The Tears of a Bodhisattva................
On my first trip to see Poonjaji, I witnessed an unforgettable event. During satsang one morning a woman came up onto the tucket with the Master. In those days, people could sit right next to him on his tucket to ask their questions. The woman appeared to be in a state of hysteria. Her questions and comments seemed to have nothing to do with satsang, but worse yet, she was flailing about, hysterically laughing and practically knocking the Master off his seat. It was almost too much for those of us sitting nearest him to endure, and at one point one of us reached out to restrain her, fearing that she might harm the Master's body. (Although he appeared as a mountain, at that time Papa was 80-years-old with various health ailments.)
Meanwhile, the Master tried in brilliant ways to wake the woman, imploringly saying, "You and I are the same. You are a Buddha. You are already the emperor on the throne," to which the woman would squeal with laughter and throw her arms around the Master's head, pulling him to her. After what seemed like an eternity, she got up to leave. Her last act was to ask for his handkerchief, the only one he had with him, with which he wiped his mouth and brow. Of course, he gave it to her. Then with arms akimbo, laughing and bumping her way through the crowd proudly waving the treasured handkerchief, the woman went back to her seat.
The front rows collectively sighed in relief. "What a waste of his precious energy," I thought. "We need to protect him from people like that. Those people need therapy, not a Buddha."
As I was muttering to myself, a quiet transformation was occurring on the tucket. The Master had grown totally silent and uncharacteristically closed his eyes, even though we were in the speaking part of satsang. Those of us sitting close to him then saw three or four tears trickle down his cheeks. Like jewels they cascaded down his face, each one exploding a universe of compassion. It dawned on me that the Master was not sitting in judgment, thinking about whether this person or that one was worthy of him or taxing of his life-force. He was seeing only suffering, the deep wounds which had turned into neurosis, the child who could not find her way home, even while standing in her own front yard. If he was comparing at all, there would probably be little difference observed between any of us. He was taking on the blind forces of ignorance leading to suffering, and perhaps at that moment he was overcome by the immensity of it. Perhaps at that moment he could do nothing but shed a few tears. And I knew as I sat there that I would never again see anything as precious as those tears. For what in all this manifestation could be more precious than the tears of a Bodhisattva?
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