Words from the Master

A small story:

There was a great Zen Buddhist monk, an enlightened Master.
One day, the Governor of Japan came to visit him.
The Governor sent in his visiting card to the Master. It had the words, ‘Zak-San - Governor of Japan’.
The Master took one look at the card and said, “I have no business with this idiot! Ask him to leave this very minute!”
Zen Masters can be very harsh when they want to break somebody’s mind, somebody’s ego. They will never hesitate to use harsh words. The energy behind their words can simply pierce and transform a person.
The disciple came back to the governor, gave back his card and repeated what the Master had told him.
The Governor saw the card and understood. He was an intelligent man… not just intellectual, but intelligent also!
When the card and message were returned to him, he quietly struck out the words, Governor of Japan, and gave back the card to be shown to the Master.
The Master took one look and said, “Show him in!”

All our titles, our designations, are all mere labels pasted on us by society. They are all just labels that society pastes on us. And we go about thinking that we are these labels. We by and by forget that we are not the labels but the stuff inside. We feel great about the labels. But you can never approach a Master with these labels. You can never know Existence with your labels.

What the Governor did cannot be called wrong. It might have been the right way to approach society, to be in accordance with the social protocols, but not the right way to approach a Master!

So when you come in, leave your governorship outside! Otherwise you will miss a lot. Here, something transpires between the Master and the seeker. We are going to share something of the inner world. Labels of the outer world will stand in the way when this is happening. Forgetting your personality is spirituality, because personality is societal. We are here to find our individuality – our inherent nature, our aloneness that we enjoyed in our Mother’s womb, our connection with Existence – the only connection we need to find and celebrate!

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.