whom are you waiting?

Gautam Buddha comes into a town. The whole town has gathered to listen to him but he goes on waiting, looking backwards at the road – because a small girl, not more than thirteen years old, has  met him on the road and told him, ”Wait for me. I am going to give this food to my father at the farm, but I will be back in time. But don’t forget, wait for me.”

Finally, the elders of the town say to Gautam Buddha, ”For whom are you waiting? Everybody  important is present; you can start your discourse.”

Buddha says, ”But the person for whom I have come so far is not yet present and I have to wait.”

Finally the girl arrives and she says, ”I am a little late, but you kept your promise. I knew you would  keep the promise, you had to keep the promise because I have been waiting for you since I became  aware... maybe I was four years old when I heard your name. Just the name, and something started  ringing a bell in my heart. And since then it has been so long – ten years maybe – that I have been
waiting.”

And Buddha says, ”You have not been waiting uselessly. You are the person who has been attracting  me to this village.”

And he speaks, and that girl is the only one who comes to him: ”Initiate me. I have waited enough,  and now I want to be with you.”

Buddha says, ”You have to be with me because your town is so far off the way that I cannot come  again and again. The road is long, and I am getting old.”  In that whole town not a single person came up to be initiated into meditation – only that small girl.  In the night when they were going to sleep, Buddha’s chief disciple Ananda asked, ”Before you go  to sleep I want to ask you one question: do you feel a certain pull towards a certain space – just like  a magnetic pull?”

And Buddha said, ”You are right. That’s how I decide my journeys. When I feel that somebody is  thirsty – so thirsty that without me, there is no way for the person – I have to move in that direction.”

The master moves towards the disciple. The disciple moves towards the master. Sooner or later they are going to meet.  The meeting is not of the body, the meeting is not of the mind. The meeting is of the very soul – as if suddenly you bring two lamps close to each other; the lamps remain separate but their  flames become one. Between two bodies when the soul is one, it is very difficult to say that it is a relationship. It is not, but there is no other word; language is really poor.  It is at-oneness.