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Gautam Siddhartha became enlightened, became a Buddha, was he the same man? No! If the same man becomes enlightened... it is impossible. The continuity is broken; the old man has simply disappeared. This is an absolutely new man. Siddhartha Gautam, the prince who had left his palace, wife and child, is there no more. That ego is there no more; that mind is there no more. That old man is dead -- the old pail has broken. Now this is absolutely new; this has never been there. That's why we give him a new name, we call him Buddha. We drop the old name, because that old name belonged to some other identity, to some other personality, to somebody else. That old name never belonged to this man.
Enlightenment is a discontinuous phenomenon. It is not continuous, because if it is continuous it can only be at the most a modified past; it cannot be absolutely new, because the past will continue -- modified, changed a little bit here and there, painted, polished, but the old will continue. It may be better, but it will still remain the old.
Enlightenment is like an accident. But don't misunderstand me, because when I say enlightenment is just like an accident, I am not saying don't do anything for it. That is not the meaning. If you don't do anything for it, even the accident will not happen. The accident happens only to those who have been doing much for it; but it never happens because of their doing. This is the problem: it never happens because of their doing; it never happens without their doing. That doing is not a cause for it to happen. The doing is just a cause which creates the situation in them so they become accident-prone, that's all.
All your meditations will create just an accident-proneness, that's all. That's why even a Buddha cannot say when your enlightenment is going to happen. People come to me and they ask; I tell them, "Soon." It means nothing. Soon may be the next moment, soon may not come for many lives, because an accident cannot be predicted. If it can be predicted it is not an accident at all, then it is a continuity.
But don't stop doing things. Don't think that if it is going to happen, it will happen; then it will never
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