It always happens when a Buddha is there: his physical presence becomes so meaningful. and then he dies. Everything is shattered. Even a disciple like Ananda, his most intimate disciple, started crying and weeping when Buddha said, "Now I have to leave this body." For forty years Ananda was with Buddha, twenty-four hours, just like a shadow. He started crying and weeping like a child; suddenly he had become an orphan.
Buddha asked," What are you doing?"
Ananda said, "It will be impossible now for me to grow. I couldn't grow when you were there so how can I grow now? It may be now millions of lives before I come across a buddha again, so I am lost."
Buddha said, "My understanding is different, Ananda. When I am not there you may become enlightened immediately, because this has been my feeling -- you have become too much attached to me, and that attachment is working like a block. You have become too much attached to me; that very attachment is working like a barrier." And this happened as Buddha said. The day Buddha died, Ananda became enlightened. There was nothing to cling to then. But why wait? When I die, then you will become enlightened?
Why wait?
-Rajneesh
