When the great Sufi mystic, Hasan, was dying, somebody asked “Hasan, who was

your master?”

He said, “I had thousands of masters. If I just relate their names it will

take months, years and 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 a village

it was very late, everything was closed. But at last 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 ‘At this time of night it will be difficult, but you can stay

with me - if you can stay with a thief’.

And the man was 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.’

When he came back I would ask ‘Could you get anything?’ He would say, ‘Not

tonight. But tomorrow I will try again, God willing.’ He was never in a

state of hopelessness, he was always happy. When I was meditating and

meditating for years on end and nothing was happening, many times the moment

came when I was so desperate, so hopeless, that I thought to stop all this

nonsense. And suddenly I would remember the thief who would say every night,

‘God willing,

tomorrow it is going to happen.’

And my second master was a dog. I was going to the river, thirsty 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 would bard and run away, but

his thirst was so much that he would come back. Finally, despite his fear,

he just jumped into the water, and the image disappeared. And I knew that a

message had come to me from God: one has to jump in spite of all fears.

And the third master was a small child. I entered a town and a child was

carrying a lit candle. He was 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, ‘There was a moment when the candle was unlit, and then there

was a moment when the candle was lit. Can you show me the source from which

the light came?’ And the boy laughed, blew out the candle, and said, ‘Now

you have seen the light going. Where has it gone? You will tell me!’ My ego

was shattered; my whole knowledge was shattered. And that moment I felt my

own stupidity.

Since then I dropped all my knowledge ability. It is true that I had no

master. That does not mean that I was not a disciple — I accepted the whole

existence as my master.

My Disciple hood was a greater involvement than yours is. I trusted the

clouds, the trees. I trusted existence as such. I had no master because I

had millions of masters I learned from every possible source.

To be a disciple is a must on the path. 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. With a master you start learning to learn.

The master is a swimming pool where you can learn how to swim. Once you have

learned, all the oceans are yours.”