OSHO when asked what is a Miracle?
Jesus brings Lazarus back to life. Naturally it appears to
be a great miracle - but it is not, because Lazarus is not transformed, and
living a few years more, repeating the old routine again, he has to die. His
being brought back to life has not given him anything of the eternal. The same
story is repeated in Gautam Buddha's life, and there you can see the difference
between a real miracle and a pseudo miracle.
A young son
died, and that son was the only hope for his mother. The father had died, his
other brothers and sisters had died and the mother was living only for this
boy. And this boy too, died. The mother went almost mad. She was crying and
weeping and asking everybody, "Tell me the address or the name of a
physician who can heal my boy back, because I cannot live, I have no reason to
live anymore. I have been carrying so many wounds: my other children died, my
husband died. But I kept myself in control, just for this small, beautiful boy,
and now he has also gone."
Somebody
said, "Don't be worried, Gautam Buddha has come just today in the town. He
is staying outside the town in the mango grove. You take the boy to Gautam
Buddha."
The woman,
with great hope and great longing went to Gautam Buddha, taking the corpse of
the dead boy. She put the dead body at Gautam Buddha's feet and said, "If
you are really spiritual, if you are awakened, then give my child his life
back."
Gautam
Buddha said, "That is not difficult. Just one small condition you have to
fulfill."
The woman
said, "I will fulfill any condition."
He said,
"It is not a big condition. I know your whole village grows crops of
mustard seed. You go and bring from some home just a handful of mustard
seeds."
The woman
started running; she said, "I will be coming back within a few
minutes."
Buddha said,
"You have not heard the whole condition. The condition is: the mustard
seed should come from a family where nobody has ever died."
The woman
was in such misery, she could not see the point. She rushed from one home to
another.
And people
said, "We can give as many mustard seeds as you want. We can bring the
whole village's mustard seeds, if your son's life can come back. But our
mustard seeds will not be of any help, because so many people have died in our
family, and you cannot find a family where nobody has died."
The number
of dead people in every family is more than the number of the living. Your
fathers died, your forefathers died, and so on, and so forth - since Adam and
Eve people have been doing nothing but dying. The queue is so long behind each
person - of dead people.
But she went
from house to house and slowly, slowly, by the evening she became aware. Her
tears dried up; she came back to Gautam Buddha, touched his feet, and said,
"Forget about the boy, in this world everybody has to die. It does not
matter when one dies. You initiate me as a sannyasin, so that I can experience
something of the deathless, something of the immortal, something of the eternal
that lives forever."
Buddha said,
"You are intelligent and you have understood my point."
The woman
became a sannyasin, and not an ordinary sannyasin. She became enlightened
before Buddha died. She was his first woman enlightened disciple, Kisha Gautami
was her name. I call this a miracle.