The body is a certain kind of egg, in which the ultimate potential of spiritual enlightenment is there that can happen– and unless it happens you will continue to have new bodies – but the moment it happens, the body becomes useless.
Most of the people who become enlightened die instantly. They simply cannot breathe anymore. There is no reason why they should breathe. The experience is so big that the heart stops. They have never seen anything like it, it is so unknown. It takes their breath away – literally.
Very few people survive spiritual enlightenment, and the reason why these people survive is strange: people who have been adventurous, people who have enjoyed taking risks, who have lived like a tightrope walker, whose lives have been on a razor’s edge, may survive. The shock will be there, but they are accustomed to smaller shocks. They have never had such a big shock, but smaller shocks have prepared them to accept even this enormous phenomenon. They still continue to breathe; their heart still continues to beat. But still the body suffers in many ways because something has happened that the body cannot understand.
The body has its own wisdom, it has a certain kind of understanding. It functions well within its limits. But enlightenment is not within its limits, it is too far away. It is stretching the body’s capacities too much. So anything that is weak in the body is going to break – and because this is going to be the last body, it will never be needed again. It has fulfilled its function. It has done the miracle. So if you think of the ratio... out of ten enlightened persons at least nine die immediately. And out of ten who do survive, nine remain silent. They lose their grip on the brain.
This has never been said. Many things have never been said, because nobody has asked, nobody has bothered, nobody has enquired. So there are a thousand and one things which are worth taking note of, but nobody has ever talked about them.
For example, why do nine people out of ten die immediately? No scripture of the world discusses it. The question of discussion does not even arise – no scripture even mentions it, and it has been happening for centuries. Perhaps they were afraid that if they say it... People are already not interested in enlightenment, and if you tell them that this is going to be the reward – that you become enlightened and your fuse goes off – this may prevent even those few who might try. They will say, ”What nonsense it is. You work hard to attain enlightenment and what do you get as a reward? –that you are finished! You are not even going to see yourself enlightened. So what is the point? It is a strange game.” Perhaps that’s why it was never mentioned. No scripture mentions that enlightenment disturbs the body and the brain. But I want to say everything exactly as it is, because my understanding is that those who are not interested are not going to be interested, and those who are interested are not going to be prevented by any truth. And in fact it will be good for them to know it ahead of time.
Spiritual Enlightenment certainly disturbs much psychosomatic health, because it is something for which the body is not ready or prepared. Nature has not built anything in the body so that enlightenment can be absorbed. Suddenly a mountain falls on you – you are bound to be crushed.
Why do nine persons out of ten remain silent? At the most it has been said, ”Because truth cannot be said.” It is true, but there is a far more important thing which has not been mentioned. Out of ten people, nine people’s brains get disturbed. They are no longer able to use the brain mechanism for speaking, so it is better, they feel, to remain silent.
They can see perfectly that their brain mechanism is no longer in a functioning state. And naturally...the brain is a very subtle phenomenon; in the small skull of man almost seven million small nerves create your brain. They are so small and so delicate that any small shock can disturb them, can destroy them – and spiritual enlightenment is a tremendous lightning shock. It goes through the brain disturbing many cells, many nerves.
Only one person out of ten can save his brain, and that is the person who has used his brain so much that by sheer use it has become stronger and stronger. If he had not become enlightened, he would have been a great philosopher, a great logician, a great mathematician or a great physicist. He had a strongly built machine which could have been a Bertrand Russell or an Albert Einstein –or a Gautam Buddha.
But ordinarily, people don’t use the brain so much. For ordinary work it is not needed. Only five percent of your capacity – the average human being uses five percent of his brain. And the people you call very great geniuses use only fifteen percent. But if a person has used his brain to at least one-third of its capacity – that is, thirty-three percent – then it might have strength enough to survive enlightenment. Not only can it survive enlightenment, it can serve it too.
Out of ten persons whose brains survive, nine never become masters; only one becomes a master. The nine can at the most be teachers. They can talk about their experience. They can quote scriptures. They can be very famous teachers. People can mistake them for masters; they will have many followers – but they are not masters, because the quality of the master is missing in them.
The master is not only a teacher but a magnet. To teach is one thing, but to teach with a magnetic force so that just by hearing it you are transformed... then there is a master. The teacher can give you words, but he cannot give you life. The teacher can give you explanations, but he cannot give you experience. The teacher can approach your mind, but he cannot reach your heart.
Why does it happen to only one person in ten? Before enlightenment, if a man has been a teacher already... if, although he has not experienced, his intelligence is so comprehensive that he can understand what has happened to others, he need not have to commit mistakes to learn. He can see others committing mistakes, and that is enough for him to learn. And if he has been articulate from his very birth, has enjoyed the very sound of words – their music, their poetry – if he has been expressive, has never found himself in any difficulty as far as expression is concerned, and his expression has been convincing... not that his argument was greater than your argument, but the way he managed to express himself, the poetry of his expression, the argument of his expression, the music of his expression is convincing, and yet he has not experienced himself...If this kind of man happens to become spiritually enlightened, then he is coming with the skill of being very articulate. His enlightenment will add something to his articulateness. It will make it authoritative; it will give it magnetism. It will make it a presence to be felt, a presence to be overpowered by, a presence in which you easily fall into love, into trust.
The teachers who start teaching after their spiritual enlightenment remain amateur. But this man, who has been a teacher already, is immensely enriched by enlightenment as far as being a master is concerned.
It is reported that when Sariputta – one of Gautam Buddha’s chief disciples, and one of the few who became enlightened in Gautam Buddha’s lifetime – when he came to Gautam Buddha, he had come to argue. He was a well-known teacher, and many thought he was a master. He had come with five thousand disciples to argue with Buddha about the basic principles.
Buddha received him with great love and said to both his disciples and Sariputta’s disciples, ”Here comes a great teacher, and I hope that one day he will become a master.”
Everybody was puzzled what he meant by it – even Sariputta.
Sariputta asked, ”What do you mean?”
Gautam Buddha said, ”You argue well, you are articulate, you are an influential intellectual. You have all the qualities of a genius teacher. You have five thousand very intelligent people as your disciples, but you are not a master yet. If you were a master I would have come to you, you would not have come to me. You are a great philosopher, but you know nothing. "And I trust in your intelligence, that you will not lie: say before all these people that you are a thinker but you have not experienced anything. If you say you have experienced, I am ready to discuss with you. But remember, lying is not going to help. You will be caught immediately, because experience has so many things which are not available in the scriptures. So it is better you be clear about it.” I am ready to discuss with you if you say that you have experienced the truth. If you say you have not experienced the truth, I am ready to accept you as my disciple. And I will make you a master, it is a promise – because you are promising. You can choose to lie and discuss with me, or to be true and be a disciple and learn with me, experience with me. And one day when you are a master if you want to discuss with me I will be overjoyed.”
For a moment there was immense silence. But Sariputta was really a man of truth. He said, ”Buddha is right. I have never thought about it, that he is going to ask about experience. I have been debating around the country, defeating many great so-called teachers, making them my disciples” – that was the rule in India. You discuss, and whoever is defeated becomes a disciple.
So he said, ”Many of these disciples were themselves teachers, but nobody ever asked me about experience. I don’t have any experience, so there is no question of discussing right now. Right now I touch the feet of Gautam Buddha. And I will wait for the time when I have experienced, when I am a master myself.”
After three years of being with Buddha, he became enlightened. He was certainly a very potential case... just on the verge. The day he became enlightened, Buddha called him and asked him, ”Do you want to discuss now?”
Sariputta touched Gautam Buddha’s feet again and he said, "That time I touched your feet because I had no experience. This time I touch your feet because I have the experience; the question of discussion does not arise. That time it was impossible to discuss; this time too it is impossible to discuss. There is nothing to discuss. I know, you know – and the knowing is the same. And I am your disciple. I may become a master to others, but to you I will always remain a disciple. You transformed my whole life; otherwise I would have died just arguing unnecessarily, wasting my time and other people’s time.”
The people who have remained silent really got damaged. There was no other way for them except to be silent; the mechanism was broken. They had the experience but they didn’t have the vehicle.
So it is a very rare phenomenon: first to be enlightened, then to survive enlightenment, then to save your brain so that you can be a master. And that depends on whether you exercised your brain before enlightenment to at least one-third of its potential. Less than that won’t do.
Hence my insistence: Don’t believe.
Doubt, think, enquire.
Sharpen your intelligence, at least to one-third of its potential. And meanwhile meditate, so the day you get some spiritual ecstasy, you can say something to the world. You owe it.
Existence waits millions of years for somebody to become enlightened, and when someone becomes enlightened, existence wants him to share, to spread the word, whatsoever the cost, to all those who are fast asleep. They are not all going to awake, but somebody may hear the call. Even if a few hear the call, that is enough reward.