Welcome Home ! Come in and have a cup of tea !

EVERYBODY IS WELCOME. Who you are is not relevant, you are welcome. At the gate of an enlightened Master, at the gate of a Joshu or a Buddha, everybody is welcome. The door is, in a sense, open: COME IN AND HAVE A CUP OF TEA.

What does this mean, "Come in and have a cup of tea?" Joshu is saying: COME IN AND RELAX. IF YOU GO TO OTHER SO-CALLED MASTERS -- so-called monks and sannyasis -- YOU WILL BECOME MORE TENSE; YOU  CANNOT RELAX. Go to a sannyasi: you become more tense, you become more afraid. And he creates guilt -- he will look at you with condemnatory eyes. The very way he will look at you will say that you are a sinner.

And he will start condemning: "This is wrong, that is wrong; leave this, leave that." THIS IS NOT THE WAY OF A REALLY ENLIGHTENED PERSON -- he will make you feel relaxed. There is a Chinese saying that IF YOU REACH A REALLY GREAT MAN YOU WILL FEEL RELAXED WITH HIM; if you  reach a false great man, he will create tension within you. He will make, knowingly or unknowingly, every effort to show that you are low, a sinner; that he is high, above, transcendental. A BUDDHA WILL HELP YOU TO RELAX -- because only in your deep relaxation will you also become a Buddha. There is no other way.

"HAVE A CUP OF TEA," Joshu said. "COME RELAX WITH ME." The tea is symbolic -- Relax. And if you are drinking tea with a Buddha, you will immediately feel that you are not alien, not strangers. And Buddha pouring tea in your cup... Buddha has come down to you. Buddha has come to "this", he has brought "that" to "this". CHRISTIANS, JEWS, CANNOT CONCEIVE IT; MOHAMMEDANS CANNOT CONCEIVE IT. If you knock at the Gate of Heaven, can you conceive of God coming and telling you, "Come, have a cup of tea." It looks so profane. God will be sitting on his throne, looking at you with his thousand eyes, looking at every nook and corner of your being, at how many sins you have committed -- judgment will be there.

This Joshu is nonjudgmental -- HE DOES NOT JUDGE YOU, HE SIMPLY ACCEPTS. Whatsoever you say, he accepts and says, "Come and relax with me." RELAXATION IS THE POINT. And if you can relax with an Enlightened person, his Enlightenment will start penetrating you. Because when you are relaxed you become porous, when you are tense you are closed. When you relax he will enter. When you are relaxed, comfortable, drinking tea, Joshu is doing something then. HE CANNOT ENTER THROUGH YOUR  MIND, BUT HE CAN ENTER THROUGH YOUR HEART. Asking you to have a cup of tea is making you relaxed, friendly, bringing you nearer, closer. And you remember, whenever you are taking food and drinking something with someone, you become very intimate.

FOOD AND SEX ARE THE ONLY TWO INTIMACIES. In sex you are intimate, in food you are intimate. And food is more basic an intimacy than sex, because when a child is born the first thing he will receive from the mother will be food. Sex will come later on when he becomes mature sexually -- fourteen, fifteen years afterwards. The first thing you have received in this world was food, and that food was a drink. So the first intimacy known in this world is between a mother and a child. Joshu is saying, "Come, have a cup of tea. LET ME BECOME YOUR MOTHER. Let me give you a drink." AND A MASTER IS A MOTHER.

I insist that a Master is a mother. A Master is not a father. And Christians are wrong when they call their priests "Father," because father is a very unnatural thing, a societal phenomenon. Father doesn't exist anywhere in nature except in human
society; it is a created thing, a cultured thing. Mother is natural. It exists without any culture, education, society. It is there
in nature. EVEN TREES HAVE MOTHERS. And you may not have heard that not only does your mother give you life, but even a tree has a mother. They have been experimenting in England. There is a special lab, Delaware, where they have been experimenting with plants, and they have come to discover a very mysterious phenomenon. If a seed is thrown in the soil, and the mother from where the seed has been taken is near, it sprouts sooner. If the mother is not near, it takes longer time. And if the mother has been destroyed, cut, then it takes very long time for the seed to sprout. THE PRESENCE OF THE MOTHER, EVEN FOR A SEED, IS HELPFUL. A MASTER IS A MOTHER, HE IS NOT A FATHER. With father you are related only intellectually, with mother your relation is total. You have been part of your mother, you belong to her totally.

The same is the case with a Master in the reverse order. YOU HAVE COME OUT OF MOTHER, YOU WILL GO INTO THE MASTER -- it is a returning back to the source. SO ZEN MASTERS ALWAYS INVITE YOU FOR A DRINK. They are saying in a symbolic way, "Come and become a child to me, let me become your mother, let me become your second womb. Enter me, I will give you a rebirth."

OSHO
A Bird on the Wing
Ch #4: Have a cup of tea.
am in Buddha Hall

posted by Subhuti at RiverIIOsho