When Buddha disappeared one night from his palace................................

Osho : When Buddha disappeared one night from his palace, he wanted to tell his wife that, ”I am going.” He wanted to touch the child who was just a day before born, because he would not be back again. He went to the very door of the room. He looked at the wife. She was so fast asleep, must have been dreaming; her face was beautiful, smiling, child in her arms.


Then he waited for few seconds on the door; then he turned. He wanted to say, but then he became afraid. If he said something, then the wife is bound to cry and weep and create a scene And he is afraid of himself also, because if she weeps and cries, then he may become aware of his own promises, that ”I will love you forever and ever, and I will be with you forever and ever.” And
what about this child who is only one day born? And she will, of course, bring the child before me, and she will say, ”Look what you have done to me. Then why you gave birth to this child? And now who will be his father? And am I alone responsible for him? And you are escaping like a coward.”


All these thoughts came to him, because in sleep everybody promises. Everybody goes on giving promises not knowing how he can fulfill them, but in sleep it happens because nobody is conscious what is happening.
Suddenly he became aware that these things will be brought and then the family will gather – and the father and everybody else – and he is the only son of the father, and the father is looking at him, and in his sleep he has promised him also. Then he simply escaped: he simply escaped like a thief.


After twelve years, when he came back, the wife asked him the first thing that had come to his mind that night when he was leaving. The wife asked, ”Why didn’t you tell me? The first thing I would like to ask – for these twelve years I was waiting for you – why didn’t you tell me? What type of love is this? You simply left me. You are a coward.”


And Buddha listened silently. And the wife was silent and he said, ”These all thoughts had come to me. I had come just to the door, I had even opened the door. I looked at you; in sleep I had promised many things. But if I am going to be awake, if I am getting out of the sleep, then I cannot keep the promises given in sleep. And if I try to keep the promises, then I cannot awake.


”So you are right. You may think I am a coward; you may think that I escaped from the palace like a thief, not like a warrior, not like a man of courage. But I tell you, exactly opposite is the case, because when I was escaping, to me at that moment, that was the moment of greatest bravery because my whole being was saying, ’This is not good. Don’t be a coward.’ And if I had stopped, if I had listened to my sleepy being, then there was no possibility for me to awake.


”And now I come to you; now I can fulfill something, because only a man who is enlightened can fulfill. A man who is ignorant, how he can fulfill anything? Now I come to you. That moment if I
had stopped I couldn’t give you anything, but now I bring a great treasure with me, and now I can give it to you. Don’t weep, don’t cry; open the eyes and look at me. I am not the same man who
had left that night. A totally different being has come to your door.

I am not your husband. You may be my wife, because that is your attitude. Look at me – I am totally a different person. Now I bring
treasures for you. I can make you also aware and enlightened.”
The wife listened. The same problem always came to everybody. She started thinking about the child. If she becomes a sannyasin and moves with this beggar – her ex-husband, now he is a beggar
– if she moves... and what will happen to the child? She has not said anything, but Buddha said, ”I know what you are thinking, because I have passed that period where promises given in the sleepy state all crowd together and say, ’What are you doing? – your child...’ You are thinking that, ’Let the child become a little more aged, let him be married, then he can take over the palace and the kingdom,’ and then you will follow.

But remember, there is no future, no tomorrow. Either you follow
me right now or you don’t follow me.”

So Buddha said, ”I know what you are thinking, and I know you are a greater dreamer than me. But now I have come to cut all the roots of your sleep. Bring the child. Where is my son? Bring him.”

The feminine mind played a trick again. She brought Rahul, the child who was twelve years of age now, and she said, ”This is your father. Look at him – he has become a beggar – and ask him what is your heritage, what he can give to you. This is your father; he is a coward! He escaped like a thief not even telling me, and he left a one-day-old child. Ask him your heritage!”


Buddha laughed, and he told Ananda, ”Bring my begging bowl.” And he gave the begging bowl to Rahul, and he said, ”This is my heritage. I make you a beggar. You are initiated. You become a
sannyasin.” And he said to his wife, ”I cut the very root. Now there is no need to dream. You also awake because this was the root. Rahul is already a sannyasin; you also awake. Yashodhara, you
also awake, and become a sannyasin.”

The moment always comes when you are in the transit period from where sleep turns into awakening. The whole past will hold you back, and past is powerful.
Future is powerless for a sleepy man.
For a man who is not sleepy, future is powerful;
for a man who is fast asleep, past is powerful, because a man who is fast asleep knows only dreams that he had dreamed in the past. He is not aware of any future. Even if he thinks about future, it is nothing but past reflected again; it is just past projected again.

Only a man who is aware becomes aware of the future. Then past is nothing.

Osho, https://www.facebook.com/GloriousSilence