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 A young man, with a great desire to know the truth renounced his family, his world, and went in search of a master. And as he was leaving the town he saw an old man -- he must have been near about sixty -- sitting under a tree, so silent, so blissful, so attractive, so magnetic that he was pulled. Unknowingly, accidentally, he went to the old man and told him that he was in search of a master. "You are an old man, and I can feel the flavor of your wisdom. I can feel a certain radiance around you. Perhaps you will be able to tell me where I should go, and what are the criteria -- how am I going to decide that this is my master? There are masters and masters, but who is the master who is going to lead me to the ultimate?"
The old man said, "It is very simple," and he described exactly what kind of a man he would be, what kind of an atmosphere he would have around him, how old he would be -- even under what kind of tree he would be sitting.
The young man thanked the old man. The old man said, "The time to thank me has not come yet; I will wait for it." The young man could not understand: "What does he mean, he will wait for it?"
For thirty years he was searching for the master in the deserts, in the mountains... but he could not find all the criteria fulfilled. Tired, utterly frustrated, he went back home. He was no longer young. When he left he must have been thirty, now he was almost sixty.
But as he was entering his home, he saw the old man still sitting under the tree. He could not believe his eyes. He said, "My God. This is the man he described -- he even said he would be ninety years old... and this is the tree! I must have been so absolutely unconscious that I did not look at the tree under which he was sitting. And the fragrance that he described -- the radiance, the presence, the aliveness around him...."
He fell at his feet and he said, "But what kind of joke is this? Thirty years I have been wandering in the deserts, in the mountains. And you knew it."
The old man said, "My knowing does not matter. The question is whether you can know it. I had described it perfectly, but you had to go through all this wandering around for thirty years. Only after this struggle of thirty years, would you have a little alertness. That day you wanted to thank me, and I told you the time had not come yet; one day the time would come.
And you are bothering too much about your thirty years' wanderings. What about me? "I have been sitting here for thirty years, waiting for you. My own work was finished long ago, my boat has come and is waiting for me. And I have been postponing and postponing for you, idiot, and you took thirty years! And I even described the tree, I described every feature of mine -- my beard, my nose, my eyes. In detail, I said everything, and you rushed in search of me!
"But it is still not too late. I was worried that if I died, my word, my promise would not be fulfilled -- `That idiot is bound to come sooner or later, but if I am not here then my description, my indication to him, will not be valid, will prove false.' Just to be authentic, I am sitting under this tree for thirty years! You could have chosen me that very day. But you could not help it, you did not have the eyes. You heard my words, but you could not understand the meaning. I was in front of you, describing myself, and you were thinking to find me somewhere else."
OSHO
The Osho Upanishad, Chapter-20
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