This post has two sets of excerpts from two different discourses of Osho’s. Am listening to his discourses on Vedanta, Seven Steps to Samadhi. I had goosebumps listening to Osho describing how Buddha became enlightened…. Actually he narrated this in a later discourse (#9) and Buddha’s meeting with his wife Yashodhara was narrated in an earlier discourse (#7).
I just wanted to read them in my own sequence because it helps me to understand Buddha’s journey from being a husband, father to being a Master.
The following excerpt is from discourse number #9. To read the full transcript, click – The Means Is the End.
Buddha’s Enlightenment
“….Effort will not lead you to enlightenment, but without effort no one has ever achieved it. This may look like a paradox. It is not, it is a simple law.
Buddha tried for six years continuously, and no man has tried as totally as Buddha did. He made every effort possible, he went to every master available. There was not a single master Buddha did not go to. He surrendered to every master, and whatsoever was said he did so perfectly that even the master started feeling jealous. And every master finally had to say to Buddha, “This is all I can teach. And if nothing is happening I cannot blame you, because you are doing everything so perfectly. I am helpless. You will have to move to some other teacher.”
“….Buddha moved for six years, and he followed even absurd techniques when they were taught to him.
Somebody said “Fast,” so for months he fasted. For six months he was continuously fasting, just taking a very small quantity of food every fifteen days, only twice a month. He became so weak that he was simply a skeleton. All flesh disappeared, he looked like a dead man. He became so weak that he couldn’t even walk. He finally became so weak that he would close his eyes to meditate and he would fall down in a fit.
One day he was taking a bath in the river Niranjana, just near Bodhgaya, and he was so weak that he couldn’t cross the river. He fell down in the river and he thought that he was going to be drowned; it was the last moment, death had come. He was so weak he couldn’t swim. Then suddenly he caught hold of a branch of a tree and remained there. And there for the first time the thought came to his mind, “If I have become so weak that I cannot cross this ordinary small river in summertime when the water has gone completely, when there is no more water and it is very small, just a little stream – if I cannot cross this little stream, how can I cross this big ocean of the world, bhavasagar?
How can I transcend this world? It seems impossible. I am doing something stupid. What to do?”
“..He came out of the river in the evening and sat under a tree, which became the bodhi tree, and that evening when the moon was coming up – it was a fullmoon night – he realized that every effort is useless. He realized that nothing can be achieved, the very idea of achievement is nonsense.
He had done everything. He was finished with the world, with the world of desires. He was a king and he had known every desire, he had lived every desire. He was finished with them, there was nothing to be achieved, there was nothing worthwhile. And then for six years he had been trying all austerities, all efforts, all meditations, yoga, everything, and nothing was happening. So he said, “Now there is nothing more except to die. There is nothing to be achieved, and every concept of achievement is nonsense; human desire is but futile.”
So he dropped all effort that evening. He sat under the tree, relaxed, with no effort, no goal, nowhere to go, nothing to be achieved, nothing worth achieving. When you are in such a state of mind, mind relaxes – no future, no desire, no goal, nowhere to go, so what to do? He simply sat, he became just like the tree. The whole night he slept, and later on Buddha said that for the first time he really slept that night – because when effort is there it continues in sleep also.”
“…..That night there was no effort. Buddha said, “I slept for the first time in millions of lives. That was the first night that I slept.” Such a sleep becomes samadhi. And in the morning when he awoke he saw the last star disappear. He looked. His eyes for the first time must have been mirrorlike, with no content, just vacant, empty, nothing to project. The last star was disappearing, and Buddha said, “With that disappearing star I also disappeared. The star was disappearing and I also disappeared” – because the ego can exist only with effort. If you make some effort ego is fed – you are doing something, you are reaching somewhere, you are achieving something. When there is no effort how can you exist?
The last star disappeared, “And,” Buddha said, “I also disappeared. And then I looked, the sky was vacant; then I looked within, there was nothing – anatta, no self, there was no one.”
It is said Buddha laughed at the whole absurdity. There was no one who could reach. There was no one who could reach the goal, there was no one who could achieve liberation – there was no one at all, no entity. Space was without, space was within. “And,” he said, “at that moment of total effortlessness I achieved, I realized.” But don’t go to relax under a tree, and don’t wait for the last star to disappear. And don’t wait thinking that with the last star disappearing you will disappear.
Those six years must precede. So this is the problem: without effort no one has ever achieved, with only effort no one has ever achieved. With effort coming to a point where it becomes effortlessness, realization has always been possible.”
Buddha Meeting Yashodhara
Buddha’s meeting with his wife Yashodhara is beautifully described by Osho in discourse number #7 in his series of discourses titled Vedanta, Seven Steps to Samadhi. Reposting the excerpt here. If you want to read the entire transcript of the discourse click – You Become The Offering.
“……. Buddha became enlightened, and then he came back to his town after twelve years. He had escaped one night from his house without even telling his wife that he was leaving. He had gone to her room. She was sleeping with Buddha’s child, the only child, who was just a few days old.
Buddha wanted to touch the small child, to feel, to love and embrace, but then he thought, “If the wife is awakened she may start crying and weeping and may create a mess. The whole house will gather, and then it will be difficult to leave.” So he simply escaped from the door; he just looked in and escaped like a coward. Then for twelve years he never came back.
After twelve years, when he had become enlightened, he came back. His chief disciple was Ananda. Ananda was his elder cousin-brother, and before he took initiation with Buddha he had asked for a few promises. He took sannyas, he took initiation from Buddha, but he was older than Buddha, “So,” he said, “before I take initiation give me some promises as your elder brother, because once I have been initiated you will be the master and I will be the disciple. Then I cannot ask anything. Now I can even order you.”
These are the rules of the game. So Buddha said, “Okay.” He was enlightened, and this unenlightened man was saying, “I am your elder brother.” So Buddha said, “Okay. What do you want?”
He said, “Three promises. One: I will always be with you, you cannot send me anywhere else; wherever you go I will be your shadow. Second: even in the night when you sleep in a room I can come in and out – even while you are asleep. No rules will apply to me. And third: even at midnight when you are asleep, if I bring someone, a seeker, you will have to answer his questions.”
Buddha said, “Okay. You are my elder brother, so I promise.” Then Ananda took initiation, then he become a disciple, and Buddha followed these three things his whole life.
When he came back to his home, he said to Ananda, “Just make one exception, Ananda. My wife Yashodhara has been waiting for twelve years. She is bound to be very angry, and she is a very proud woman. Twelve years is a long time, and I have not been a good husband to her. I escaped from her like a coward, I didn’t even tell her. And I know that if I had told her she would have accepted it because she loves me so much, but I couldn’t gather the courage.
Now after twelve years, if you come with me when I go to meet my wife, she will feel even worse. She will think that this is a trick; that I have brought you with me so that she cannot express her mind, her suppressed anger, and the many things of these twelve years. And she will behave in a ladylike way, because she belongs to a very good family, a royal family. She will not even cry, no tears will come to her eyes; she will keep the rules of the game. So please, Ananda, only one exception I ask you, and I will never ask any other exception. You just wait outside.”
Ananda said, “Bhante, I think you are enlightened. You are no longer a husband and she is no longer a wife, so why play this game?”
Buddha said, “I am enlightened, she is not. I am no longer a husband, but she is still a wife, and I don’t want to hurt her. Let her keep her mind a little while and I will persuade her. I will persuade her to take a jump and become a sannyasin. But give me a chance. I am enlightened, she is not.”
So Buddha went inside the palace. Of course, Yashodhara was mad. She started saying things; she was angry, crying, weeping, tears coming down, and Buddha stood there, silent, listening to everything patiently, with deep compassion. When all her anger was out she looked at Buddha; when her tears were no more there in her eyes then she looked at Buddha. Then she realized that this man was no longer a husband and she had been talking to a ghost of her memory. The man who left her was no more there. This was totally a different man.
She surrendered, and she said to Buddha, “Why have you come? You are no longer a husband.”
Buddha repeated again, “I may not be a husband, but you are still a wife, and I have come to help you so that you can also transcend this misery, this relationship, this world.”
Do you have goosebumps as you read this ? Actually I would suggest that you listen to the discourses on Oshoworld.com. Here are the links – Discourse Number #9 and Discourse Number #7.
Listening to Osho, the Master of Masters is meditation … Listening to him speaking on Buddha is like listening to Buddha himself. Don’t miss the opportunity.
Thank you Master 🙏.
Disclaimer – I post excerpts from Osho’s books and discourses and sometimes share his quotes. In most of the posts, the link to the full audio or full transcript is given. Osho is the Master, and to understand him, please listen to him or read his books. These excerpts are my limited interpretations with my limited understanding. Nothing original and I could be totally off the mark. The highlights and italics/bold font is also done by me.