at the doctor’s and next to the room there was a tree. There was apparently Yaksha Gandharva staying there and people were afraid to go there. One Mataji came. When Mataji entered the ashram he looked up and saw this person on the tree and told this guru: ‘You know, there is yakshi in you are ashram staying in the tree.’ He said: ‘Oh, yes, yes. She is my company.’ (laughs) Very good. Sometimes he goes and sits under this tree. People are afraid to go near that, but sometimes he goes and sits under the tree. When I was staying there, they asked me: ‘Are you afraid to stay there?’ I said: ‘No problem. This is ok.’

This is how some of these masters work and the disciples will have no clue. They only see the external and they decide, they criticize, they curse. And finally, when they leave, they are all regret. The same thing happened with Shirdi Baba and everybody, all the masters. Most of the time they did not understand. Who understood Osho?

Today, we read these things and we quote him, etc. But, did we understand? Do you understand him now? It is not easy. We quote past masters on Facebook so that people know that we have some knowledge, but do we know what we are quoting? If we actually understood that quote, we would never be the same.

Transcribed by Staša Mišić