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Chapter 4 - This harvest moon
I said, "With me nothing is polite, either this way or that way. If you are not a buddha, then how is a conversation possible? I am a buddha, you are a mere scholar."
He said, "That seems to be true. When I heard you for the first time in a Buddhist conference in Bodhgaya you told a story. I loved the story, but I have been searching in Buddhist scriptures -- that story is not there! Now almost five years have passed and I am still looking in every nook and corner, because Buddhism has many scriptures ... maybe somewhere that story is. But there is no trace."
I said, "You are doing a wrong thing! You just write the story down in any of your scriptures. A buddha himself is speaking. And you can at least understand that that kind of story can happen only to a buddha. So it does not matter whether it happened to Gautam Buddha or to some other buddha, the taste of it is just like the ocean -- taste it anywhere and it is the same. Don't be bothered about who is telling the story, don't be bothered about the bamboo from which the song is flowing. It is not the bamboo but the hollowness of the bamboo that allows the singer to sing.
"Meditation makes you a hollow bamboo and the same universal spirit starts singing through you. So don't bother with unnecessarily looking into dead scriptures, write it down here, now, and add it to any Buddhist scripture."
He said, "That is very difficult. Nothing can be added, that would be very unholy."
I said, "Do you like the story?" He said, "I immensely like it."
I said, "Do you think anybody who is not a buddha can manage that story?" He said, "No, I don't think so."
"Then," I said, "be a little courageous. Scholars are always just like mice, no
courage at all. Be a lion!"
The story was a simple story I have told you many times, and I don't care whether it happened or not. It makes sense, it makes you understand something of the inexpressible, that is justification enough. If it did not happen, it should have happened. If I ever meet Gautam Buddha I will force him to correct the omission.
Anand Kausalyayan said, "I have another appointment."
I said, "I know you must have another appointment, that our conversation is not going to happen. But remember that all your scholarship and all your fame all over Asia, wherever Buddhism prevails, is worth nothing, because you don't have the courage to be a buddha. And being a buddha is not somebody's monopoly. Being a buddha is not being a Buddhist. A Buddhist is a follower, a buddha knows. A buddha has no need to follow anybody."
The story was that Gautam Buddha and Ananda, his disciple, were passing through a forest. They had just crossed a small stream. Buddha is an old man, and he says to Ananda, "I am feeling very thirsty, you just go back and from that stream bring me some water in my bowl."
Ananda took the bowl and went back. But meanwhile a few bullock carts had passed through the stream and had disturbed its water completely; it had become muddy. Dead leaves which were silently asleep on the bottom had surfaced to have another look at the world. The Osho - The Miracle
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