Criminal who became a buddha

 One man, a great criminal, a murderer, a sinner, came to be initiated by Buddha. When he came he was afraid that people might not allow him entry, the disciples might not allow him to see Buddha. So he came at such a time when there were not too many people. And he didn’t enter from the main gate, he jumped from a wall.

But by chance Buddha was not there – he had gone begging – and he was caught. And he said to the disciples, ’I have not come to steal or anything, I was just afraid that you wouldn’t allow me through the main gate. Everybody knows me, I am a well-known figure around here. I am the most hated and feared man around here, everybody knows me. So you might not allow me, you might not believe that I want to become a sannyasin.’

So they took him to one of Buddha’s great disciples, Sariputra – who was a great astrologer too, and who had a capacity, a telepathic capacity, to read people’s past lives. So they asked Sariputra, ’Look into this man. We know that in this life he is a murderer, a sinner, a thief, and he has done all kinds of things. But maybe he has earned some virtue, some PUNYA, in his past lives – maybe that’s why he wants to become a sannyasin. Just look into his past lives.’

And Sariputra looked into his eighty thousand past lives... and he was always the same! Even Sariputra started trembling, seeing this man. He is so dangerous – eighty thousand times a murderer, a criminal, always a sinner. He is an ESTABLISHED sinner! It is impossible – any change in this man is not possible. Even Buddha cannot do anything.

Sariputra said, ’Throw this man out, and take him away immediately – because even Buddha will be a failure with this man. He is an established sinner. Just as Buddha is an established Buddha, he is an established sinner. Eighty thousand lives I have seen, and I cannot go beyond that. Enough is enough!’

So the man was turned out. He felt so hurt, that there is no chance for him. Alive, he cannot be around Buddha. So he wanted to commit suicide. So just at the main gate around the corner he went to the wall and was going to hit his head against the stone wall to kill himself. And Buddha comes after his begging. And he sees that man, 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 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 free. 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.