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Main Index
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and he stops that man, and he takes him inside, and he initiates him.
And the story says that within seven days he became an ARHAT -- within seven days he became an enlightened man. Now, everybody was very much puzzled. Sariputra went to Buddha and he said, 'What is this? Is all my astrology nonsense? And I looked into this man's eighty thousand lives! If this man can become enlightened in seven days, then what is the point of looking into people's past lives? Then it is all absurd. How can it happen?'
And Buddha said, 'You looked into his past, but you didn't look into his future. And the past is past! Any moment a man decides to change, he can change -- the very decision is decisive. And when a man has lived eighty thousand lives of misery, he knows, and he hankers to change, and his intensity to change is infinite. Hence, in seven days....
'Sariputra, you have not yet become enlightened. You are a good man, you have good lives -- you don't feel so much burdened with your past. You have a kind of righteousness around yourself. You have been a brahmin for many lives, a scholar, a respected person. But look at this man. He was burdened in all those eighty thousand lives, and he wanted to get free. He really wanted to get tree. Hence, the miracle -- within seven days he is out. The intensity of his past....'
This is one of the basic things to understand in people's transformation: people who feel guilty are easily transformed. People who feel good, right, are very difficult to transform. Religious people are very difficult to transform, irreligious people are easier to transform. So whenever a religious person comes to me I don't take much note of him. But whenever an irreligious person comes to me I'm really interested. I'm into him, I am with him, I am all for him -- because there is a possibility.
That's why Bankei says:
'WHO WILL TEACH HIM IF I DO NOT? I AM GOING TO KEEP HIM HERE EVEN IF ALL THE REST OF YOU LEAVE. '
A TORRENT OF TEARS CLEANSED THE FACE OF THE BROTHER WHO HAD STOLEN. ALL DESIRE TO STEAL HAD VANISHED.
And in that shower of compassion from the master, the thief is no more a thief, he is utterly
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