This is a very enlighten story of Buddha with the Monk he met in his path toward Benaras. This is also his first rejection he got.
The Buddha was travelling on the highway, when between Gayā and the Bodhi tree, beneath whose shade He attained Enlightenment, a wandering monk named Upaka saw Him and addressed Him thus: “Extremely clear are your senses, friend! Pure and clean is your complexion.
Upaka asked him: On account of whom has your renunciation been made, friend? Who is your teacher? Whose doctrine do you profess?”
The Buddha replied: “All have I overcome, all do I know.
From all am I detached, all have I renounced.
Wholly absorbed am I in the destruction of craving (Arahantship).
Having comprehended all by myself whom shall I call my teacher?
No teacher have I. An equal to me there is not.
In the world including gods there is no rival to me.
Indeed an Arahant am I in this world.
An unsurpassed teacher am I;
Alone am I the All Enlightened.
Cool and appeased am I.
To establish the wheel of Dhamma to the city of Kashi I go.
In this blind world I shall beat the drum of Deathlessness.
“Then, friend, do you admit that you are an Arahant,(“Perfected Person” having attained Nirvana.) a limitless Conqueror?” queried Upaka.
“Like me are conquerors who have attained to the destruction of deilements. All the evil conditions have I conquered.Hence, Upaka, I am called a conqueror,” replied the Buddha.
“It may be so, friend!” Upaka briskly remarked, and, nodding his head, turned into a by-road and departed.
Unperturbed by the first rejection, the Buddha journeyed from place to place, and arrived in due course at the Deer Park
in Benares.
