Gautam Buddha is passing by a town and the people of the town are all against him because they say he is corrupting people. He is telling them what is not right. He is telling them not to worship but to meditate, not to bow down to stone statues but to “enter into your own being, your own life source.” He is destroying people’s religion.
The people of the town had gathered to condemn him, to insult him. He silently listened. Their words were ugly. Even Gautam Buddha’s nearest disciples became angry. But in Buddha’s presence of course they had to be silent and not speak; otherwise they would have killed those people.
But Buddha finally said, “I have to reach to another town and the people there must be waiting. The sun is rising and becoming hotter. You will have to excuse me. I have heard whatever you wanted to say. If you are still in need of saying something more, on my return trip you can fulfill that desire too. But I just want to ask you one question.”
They said, “But we are enemies — and it is not a conversation. We have not come here to ask questions or to talk to you, or to listen to you.”
Buddha said, “No, that is not a problem. Just a small question: In the other town before, people who love me came with flowers and sweets to offer to me. But we eat only one time a day so we told them, `We are sorry, we are thankful to you, but you will have to take them back. It is too early for us to eat…'”
Buddhists eat only one time in the middle of the day. And the Buddhist cannot carry food or anything edible with him.
“I want to ask you,” he said to the people, “what should they have done with the sweets and the flowers?”
One man from the crowd said, “They must have distributed them to the children, who must have eaten and enjoyed them.”
Buddha said, “That’s all. Just as I rejected what they brought I reject what you have brought. Now go back home and enjoy. Distribute whatever you have brought to your children, your friends, your wife.
“If you had come ten years ago, none of you would have gone back alive. I am a warrior” — and he was a prince, well trained in swordsmanship. He could have finished them all. “But,” he said, “you came too late. Now I have only compassion for you and love for you and a prayer that existence may bring you some light so that you see that I am not the problem. The real problem is that you are not certain of your religion, not certain of your beliefs. You have repressed many doubts inside and my presence brings those doubts. It is not my problem. Now what can I do? I had not even entered in your town. I was going from the outside, not to disturb you.”
They were stunned. They could not believe that you can insult somebody and he says I don’t accept it; it is not natural. You are insulting and the other man is silently saying, “You can keep it, I don’t want it. It is your problem, it is not my problem. You are angry: burn into your anger, but why harass me?”
A man of truth behaves so totally differently from the common masses that it becomes very difficult for the crowd to accept him. Only very intelligent people, very alert people can understand that there cannot be any law for a man of understanding.
Laws are made for criminals. A man of understanding cannot commit a crime. He cannot even dream of committing a crime. His meditation cleanses his whole being of all possibilities of the poisons that can erupt any moment. His eyes become pure clarity, perceptivity. He can see far away to each action and its consequence.
TRUTH ROCKS ! 