Buddhahood

Am I a restless, confused buddha and only need to accept right now the peculiar nature of my buddhahood, or is it different from and comes after all this stuff happening now?

See the difference, the difference is great. A man can move in two ways. One is through motivation: something has to be achieved THERE, in future. There is a goal. Then you pull yourself together and you start dragging yourself towards the goal. Your life will be a life of misery. There is another kind of movement -- the true movement -- which has no motive in it, but you are so full of energy that you have to move. "Energy is movement, and energy is delight," says William Blake. Yes, it is, because movement is delight, movement is dance. You start moving because there is so much energy and the energy starts flowing. One day you arrive, but that arrival has not been a goal. That arrival has never been pre-planned, you had never thought about it. The Ganges reaches to the ocean, but the Ganges was not trying…

Is it possible to believe that one has just attained buddhahood? And is it possible just to believe like that only because of the ego? And if it is possible, then how to avoid it?

IT IS VERY MUCH POSSIBLE. Many times your ego will I deceive you. It will say, "You have arrived, you have attained." By saying that it will prevent you from attaining, because when you have attained there is no need to make any more effort. When you have already attained, then what is the point of going on troubling yourself? That is the last trap ego throws at you. First it says, "It is foolish to try to attain Buddhahood. It does not happen in the very nature of things. It is all nonsense, fiction. Don't be mystified by these words!" First the ego will say, "It is impossible. It has never happened and it is not going to happen." But if you don't listen and you go on and on, the ego will try many other ways to distract you. The last will be: one day, seeing that now…

Other friends have asked: by which path did he attain Buddhahood—through meditation or through devotion? For he practiced meditation, but his heart’s delight was in kirtan. So, through meditation or through kirtan?

For him, kirtan was not a path—only an expression. What he received in meditation, he would lavish in kirtan. He did not attain Buddhahood through kirtan. He attained Buddhahood through meditation alone. But how to share what is found in meditation? Meditation is mute; it cannot speak. Devotion can speak, can sway. Therefore, even for the knower, even for the meditator, when the time comes to express, there remains no other means than devotion. Such is the dignity of bhakti. Meditation is like a desert. Bhakti is a garden. There, flowers bloom profusely, the cuckoo coos, and the pied cuckoo calls, “Pi-kahan, pi-kahan.” His path was meditation; he attained only through meditation. But as the depth of meditation grew, so did his dilemma: all that was gathering within—what to do with it, what not to do? He asked me, “What should I do? So much is accumulating inside; how do…

Whenever you talk about realizing one's buddhahood, you say it is sudden, like lightning, not a process, but what I can see happening in me is a very slow process of becoming more contented, less in the grip of the ego. Can you clarify the difference between that process and the 'sudden flash' that happened to you? Is there any danger in becoming too contented with the slow process?

No, Deepta, there is no danger. The enlightenment is always like lightning. It is in a flash, it is a sudden explosion. It cannot come gradually because it cannot be divided; you cannot have it in bits. Then what is happening to Deepta? She feels she is becoming slowly contented. This is not enlightenment, this is the ground in which enlightenment happens. The ground can be prepared gradually, in fact has to be prepared gradually. You cannot prepare the ground like lightning, in a flash. Sometimes it takes lives to prepare the ground. The preparation for buddhahood is gradual, but the actual happening of buddhahood is a sudden explosion in you. So don't be afraid, this is good. You are moving on the right track. Become more and more contented. The day you are utterly contented, the flash. Enough for today.