When you come to a master like Jesus you come for peace. You are blissfully unaware that you have come to the wrong person. As you are, you cannot get peace. And if somebody gives you peace, it will be death to you. As you are, if you become peaceful, what will it mean? It will mean the struggle has ceased before you have attained anything. As you are, if somebody makes you silent, what will that mean? You won’t have achieved any self, and you will be consoled by your situation. This is the way you can know a false master from a true master: a false master is a consolation, he gives you peace as you are, he never bothers to change you; he is a tranquilizer. He is just like sleeping pills: you come to him and he consoles.

But this is the criterion whether you have come to a true master: whatsoever peace you have, that too will be destroyed; whatsoever “at-easeness” you have is going to go to the dogs. He will create more turmoil, more conflict. He is not going to console you because he is not your enemy; all consolations are poisons. He will help you to grow. Growth is difficult and you will have to pass through many difficulties. Many times you would like to escape from this man, but you cannot because he will haunt you. Consolation is not the goal; he cannot give you a false peace. He will give you growth, and out of that growth some day you will flower. And that flowering will be the true peace, the true silence. Consolation is false.

People come to me and I can see the way they come, the problems they bring: they want consolation. Somebody comes and he says, “I am in much difficulty. My mind is not at peace, I am very tense. Give me something; bless me so that I become peaceful.”

But what would that mean? If this man could be made at peace, what would that mean? Then the man would never change. No, that is not the way. Even if a real master consoles you, that consolation is just like a fishing net. You will be caught in the consolation and then, by and by, he will create chaos.

You have to pass through chaos, because as you are you are absolutely wrong. In this state if somebody consoles you he is your enemy. With him you will lose time, life, energy, and in the end consolations won’t help. When death comes, all consolations will evaporate.

There was an old man whose son died. He came to me and he said, “Console me!”

I said, “I cannot do that; that is sin.”

He said, “I have come for that.”

I told him, “You may have come for that, but I cannot do it.”

He said, “But I went to the shankaracharya and he consoled me. He said, ‘Don’t bother, don’t be worried; your son is reborn in a high heaven.’”