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disciple has to rise to the heights -- only then he can cuddle the master.
I have given you a substitute. He is not a master, he is a simple human being and he would love being cuddled.
A master is always a friend, but his friendship has a totally different fragrance. It is less friendship and more friendliness. Its intrinsic part is compassion. He loves you because he cannot do anything else. He wants to share his experience because he can see you are searching for it, you are thirsty for it. He makes his springs of purest water available to you. He enjoys and feels grateful if you receive his gifts of love, of friendliness, of truth.
But rarely have you come across such a master, because the old style was for the master to be very serious and to keep a distance. To allow intimacy, to allow friendliness... he was afraid that his truth and his finding might be lost in the crowd.
I am a beginning and an end: the beginning of a new kind of master and an end of the old style of masters. Certainly I am not like Gautam Buddha; I have left him twenty-five centuries back. If I am just like Gautam Buddha, that means consciousness has not evolved higher than where Gautam Buddha left it.
I say unto you, consciousness has grown higher, reached bigger peaks, deeper depths than Gautam Buddha.
Gautam Buddha is a prototype of all the old masters. The disciple has to be kept far away. He has to learn discipline, respect, obedience. In a certain way it was a spiritual slavery.
I don't want you to be my slaves and I don't want you to obey me. I want simply that you should understand me, and if my experience is authentic and your intelligence is able to understand it, you will follow it on your own accord.
It is not obedience. I am not telling you to do something, I am telling you to simply understand and then follow your understanding wherever it leads. I am happy whatever you become; just remain truthful and sincere to your own being.
The old master asked, "Be sincere towards me, be authentic towards me, be obedient towards me." I simply cannot do such harm to you, particularly to those whom I love.
I want you
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