Gautam Buddha used to tell his disciples, ”Before you become enlightened, imbibe the spirit of compassion.”
One of his disciples, Sariputta, asked him, ”Why this insistence? – because we have heard you say many times that ‘enlightenment brings compassion,’ so what is the need to imbibe the state of compassion before enlightenment? This seems to be contradictory.”
Gautam Buddha said, ”It seems to be contradictory, but the purposes are different. The compassion that comes to you after enlightenment... you will not be able to share it if you have not practiced, disciplined yourself before enlightenment for this tremendous experience to happen – to remain alive just for the sake of those who are still groping their way in the dark alleys of life.”
Hence, there are two kinds of enlightened people: one is called the arhata, and the other is called the bodhisattva. The arhata is one who has not disciplined himself in the art of compassion; so when he becomes enlightened, his work is finished. He has no need to linger on this shore of life, his boat is ready to go to the further shore.
The bodhisattva has the same experience of enlightenment, but he has disciplined himself in compassion; so when enlightenment comes to him – that tremendous treasure of knowing oneself, one’s love, one’s truth, one’s beauty, one’s joy, one’s blissfulness – he’s so disciplined in compassion that, although his boat has arrived, he will try to linger on this shore as long as he can, to share.
He has come to a completion as far as he is concerned. But what about others? – they are millions, and they are suffering in the same way he has suffered. Their misery is great, their blindness has remained with them for centuries; but now he knows it is curable, now he knows he can give them a helping hand to find the way out, to open their eyes, to look at themselves.
His presence may trigger the same experience in others, it is contagious. The question is just that it is very difficult for him to linger on because the captain of his boat goes on calling, ”Your time is up, and I have to go to the further shore – you enter into the boat.”
Gautam Buddha used to say, ”Don’t die as an arhat – it is a perfect death, you have come home.
Die as a bodhisattva – not only have you come home, but you have put thousands of others afire.”
His own story, when he died, is tremendously beautiful. It is just a story, but it carries his essential teaching: that when you have, share. When you have, then see that it is not possessed only by you – keep alert that it does not become a possession to you. Let it become the possession of all.
When he himself died, after forty-two years of lingering on this shore keeping his boat waiting, the story is that he reached the doors of paradise. Those doors rarely open, only once in a while, in centuries – visitors don’t come every day. And whenever someone comes to those doors, the whole of paradise celebrates it; one more consciousness has attained to flowering, and existence is far more rich than it has ever been before.
-Osho
The Rebel
CHAPTER 19. THE PROMISE OF PARADISE
The Rebel
CHAPTER 19. THE PROMISE OF PARADISE
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