Osho,
Need one be absolutely sure about a guru to become his disciple?

You can never be absolutely sure about a guru, and that is not needed. What is needed is that you should be absolutely sure about yourself. How can you be sure about a master? You exist on two different levels, two different states of mind. Whatsoever you can see, whatsoever you can understand, whatsoever you can interpret, will not be of much use – and there is more possibility of your going wrong than right. But there is no need, so don’t be worried about it.

You have to be sure about yourself, about your search, and if you are sure about yourself then you can devote yourself to a master totally. Remember, the totality of surrender is not going to come from the surety about the master; it is going to come from your own surety, your own totalness. The master is bound to remain paradoxical for you unless you yourself become enlightened, because only the same can understand the same.

Only when you have become a buddha will you be able to understand Buddha – never before. When you have become a christ, when Christ is known to you, you can understand; never before. Christ is bound to remain a mystery, and a mystery means paradox. Christ will appear to you as irrational, not because he is irrational but because he is supra-rational, he is beyond reason – and you don’t know anything about beyond reason. At the most you can think he is below reason, he is not rational. And the ways of a master are so secret that sometimes he will create a situation in which he will not allow you to be sure about himself, because if you can be absolutely sure about the master then your surrender is meaningless. Then what is the meaning of it? When you are absolutely sure of the master then it is a bargain, then you cannot do anything else other than surrender. When you are uncertain, then surrender is a device; in your uncertainty, hesitation, still you decide. That decision changes you.

The more mysterious a master, the more is the possibility of transformation through surrender. If the master is known to you, just as two plus two makes four, then there is no mystery. Sufi masters particularly will create rumors about themselves, so the new ones who come to them can only enter not because they are sure about the master, but because they are sure about their search – and they are ready to take a risk. Why do you want to be sure about the master? – because you don’t want to take the risk. Your mind is a business mind. When a master is something mysterious….