| |
all equal. Seeing this situation, my own understanding is that Adam and Eve escaped, they were not driven out. It was a revolt against a state where everything was available and there was no way to find anything new. Escaping from that kingdom, man started searching.
I have reasons to say that.... In India the twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jainas are all kings who renounced their kingdoms. Gautam Buddha was going to be the king, the only son of his old father. He escaped before he was crowned as a king. The ceremonies were prepared for -- because the old man wanted Gautam Buddha to be crowned before him; he wanted to see his son on the throne. Seeing the situation, Gautam Buddha escaped. He had seen everything, he had all that was possible in those days for anybody to have in his possession. The most beautiful women of the kingdom were collected just for his pleasure. His father had made three different palaces in different places, for different seasons.
In India, just in my childhood, seasons were absolutely certain. They became disturbed only after the second world war; otherwise, each season was four months. And it was absolutely determined: the winter comes exactly on one date, the winter goes exactly on one date.
The old king had made three beautiful palaces in his kingdom, so when it was summer Gautam Buddha could move to a hill station; when it was winter, too cold, he could come to the plains, near a beautiful river; when it was too rainy... he had found a place for him where it was a pleasure, not in any way a trouble.
There is a place just nearby where Gautam Buddha was born... perhaps in the whole world that is the place where it rains the most -- five hundred inches per year! In Poona it rains only seventy inches per year. Even to live in a nearby place, Khandala, is very difficult -- it rains two hundred inches per year. That means for days it goes on raining, you cannot come out, for days there is no sun, for days it is just rain and rain. Just conceive, five hundred inches... In four months there will not be a single day perhaps when it is not raining, and great floods... The father had found a faraway place where rain
|
|
|