Judgment by Intention or Action?

The real masters are not bound to any disciple and not after exposing good character to impress other. They follow the spontaneity encountered on the context. If there is any tool to judge them, it is the intention behind their action. They are motivated by love/compassion.Others are guided by fears. Here goes the three stories. Contexts are same. Actions may be different, the indicator is the intention. Enjoy!

One

A very rich woman served one monk for thirty years. The monk was really beautiful, always aware, disciplined. He had a beauty that comes naturally when your life is ordered – a cleanness, a freshness. The woman was dying, she was very old. She called a prostitute from the town and told the prostitute, ”Before I leave my body I would like to know one thing – whether this man I have been serving for thirty years has yet attained or not.” The suspicion is natural, because the man has not yet abandoned the whip and the rope. The prostitute asked, ”What am I supposed to do?”

The woman said, ”I will give you as much money as you want. You just go in the middle of the night. He will be meditating, because he meditates in the middle of the night. The door is never closed because he has nothing which can be stolen, so you just open the door, and just watch his reaction. Open the door, come close, embrace him, and then come back and just tell me what happened. Before I die, I would like to know whether I have been serving a real master or just an ordinary, mediocre being.”
The prostitute went. She opened the door. A small lamp was burning; the man was meditating. He opened his eyes. Seeing the prostitute, recognizing the prostitute, he became afraid, a slight trembling, and he said, ”What! Why have you come here?” And when the woman tried to embrace him, he tried to escape. He was trembling and furious.

The woman came back and told the old lady what had happened. The old lady ordered her servants to vacate the cottage that she had made for this man, and be finished with him. He had not reached anywhere. The old woman said, ”At least he could have been a little kind, compassionate.” This fear shows the whip is not yet abandoned. This anger shows awareness is still an effort, it has not become natural, it has not become spontaneous.

 

Two

Once a monk on the way to collect his daily food came across a house of wealthy prostitute.  Those days, the prostitutes used to have great respect and called as Nagarbadhu. The prostitute are always attracted by the monks. They have glow in the face and the carefree in walk. Such a charm! While giving him food, she requested to enter her house and take rest. The monk looked deeply in her eyes, sensed the lust, replied

 

“It is my honor to be with with you. This time, very famous, wealthy and handsome people are in way to enter your house. Wait for some time. I will come to you when everybody will ceases to visit you”.

 

Then the monk left. Time passed, the woman getting older, and the whole bodily charm in her vanished away, not to mention her illness. In such state of utter helplessness and grief, there was knock in the door. She surprised years passed no body cared to look to her house, let alone visit her. She did not trust her ear. Suspiciously, she opened the door and saw the monk with ever glowing beauty in his face. He came to her and fulfilled his promises. There was no lust in her expression, she had known every facade of the lust, its meaninglessness. Then said,

“ Do you like to walk in the peace and painlessness?”. It was like oasis. She bursted into tears, “yes”.

“Come with me. It is right time for you. Last time, I did not entered you house as there was no use. The cloud of desire had surrounded to you. I had waited the right time to visit you”. Then he taught the path.

 

Three

In Gautam Buddha's time there was one beautiful woman -- she was a prostitute, Amrapali. One Buddhist monk was just going to beg when Amrapali saw him. She was simply amazed because kings have been at her door, princes, rich people, famous people from all walks of life. But she had never seen such a beautiful person -- and he was a monk, a beggar with a begging bowl. She was going on her golden chariot to her garden. She told the bhikkhu,

"If you don't mind, you can sit with me on the chariot and I will lead you wherever you want."

She was not thinking that the bhikkhu would be ready to do it, because it was known that Buddha did not allow his bhikkhus to talk to women, or to touch any woman. And to ask him to sit on a golden chariot in the open street where there were thousands of people, hundreds of other bhikkhus, other monks...She was not hoping that he would accept the invitation, but he said, "That's good," and he climbed on the chariot and sat by her side. It was a scene. She was one of the wealthiest women the world had known.

The world knows only two women -- one in the West, Cleopatra, and one in the East, Amrapali -- who are thought to be the world's most beautiful women. And a bhikkhu with a begging bowl...!A crowd was following the chariot,

"What is going on there? Nobody has ever heard..."
And then the bhikkhu said, "My camp has come. Thank you for your being so kind to a poor man. You can drop me here."

 

But Amrapali said, "From tomorrow, the rainy season is going to be here." In the rainy season the bhikkhus, the monks, don't move. They stay in one place -- only for the rainy season. The remaining months they are always on the move from one village to another village. "From tomorrow, the rainy season is going to begin. I invite you to stay with me. You can ask your master."

He said, "Jolly good, I will ask the master. And I don't see that he will object, because I know him -- he knows me, and he knows me more than I know him."

But before he reached, many others had reached and complained that the man had broken the discipline, the prestige, the respectability... that the man should be expelled immediately. The bhikkhu came -- Buddha asked him, "What happened?"

He told the whole thing and he said, "The woman has asked me to stay with her for the coming four months' rainy season. And I have said to her, `As I know my master I don't think there is any problem, and my master knows me better than I know him.' So what do you say?"
There were ten thousand monks, and there was pin drop silence. Gautam Buddha said, "You can accept her invitation."

 

It was a shock. People were thinking he would be expelled, and he was being rewarded! But what could they do. They said, "Just wait. After four months Buddha will see that he has committed a grave mistake. That young man will be corrupted in that place, in a prostitute's house. Have you ever heard of a monk staying for four months...?"

The man stayed for

four months, and every day rumors were coming that "this is going wrong" and "that is going wrong." And Buddha said, "Just wait, let him come. I know he is a man who can be trusted. Whatever happens he will tell himself. I don't have to depend on rumors." And when the monk came, Amrapali was with him. He touched Buddha's feet and said, "Amrapali wants to be initiated."

 

Buddha said, "Look, about all these rumors... When a real meditator goes to a prostitute, the prostitute has to change into a meditator. When a repressed person who has all the sexuality and is sitting on a volcano goes to a prostitute, he falls down. He was already waiting for it -- not even a prostitute was needed. Any woman would have done that”.

Source:  "The Sword and the Lotus "  and other discourses by Osho

 

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