Subhuti

“Subhuti lived in the crowd — nobody even knew his name — and when this news came that flowers were showering on Subhuti everybody wondered, ‘Who is this Subhuti? We never heard about him. Has it happened by some accident? Have the gods chosen him wrongly?’ — because there were many who were higher in the hierarchy. Subhuti must have been the last. This is the only story about Subhuti.”

“Buddha had thousands of disciples. Subhuti was just one of them, nothing special about him. Really nobody knows much about Subhuti, this is the only story about him. There were great disciples, well known, famous — great scholars, princes. They had big kingdoms, and when they left them and renounced and became disciples of Buddha, they had a name around them. But flowers didn’t shower on them. Flowers chose this Subhuti who was just one of the disciples, nothing special about him.”

“But Subhuti is rare, extraordinarily rare. Even though the gods shouted around him, whispered in his ears, and the flowers were showering on him like rain, he didn’t bother. He simply kept silent. They said, ‘You have spoken, you have given a discourse!’ He listened without coming back. They said, ‘You have not spoken, we have not heard. THIS IS TRUE EMPTINESS!’ There was no ego saying, ‘The true happiness happened to me. Now I have become enlightened’ — otherwise he would have missed at the last point. And immediately flowers would have stopped showering, if he had come back. No, he must have closed his eyes and he must have thought, ‘These gods are mad and these flowers are dreams — don’t bother.’
The emptiness was so beautiful that now nothing could be more beautiful than that. He simply remained in his sublime emptiness — that’s why blossoms showered upon Subhuti as rain. Now they were not falling a few here and a few there, now they were showering like rain.

This is the only story about Subhuti, nothing is said about him anymore. Nowhere is he mentioned again. But I tell you the flowers are still showering. Subhuti is no longer under any tree — because when one becomes really, totally empty, one dissolves into the universe.”
– And The Flowers Showered, Chapter #1

“Buddha had a disciple named Subhuti. Buddha was a very fortunate Master: he had TREMENDOUSLY potential disciples. A few of them were really rare beings. Subhuti is one of those rare beings who was just on the verge of Buddhahood. Just one step more and he would be a Buddha. He was coming home, every moment coming home, closer and closer to the center where ego disappears and God is born, where you die and the whole is born, when the part disappears into the whole, when the cosmos takes place and then you are no more a separate entity, trembling, afraid of death. Then you are part of this eternal play of existence. He was just on the verge. He was one of the MOST silent of Buddha’s disciples. He was so silent that the scriptures say that he had almost become absent. He would come and nobody would take note of him. He would pass and nobody would become aware that he had passed. He was a very silent breeze…”
– The Secret of Secrets, Vol 2, Chapter #5