Deceiving others is your regular habit. It has gone into the very roots. You do it without knowing you are doing it, that is the problem. You go on posing. If it is a regular habit, how can you suddenly drop it when you come to a master? There also the regular habit will persist.

Mahakashyapa, Sariputra, Maudgalyan, all great disciples of Buddha, had to wait for two years before Buddha would start teaching. Sariputra asked, “Why do we have to wait for two years?”

Buddha said, “Just to provide a gap so that your old habits slow down, because if they persist you will not listen to me; if they persist it will not allow you to see me; if they persist, whatsoever you do will be a confusion. Just two years – let things slow down. Two years, don’t do anything. Just remain silent, watchful, so that you can become aware of things which you have been doing continuously without knowing that you were doing them.”

Posing, showing, being that which you are not, is dangerous. And with a master it is absolutely dangerous because it is not going to help anybody and you are missing an opportunity. Never pose. If you pose then the authentic cannot surface; then the posture remains all around you. If you have many faces, then when and how will the original face surface? Allow the original face to come; drop all postures, drop all faces. For a few days you will feel dizzy without a face. You will feel very uncomfortable without your old pattern and habits. For a few days you will feel that you have lost your identity. That’s okay, that’s how it should be.

One has to lose one’s identity in order to regain the real identity. One has to lose all faces to gain the real face – that which you had before you were born, and that which you will have after you have died. When you are no more, the original will be with you. Never pose. Now try to enter this story.

For nearly twenty years, Houn, a layman devoted to the study of Zen, lived at Yakusan Temple, and undertook discipline under Master Igen.

Twenty years! One-third of life, and he waited as if there was no hurry. Twenty years! Just think! Two days seem to be too long, two months, two years – twenty years seem just a whole lifetime. He must have come when he was nearabout twenty, a young man, and when he came out of the temple he was already old. Your whole youth, your whole energy has to be devoted to the search. Remember, time-consciousness will be a barrier.

There is a Zen story:

One old man was dying. He called his son and told him, “I would like you to attain to meditation before I die, because in my whole life I have come to realize that nothing is more important. So I am not giving you riches, I am not giving you any prestige or power of this world; this is going to be my only gift. So you go to a master and learn meditation.”