Most beautiful Amrapali seducing the Buddhist monk – or vice versa?

Once it happened, in the days of Buddha, that a beautiful prostitute fell in deep love with a Buddhist monk who had gone to beg. The woman had seen many beautiful people – she was one of the most famous prostitutes of those days – even kings used to queue at her door, and she fell in love with a monk, with a bhikkhu, a beggar. Sannyasins have a beauty that only sannyasins can have: that beauty when one walks by himself, that grace – the grace of the centered one – the dignity, the elegance. Just visualize the monk walking. And Buddhist monks, their whole teaching consists of one thing: Be alert, be watchful.

Not even a single breath has to pass your nostrils without your being aware of it.

So, absolutely watchful, meditative, he must have passed by the woman. She had seen many beautiful people, but never a man who walked by himself like this – and in the market-place and in the whole noise, so silently as if the market did not exist.

She immediately fell in love with the man. She touched his feet and asked him to come to her home and stay for this rainy season, for four months. Buddhist monks stop moving for four months in the rainy season. The rains were just about to come, and the clouds were gathering, and it was time for them to stay and find shelter for four months.

So she invited him: ‘You come to my home. Be my guest for four months.’ The monk said ‘I will have to ask the Master. Tomorrow I will come and reply. If he allows it, I will come.’

There were also other monks begging in the town – they saw the whole thing; they became very jealous. When the young man came back to Buddha, he stood in the assembly and made the request.

‘A woman, a prostitute’ – Amrapali was her name – ‘has asked me to stay with her for the coming rainy season. I will do whatsoever you say.’

Many heard it – they all stood up and said, ‘This is wrong. Even to have allowed that woman to touch your feet was wrong, because Buddha has said, ”Don’t touch a woman, don’t allow a woman to touch you.” You have broken the rule, and now this is something, that you are asking to stay with the woman for four months!’

Buddha said, ‘I have told you not to touch a woman, not to be touched by a woman, because you are not centered. For this man that rule is no more applicable. I can see that he can walk alone by himself – I have been watching him – he is no more part of the crowd. You are still part of the crowd. When you go to the market, you go to the market; he simply passes by there as if he had never gone.’

And to the bhikkhu Buddha said, ‘Yes, you are allowed.’

Now, this was too much; never had it been done before, there was no precedent. All were angry and for four months thousands of gossips went around, exaggerating what was happening there. Everybody was interested and many rumors were coming that the monk was no more a monk, that he had fallen.

After four months the monk came back, followed by Amrapali.

Buddha looked at the monk, looked at Amrapali, and said, ‘Woman, have you something to say to me?’

She said, ‘I have come to be initiated by you. I tried to distract your disciple. I failed; this is my first defeat. I have always succeeded with men. This is the first man whom I could not distract – not even an inch. A great desire has arisen in me too – how I can attain this centering. And the more he has been with me these days, the more I have seen how far away he is from the world. He lived with me, I danced before him, I sang before him, I played on musical instruments before him – I tried to allure him in every way – but he always remained silent. He always remained himself. Not for a single moment have I seen any cloud in his mind or any desire in his eyes. I tried to convert him, but he has converted me – and not saying a single word. He has not brought me here, I have come on my own. I have known for the first time what dignity is; I would like to learn the art.’

She became a disciple of Buddha. She became a nun.

Don’t try to change the circumstances of your life, try to change the psychology. Try to change your attitudes towards life, don’t try to change the outer situation. Use the outer situation and change the inner state.

The false religion consists of changing the situation: ‘If a woman creates desire in you, escape from the woman.’

This is changing the situation; this is not much of a change – you are befooling yourself and befooling the world.

The real religion consists of changing the state of the mind:

If a woman attracts you, then look into your desires, then watch those desires.

Somewhere there you have not known anything better than sex. Somewhere there you have not known anything higher than sex. Somewhere there you have not known anything ecstatic.

Because you have not known anything higher, you are attracted towards the lower. Search for the higher. Once you have known higher reaches of your energy, sex starts withering of its own accord.

That is real religion.

Osho, The Sun Rises in the Evening, Ch 7

Just the other day I told you the story of the Buddhist monk, who was invited by the prostitute to live with her for four months in the rainy season.

Now, Prabuddha has asked a question and he says the story was ugly.

Why could the Buddhist monk not move in love-making with the prostitute? Why was he afraid?

He was not afraid. And the story is not ugly. Maybe Prabuddha became too interested in Amrapali and her beauty. Prabuddha must have started thinking, ‘If I had been there… I would not have missed! And this foolish monk… and what was wrong in it?’

It is not a question of wrong or right. But the monk was so centered, the monk was so present in himself, that all that the prostitute was doing to attract him must have looked to him very juvenile, foolish, silly. What the prostitute was doing to enchant him was great from the side of the prostitute. She was an artist in that art of alluring people, of hypnotizing people. And she was a beautiful woman.

It is said that she was the next most famous person in Buddha’s time – the first was Buddha and Amrapali was the second.

But if the monk is centered and has no feeling arising in him to go into love-making, why should he go? If he has transcended, why should he go? It is not that he was resisting; if he were resisting or repressing, then it would be ugly. But why should he indulge if there is no desire in him? Just because of the prostitute?

Why does the story look ugly to Prabuddha?

No, he was very kind to the woman, infinitely kind, infinitely loving. But, of course, the love of a centered man is totally different from the love of an uncentered man. He was a Buddha, that’s why Buddha had allowed him to go. He had arrived; all desiring had disappeared from him. Now it was just a toy.

And the story is immensely beautiful, because remaining centered, he helped the woman. He really must have loved the woman, because that is the greatest gift he could have given to her. If he had become involved, the woman would have thrown him out sooner or later. If he had become involved, the woman would have never gone to Buddha to become a disciple. This was the greatest gift that the monk could have given to the woman – the gift of Buddha, the gift of disciple-hood.

He made himself absolutely available for the woman to watch, to see, in every possible way. He made his presence felt, and the woman came to know that this was something to be achieved, this was something worthwhile. All that she had been doing up to now was worthless, insignificant, non-essential. This man had essential richness – the richness of the essence. She fell in love with the monk on a higher plane; she fell in love not only with the monk, but she fell in love with samadhi, with enlightenment.

In fact, that was the reason for the beauty of the monk. She had not gone into love because of the monk, the monk was a vehicle, the energy was that of enlightenment, he was luminous. She had fallen in love with that luminousness. The body of the monk was just like a lamp and the luminousness inside was the flame.

You don’t fall in love with the lamp, you fall in love with the flame.

If the monk had moved, the flame would have disappeared and the woman would have found an ordinary man – very ordinary, nothing special about him, nothing valuable about him. The more the monk remained centered…

And when I say remained centered, I am not saying he was making any effort to remain centered. He was centered; it was effortless, it was spontaneous, it was natural. If there were any effort involved, the monk himself would have been afraid to go. He was not afraid; he slept in the same room with the woman. And the woman danced naked around him, and he sat in silence and meditated there. He remained alone. The woman must have tried in every possible way – it was a challenge, it was a great challenge to her beauty. It was humiliating in a way, insulting in a way; she must have felt hurt, her ego must have felt hurt. She tried in every way to seduce the monk, but failed again and again and again.

Then she must have realized that he had some other kind of beauty, he had some other kind of presence. And she became enchanted with that space; she followed him, and became a disciple of Buddha.

She became enlightened soon.

Amrapali was one of the enlightened disciples of Buddha.

The monk loved the woman, that’s why with great kindness and compassion he made his presence available. There is nothing ugly in it; it is absolutely beautiful. The monk was a benediction, a blessing.

Osho, The Sun Rises in the Evening, Ch 8, Q 4

Series compiled by Shanti
All excerpts of this series can be found in: 1001 Tales

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