Chapter 12

I have been working the whole night because of a small remark I made which may have been hurtful to Devaraj. He may not have noticed it, but it has been sitting heavy on me all night. I could not sleep. I had said, "No Buddha has ever had a personal dentist, but Gautam the Buddha had a personal physician." That was not quite right so I consulted the records, the Akashic records.

I will have to say a few more things, which nobody cares about, particularly the foolish historians.

I was not consulting history. I had to go in what H.G. Wells called THE TIME MACHINE, back into time. It is the hardest work, and you know I am a lazy man. I am still huffing and puffing.

Buddha's physician, Jeevaka, was given to Buddha by a king, Bimbasara. Another thing is that Bimbasara was not one of Buddha's sannyasins. He was just a sympathizer. Why did he give Jeevaka to Buddha? - Jeevaka was Bimbasara's own personal physician, the most famous of those days - because he was competing with another king whose name was Prasenjita. Prasenjita had offered Buddha his own physician. He had just mentioned that, "Whenever you have need, my personal physician will be at your service."

This was too much for Bimbasara. If Prasenjita could do it then Bimbasara would show him that he could offer his most cherished physician to Buddha as a gift. So although Jeevaka followed Buddha wherever he went, he was not a follower, remember. He remained Hindu, a brahmin.

That was strange - a physician to Buddha, continuously with him, even in his most intimate moments, and still a brahmin? That shows the truth. Jeevaka was still on salary from the king.

He was in the service of the king. If the king wanted him to be with Buddha, okay, a servant has to follow the order of his master. Even so he was very rarely with Buddha because Bimbasara was old, and again and again he needed his doctor, so he called him back to the capital.

Devaraj, you may not have thought about it, but I felt sad that I had been a little cruel. I should not have said that. You are as unique as one can be. As far as having been a physician to a Buddha is concerned, nobody can be compared to you... either in the past or in the future, because there is never going to be a man so simple, so insane that he calls himself Zorba the Buddha.

That reminds me of the story I was telling you. A great burden has been lifted from my heart. You can even see it in my breathing. I am really relieved. It was just a simple remark, but I am so sensitive, perhaps more than a Buddha is supposed to be. But what can I do? I cannot be a Buddha according to anybody else; I can only be myself. I am relieved of a great burden that you may not have felt at all, or perhaps deep down you were aware of it and you giggled just to hide it. You cannot hide anything from me.

But strangely, awareness becomes even more clear and unclouded by anything that helps the body to disappear. I am holding on to this chair just to remind myself that the body is still there. Not that I want it to be there, but just so that you all won't freak out. There is not enough room in here for four people to freak out. Yes, if you freak in, there is enough room anywhere.

Now we come to the story. I call it a story - not that it is, but so much in life is storylike that if you know how to read life, you won't need a novel. I wonder why J. Krishnamurti reads novels, and third-rate detective novels at that. Something is missing in him. Alas, he cannot see it, a man of such intelligence, or perhaps he sees it and is trying to deceive himself through detective novels.

He says he is fortunate not to have read the BHAGAVAD GITA or the KORAN, nor the RIG VEDA...

yet he reads detective novels! He should also say that he is unfortunate in that he reads detective novels; he never says that. But I know because I was also a guest in the same house where he used to stay in Bombay. The lady who was our hostess asked me, "I want to ask you only one thing:

I don't see you reading detective novels - what's the matter?" She said, "I thought every enlightened person must read detective novels."

I said, "Where did you get this nonsensical idea?"

She said, "From Krishnamurti. He stays here too; my husband is his follower. I too am a lover and a sympathizer. I have seen him reading third-rate detective novels and I thought there must be something in it. Please forgive me for being curious about something very personal, but I was looking in your suitcase. I thought perhaps you were hiding detective novels in it."

I used to carry not just one suitcase, but three big ones. She must have thought that I was carrying almost a library of detective novels with me, but she could not find even a single book. She was puzzled.

Other friends from Varanasi, where J. Krishnamurti stays, have asked the same thing. Still other friends from New Delhi have asked the same question. It cannot be wrong; so many people from so many different places asking the same question again and again. Many people have seen him reading a detective novel while traveling by plane. In fact, to tell you the truth, I myself saw him by chance, on a plane traveling from Bombay to Delhi. He was reading a detective novel then. As destiny would have it, we were both traveling on the same plane, so I can say absolutely that he reads detective novels. I don't need any witnesses; I myself am a witness.

But I can create a story about any small thing that happens; it just has to be brought into a proper context. This morning I was telling you about the time when the queen of Bhopal visited our village, which was part of her state, and she invited us to be her guests at her annual celebration. When she was in our village she asked my Nani, "Why do you call the boy Raja?"

Raja means "King," and in that state, the title of Raja was of course reserved for the owner of the state. Even the queen's husband was not called "Raja," but only "Prince," "Raj-kumar," just as poor Philip in England is called "Prince Philip"... not even "King." Yet strangely he is the only man there who looks like a king. Nor does the queen of England look like a queen, nor does poor Prince Charles look like the proverbial Prince Charming.

The only man who looks like a king is not called a king, he is only called "Prince" Philip. I feel sorry for him. The reason is that he does not belong to the same blood line, and it is blood that determines everything, at least in their idiotic world. Otherwise blood is blood. In the laboratory, even a king or queen's blood will not show up as anything different.

Both of you here are doctors, and one is a nurse, and the fourth is, although not a doctor or a nurse, almost both together, without a certificate, of course. You can all understand that blood cannot be the determining factor. Queen Elizabeth has the right blood - right, not according to the scientist, but according to the idiots. Charles is her son, at least fifty percent; he has the heritage. Philip is a foreigner, and just to console him they call him "Prince."

In the same way, in that small state at that time, the woman was the head and she was called the queen, rani, but there was no raja. Her husband was only a prince "Raj-kumar." Naturally she asked my grandmother "Why do you call this boy of yours Raja?" You will be surprised to know it was really illegal in that state to give the name Raja to anybody. My grandmother laughed and said, "He is the king of my heart, and as far as the law is concerned, we will soon leave this state, but I cannot change his name."

Even I was surprised when she said we would soon be leaving the state... just to save my name?

That night I said to her, "Nani are you mad? Just to save this stupid name... any name will do, and in private you could call me 'Raja.' There is no need for us to leave."

She said, "I feel in my very guts that we will soon have to leave this state. That's why I risked."

And that is what happened. This incident happened when I was eight, and after just one year we had left that state forever... but she never stopped calling me Raja. I changed my name, just because Raja - "the king" - seemed so snobbish, and I didn't like to be laughed at by everybody in school, and moreover I never wanted anyone else to call me Raja except my grandmother. It was a private affair between us.

But the queen was offended by the name. How poor these people are, the kings and the queens, the presidents, the prime-ministers... what a lot! Yet they are powerful. They are idiotic to the maximum, yet powerful also to the maximum. It is a strange world.

I said to my grandmother, "As far as I understand, she is not only offended by my name, she is jealous of you." I could see it so clearly that there was no question of doubt. "And," I told her, "I am not asking you whether I am right or wrong." In fact that determined my way for my whole life.

I have never asked anybody whether I am right or wrong. Wrong or right, if I want to do it, I want to do it and I will make it right. If it is wrong then I will make it right, but I have never allowed anyone to interfere with me. That has given me whatsoever I have - nothing much of this world, no bank balance, but what really matters: the taste of beauty, of love, of truth, of eternity... in short, of oneself.

What is the time, Devageet?

"Three minutes before eight, Bhagwan."

So good. I have been hard on you too this morning. I will not say anything about it, only this much:

with whomsoever I love, I forget that I have to behave. Then I start doing or saying things which are okay if I am alone, and that's what love is - to be with someone as if one were alone - but sometimes it can be hard on the other person.

I can always say "sorry," but it is so formal. And when I hit, and I hit often, it is so loving that a formal "sorry" won't do. But you can see my tears, they say more than I can... many times more. I remind you, in the future too I will be hard, perhaps harder, on you. That's my way of being loving. I hope you will understand; if not today then tomorrow, or perhaps the day after tomorrow. More than that I cannot say, because at least for these two days I am booked. I am going to be here. It remains open, but for the next two days I am certainly going to be here.

I was saying that after one year we had left that state and that village. I have told you before that on the way my grandfather died. That was my first encounter with death, and it was a beautiful encounter. It was not in any way ugly, as it more or less happens for almost every child around the world. Fortunately I was together with my dying grandfather for hours, and he died slowly... by and by. I could feel death happening to him, and I could see the great silence of it.

I was also fortunate that my Nani was present. Perhaps without her I may have missed the beauty of death, because love and death are so similar, perhaps the same. She loved me. She showered her love upon me, and death was there, slowly happening. A bullock cart... I can still hear its sound...

the rattling of its wheels on the stones... Bhoora continuously shouting to the bullocks... the sound of his whip hitting them.... I can hear it all still. It is so deeply-rooted in my experience that I don't think even my death will erase it. Even while dying I may again hear the sound of that bullock cart.

My Nani was holding my hand, and I was completely dazed, not knowing what was happening, utterly in the moment. My grandfather's head was in my lap. I held my hands on his chest, and slowly, slowly the breathing disappeared. When I felt that he was no longer breathing I said to my grandmother, "I'm sorry Nani, but it seems that he is no longer breathing."

She said, "That's perfectly okay. You need not be worried. He had lived enough, there is no need to ask for more." She also told me, "Remember, because these are the moments not to be forgotten:

never ask for more. What is, is enough."

Is it enough? Just ten minutes for me; I will tell you when to stop. I am more in a hurry than you are... I seduced you at last. Now I can say, with great joy, stop it.