THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 The ...

358 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
are carrying within themselves: that a Buddha has to be extraordinary, that a Jesus has to walk on water. You
cannot walk on water, so how can you be a Jesus? A buddha has to be special, from the very beginning.
The stories say that before Buddha was born his mother had a few dreams. Those dreams are absolutely
necessary. If the mother has not had those dreams before the birth, then the person cannot be a buddha. Now
this is sheer stupidity! Joining Buddha with the dreams of his mother is sheer nonsense, there cannot be a more
stupid idea.
And what kind of dreams? Jainas have different dreams. Before Mahavira is born, the mother has a few dreams.
She sees one white elephant that is a must. Every tirthankara, every prophet of the Jainas, before he is born has
to be preceded by a dream of the mother of a white elephant as if the son is going to be a white elephant!
Buddha’s mother has to see a few dreams, a series of dreams.... These are just stories, fictitious, created by
the followers afterwards. The story is that the mother of a buddha has to die immediately when he is born, she
cannot live. How can she live after such a great phenomenon? It is so vast and so big, the experience is such that
it is bigger than death, she simply disappears. But Mahavira’s mother lives, Jesus’ mother lives; they didn’t have
that idea there. But they have other ideas: that when Jesus is born he has to be born to a virgin mother.
Now people can go to absurdities, to the very extremes of absurdities, just to make one thing settled in your
minds: that Jesus IS special while you are ordinary. Now where will you find a virgin mother?... and you have
already missed. Next time maybe you try again to find a virgin mother and unless you conspire with the Holy
Ghost, it is impossible. How will you manage? And then three wise men have to come and a star has to lead
them. Now stars don’t do that at all, no star can do it. Stars go on their routes; they cannot lead the wise men
from the East to the exact place where Jesus is born in a stable, in a poor man’s house. Stars can’t do that that
is impossible.
These fictitious stories have been invented just to give the idea that you are ordinary and these people are
special.
My whole effort here is to proclaim to you that if they are special you are special, if you are ordinary they are
ordinary. One thing is certain: you don’t belong to different categories, you belong to the same category.
The miracle is not walking on water, the miracle is not walking in fire; the miracle is waking up. That is the
real miracle. All else is nonsense.
Wake up... and you are a buddha! Wake up and you are enlightened! And when you wake up it is not that you
will become totally different from your ordinary self; you will be the same person but luminous. You will eat in
the same way, but it will not be the same, there will be an intrinsic difference. You will live in the old way, yet it
will not be the old because you will be new. You will bring a new touch to everything and whatsoever you touch
will start turning into gold, will start turning into something meaningful. Before it was meaningless, now it will
have significance and meaning. And it is time that you wake up!
The master cannot force you to wake up; the master can only create a situation in which a process can be
triggered in you. And any situation can be helpful.
Lao Tzu became enlightened just by seeing a leaf, a dry leaf falling from a tree. As the leaf started falling
towards the earth, he became enlightened. Now what happened? Seeing the dead leaf falling on the wings of the
wind, with no idea of its own, utterly relaxed, utterly surrendered to the winds, he had a glimpse. He must have
been in a very vulnerable state. And from that very moment he became a dead leaf in the winds. He surrendered
his ego, he surrendered his clinging, he surrendered his own ideas of what should be and should not be. He
surrendered all his mind, he simply became a let-go. And that’s how he became enlightened.
Anything can trigger the process. The master only creates a thousand and one situations. Who knows what
situation is going to trigger the process?
Here you are going through hundreds of groups, doing all kinds of meditations, because nobody can predict in
what moment, in what situation, what is going to trigger the process. It has always happened in such a mysterious
way, it is not a scientific phenomenon. It is not a question of cause and effect, otherwise things would have been
easier. You heat the water to a hundred degrees and it becomes vapor but it is not like that. A few people
evaporate at zero degrees, a few people evaporate at a hundred degrees, a few people evaporate at one thousand
degrees. People are not matter; people are consciousness, people are freedom, so nobody knows what will trigger
the process. Not even the master can say that this is going to trigger the process. He can arrange all kinds of
devices and he can wait patiently, lovingly, compassionately, prayerfully, and you have to move through all kinds
of devices.
I am talking to you. Any word may trigger it... or maybe just a pause may trigger it... and suddenly the sleep
is gone, the dreams have disappeared. You are born, spiritually born, twice-born. You have again become a child.
That’s what buddhahood is, that’s what enlightenment is.