posted December 11, 2007 11:45 AM            

'The Mustard Seed : The Gnostic Teachings of Jesus The Mystic'

Book Description
Examining the ancient Gospel of Thomas--a Gnostic text supressed by the early church--Osho paints a portrait of Jesus that is radical and revolutionary, a Jesus who makes demands that run counter to the safe and gentle person of traditonal Christian teaching.

About the Author
Osho (1931-1990) is a contemporary mystic whose life and teachings have influenced millions of people of all ages, and from all walks of life. He has been described by the Sunday Times in London as one of the "1000 Makers of the 20th Century" and by Sunday Mid-Day (India) as one of the ten people--along with Gandhi, Nehru and Buddha--who have changed the destiny of India.
He is also known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, with an approach to meditation that acknowledges the accelerated pace of contemporary life. His unique "Active Meditations" are designed to first release the accumulated stresses of body and mind, so that it is easier to experience the thought-free and relaxed state of meditation. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
http://www.amazon.com/Mustard-Seed-Osho/dp/0007181175

quote:

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"Always remember, whatsoever I say to you, you can take it in two ways. You can simply take it on my authority, 'Because I say so, it must be true' -- then you will suffer, then you will not grow. Whatsoever I say, listen to it, try to understand it, implement it in your life, see how it works, and then come to your own conclusions. They may be the same, they may not be. They can never be exactly the same because you have a different personality, a unique being. Whatsoever I am saying is my own. It is bound to be in deep ways rooted in me. You may come to similar conclusions, but they cannot be exactly the same. So my conclusions should not be made your conclusions. You should try to understand me, you should try to learn, but you should not collect knowledge from me, you should not collect conclusions from me. Then your mind-body will grow.

"My message is not a doctrine, not a philosophy. My message is a certain alchemy, a science of transformation."
- Osho

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Commentaries on the Fifth Gospel of Saint Thomas by Osho: Talks given from 21/08/1974 am to 10/09/1974 am

Chapter 1: the mustard seed

THE DISCIPLES SAID TO JESUS: TELL US WHAT THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE.
HE SAID TO THEM: IT IS LIKE A MUSTARD SEED -- SMALLER THAN ALL SEEDS, BUT WHEN IT FALLS ON THE TILLED EARTH IT PRODUCES A LARGE TREE AND BECOMES SHELTER FOR ALL THE BIRDS OF HEAVEN.

Human relationships have changed a lot, and have changed for the worse. In all dimensions the deeper relationships have disappeared: the wife is no longer a wife, but just a girlfriend; the husband is no longer a husband, but just a boyfriend. Friendship is good, but cannot be very deep. Marriage is something which happens in depth. It is a commitment in depth, and unless you commit yourself you remain shallow. Unless you commit yourself you never take the jump. You can float on the surface, but the depths are not for you.

Of course, to go into the depths is dangerous -- bound to be so, because on the surface you are very efficient. On the surface you can work like an automaton; no awareness is needed. But you will have to be more and more alert, the more you penetrate into the depths, because at every moment death is possible. Fear of depth has created a shallowness in all relationships. They have become juvenile.

A boyfriend or a girlfriend may be fun, but cannot become a door to the deepest that is hidden in each and everyone. With a girlfriend you can be sexually related, but love cannot grow. Love needs deep roots. Sexuality is possible on the surface, but sexuality is just animal, biological. It can be beautiful if it is part of a deeper love, but if it is not part of a deeper love it is the most ugly thing possible; the ugliest, because then there is no communion -- you simply touch each other and separate. Only bodies meet, but not you -- not I, not thou. This has happened in all relationships.

But the greatest relationship has completely disappeared, and the greatest relationship is between a master and a disciple. You will not be able to understand Jesus if you cannot understand the dimension of that relationship which exists between a master and his disciples. That has completely disappeared. The wife is substituted by a girlfriend, the husband is substituted by a boyfriend, but the master, and the relationship that exists between him and his disciples, has completely disappeared. Or, this relationship has been substituted by a very contrary thing that exists between a psychiatrist and his patient.

Between a psychiatrist and his patient a relationship exists which is bound to be ill, pathological -- because a patient comes not in search of truth, is really not in search of health.... This word health is very meaningful: it means wholeness, it means holiness, it means a deep healing in the self. A patient does not come for health, because if he comes for health he cannot be anything other than a disciple. A patient comes to get rid of the illness; the attitude is totally negative. He has come just to be forced to become normal again, just to become a working part of the normal world again. He has become maladjusted; he needs adjustment and the psychiatrist helps him to be adjusted again. But adjusted to whom? Adjusted to this world, this society, which is absolutely ill.

What you call the 'normal' human being is nothing but normal pathology or normal madness, normal insanity. The 'normal' man is also insane, but insane within the boundaries, the accepted boundaries of the society, of the culture. Somebody sometimes trespasses, goes beyond the boundaries -- then he becomes ill. Then the whole society, which is ill, says that this man is ill. And the psychiatrist exists on the boundary to help this man back, back to the crowd.

The psychiatrist cannot be the master, because he himself is not whole. And the patient cannot be the disciple, because he has not come to learn. He is disturbed, and he does not want to be disturbed; his effort is only for adjustment, not for health. The psychiatrist cannot be the master, although in the West he is pretending to be, and sooner or later he will pretend that he is the master in the East too. But he cannot be -- he himself is ill. He may help others to be adjusted, and that's okay: one ill man can help another ill man, in some ways. But one ill man cannot bring another man who is ill to be whole; one madman cannot help another madman to go beyond madness.

Even your Freuds, your Jungs, your Adlers, are absolutely ill; not only ordinary psychiatrists, but the greatest of them are ill and pathological. I will tell you a few things so you can feel it. Whenever somebody mentioned anything about death, Freud would start trembling. Twice he even fainted and fell down from his chair just because somebody was talking about mummies in Egypt. He fainted! And another time also, Jung was talking about death, corpses, and suddenly Freud trembled and fell down, fainted, became unconscious. If death was such a fear to Freud, what about his disciples? And why should death be such a fear? Can you conceive of a buddha being afraid of death? Then he would no longer be a buddha.

Jung has reported that many times he wanted to go to Rome to visit the Vatican and particularly the library, the Vatican's library, which is the greatest, which has the secretmost records of all the religions that have existed -- very rare. But whenever he went to purchase the ticket he would start trembling -- just going to Rome! What will happen when you go to moksha? He would cancel the ticket and come back. He never went, never. Many times he tried, and in the end he decided, "No, I cannot go."

What is the fear, going to Rome? Why is a psychiatrist afraid of going to religion? ... Because Rome is just the symbol, the representative. And this Jung had created a philosophy around his mind, and that philosophy was afraid of being shattered. It is just as if a camel is afraid to go to the Himalayas, because when a camel comes near the Himalayas, for the first time he comes to know that he is nothing. This whole philosophy that Jung has created is just childish. Man has created such vast, cosmic systems, and all those systems are in ruins now. The fear is that going to Rome means going to the ruins of the great systems that the past has created.

What about your small system? What about this small corner that you have cleaned and decorated? What about your philosophy?

Great philosophies have tumbled down and gone to dust: go to Rome, see what has happened! Go to Athens, see what has happened! Where are the schools of Aristotle and Plato and Socrates? All have disappeared into dust. The greatest systems in the end come to dust; all thoughts finally prove to be useless, because thought is just a man-created thing.

Only in 'no-thought' do you come to know the divine. Through thought you cannot come to know the eternal, because thought is of time. Thought cannot be of the eternal; no philosophy, no system of thought can be eternal. That was the fear.

At least four or five times Jung made reservations and canceled. And this man Jung is one of the greatest psychiatrists. If he was so afraid of going to Rome, what about his disciples? Even you are not afraid -- not because you are better than Jung, but just because you are more unaware. He was aware that in Rome his head would come down; the moment he looked at the ruins of all the great systems, a trembling, a fear of death -- that, "What will happen to my system? What will happen to me?" -- would take hold. He trembles and comes back, and in his memoirs he writes: "Then finally I dropped the whole project. I am not going to Rome."

The same thing happened to Freud many times. He also tried to go to Rome -- so it does not seem to be just a coincidence -- and he also was afraid. Why? Freud was as angry as you can be, Freud was as sexual as you can be, as scared of death as you can be, as neurotic in his behavior as you can be, so what is the difference? He may have been a more intelligent man, may have been a genius perhaps, or he could help a little, but he was as blind as you are as far as the ultimate is concerned, as far as the secretmost, innermost core of being is concerned.

No, psychiatry cannot become religion. It may become a good hospital, but it cannot become the temple -- it is not possible. And a psychiatrist may be needed because people are ill, maladjusted, but a psychiatrist is not a master and a patient is not a disciple. If you come to a master as a patient then you will miss, because a master is not a psychiatrist. I am not a psychiatrist.

People come to me and they say, "I am suffering from this mental anxiety, neurosis, this and that."

I say, "It is okay, because I am not going to treat your anxiety, I am going to treat you. I am not concerned with your diseases, I am simply concerned with you. Diseases are on the periphery, and there is no disease where you are."

Once you come to realize who you are, all diseases disappear. They exist basically because you have been hiding self-knowledge, you have been avoiding yourself; you have been avoiding the basic encounter because you don't want to look at yourself. Why don't you want to look at yourself? What has happened to you? Unless you are ready to encounter yourself you cannot become a disciple, because a master can do nothing if you are not ready to face yourself. He can only help you to face yourself.

Why are you so afraid? ... Because something has gone wrong somewhere in the past. A child is born and he is not accepted as he is. Many things have to be changed, forced; he has to be disciplined. He has many parts which the society and his parents cannot accept, so those parts have to be denied, repressed; only a few parts can be accepted and appreciated. So the child has to work it out. He has to deny many fragments of his being which cannot be allowed manifestation. He has to deny them so much that he himself becomes unaware of them. This is what repression is, and the whole society exists on repression.

The greater part of the being of the child has to be repressed, completely thrown into the dark. But that repressed part asserts itself, tries to rebel, react; it wants to come into the light and you have to force it back again and again. So you become afraid to encounter yourself, because what will happen to the repressed part? That will come again, that will be there. What will happen to the unconscious? If you encounter yourself the unconscious will be there, all that you have denied will be there. And that gives you fear.

Unless a child is accepted totally as he or she is, this fear is bound to remain. But no society has yet existed which accepts a child totally -- and it seems that no society will ever exist which will accept a child totally, because it is almost impossible. So repression is bound to be there, more or less. And everybody has to face, some day, this problem of facing oneself. You become disciples the very day you forget about what is good, what is bad; you forget about what is accepted, what is not accepted. You only become a disciple the day you are ready to expose your whole being to yourself.

The master is just a midwife. He helps you to pass through a new birth, to be reborn. And what is the relationship between a master and a disciple? A disciple has to trust; he cannot doubt. If he doubts, then he cannot expose himself. When you doubt somebody you shrink; you cannot expand. When you doubt.... A stranger is there, then you close yourself; you cannot be open because you don't know what this stranger is going to do to you. You cannot be vulnerable before him; you have to protect yourself and create an armor.

With a master you have to drop the armor completely -- that much is a must. Even with a lover you may carry your armor a little; before a beloved you may not be so open. But with a master the openness has to be total, otherwise nothing will happen. If you withhold even a little part of yourself the relationship is not there. Total trust is needed, only then can the secrets be revealed, only then can the keys be offered to you. But if you are hiding yourself, that means you are fighting with the master, and then nothing can be done.

Struggle is not the key with the master, surrender is the key. And surrender has disappeared from the world completely. Many things have helped it: for three or four centuries man has been taught to be individualistic, egoistic; man has been taught not to surrender but to fight; not to obey but to rebel; man has been taught not to trust but to doubt. There has been a reason for it: it is because science grows through doubt. Science is deep skepticism. It works not through trust; it works through logic, argument, doubt. The more you doubt, the more scientific you become. The path is the very opposite of the religious path.

posted December 11, 2007 11:46 AM            

In his home town, people thought that Jesus was just that carpenter Joseph's son. Nobody, nobody could recognize what had happened to this man: that he was no longer the carpenter's son, that he had become God's son. That is an inner phenomenon. And when Jesus declared, "I am the son of the divine, my father is in heaven," people laughed and said, "Either you have gone mad, or you are a fool or a very cunning man. How can a carpenter's son suddenly become God's son?" But there is a way....

Only the body is born out of the body. The inner self is not born out of the body, it is born of the holy ghost, it is of the divine. But first you have to attain the eyes to see, you have to attain the ears to hear.

It is a very delicate affair to understand Jesus; you have to pass through a great training. It is just like understanding classical music. If suddenly you are allowed to listen to classical music for the first time you will feel, "What nonsense is going on?" It is so delicate, a long training is needed. You have to be an apprentice for many, many years; only then are your ears trained to catch the subtle -- and then there is nothing like classical music. Then ordinary day-to-day music, like film music, is not music at all; it is just noise, and that too, foolish. Because your ears are not trained you live with that noise and you think it is music. But for classical music you need very aristocratic ears. A training is needed, and the more you are trained, the more the subtle becomes visible. But classical music is nothing before a Jesus, because that is the cosmic music. You have to be so silent that there is not a single flicker of thought, not a single movement in your being; only then can you hear Jesus, can you understand Jesus, can you know him.

Jesus goes on repeating again and again, "Those who have ears should be able to understand me. Those who have eyes, see! I am here!" Why does he go on repeating, "Those who have eyes, see! Those who have ears, hear!" -- why? He is talking of some other dimension of understanding only a disciple can understand. Very few understood Jesus, but that is in the very nature of things and bound to be so. Very few -- and who were those few? They were not learned scholars, no; they were not professors of the universities, no; they were not pundits or philosophers, no. They were ordinary people: a fisherman, a farmer, a shoemaker, a prostitute -- they were very ordinary people, most ordinary, the most ordinary of ordinaries.

Why could these people understand? There must be something extraordinary in an ordinary man. There must be something special which exists in an ordinary man and disappears in so-called 'extraordinaries'. What is this? It is a humbleness, a trust.

The more you are trained in the intellect, the less trust is possible; when you are not trained in the intellect, more trust is possible. A farmer trusts, he has no need to doubt. He sows the seeds in the field and he trusts they will come up, they will sprout when the right season comes. They will sprout. He waits and he prays, and in the right season those seeds sprout and they become plants. He waits and he trusts. He lives with the trees, plants, rivers, mountains. There is no need to doubt: trees are not cunning, you need no armor around you to protect yourself from them; hills are not cunning -- they are not politicians, they are not criminals -- you need no armor to protect yourself from them. You do not need any security there, you can be open.

That is why when you go to the hills you suddenly feel a rapture. From where does it come? From the hills? No, it comes because now you can put the armor aside, there is no need to be afraid. When you go to a tree suddenly you feel beautiful. It is not coming from the tree, it is coming from within you. But with a tree there is no need to protect yourself, you can be at ease and at home. The flower is not going to suddenly attack you; the tree cannot be a thief, it cannot steal anything from you. So when you go to the hills, to the sea, to the trees, to the forest, you put aside your armor.

People who live with nature are more trusting. A country which is less industrialized, less mechanized, less technological, lives more with nature, has more trust in it. That is why you cannot conceive of Jesus being born in New York -- almost impossible. Jesus freaks can be born there, but not Jesus. And these 'freaks' are just neurotic; Jesus is just an excuse. No, you cannot think of Jesus being born there, it is almost impossible. And even if he were born there, no one would listen to him; even if he were there, nobody would be able to recognize him. He was born in an age without technology, without science, the son of a carpenter. He lived his whole life with poor, simple people who were living with nature. They could trust.

Jesus comes to the lake one day, early in the morning. The sun has not yet come up over the horizon. Two fishermen are there and they have just thrown their net to catch fish when Jesus comes and says, "Look! Why are you wasting your life? I can make you fishers of men. Why are you wasting your energy on fishing for fish? I can make you catchers of men, fishers of men. Come, follow me!"

If he had said that to you when you were sitting in your office or in your shop, you would have said, "Go away! I don't have any time. Don't waste my time!" But those two fishermen looked at Jesus; they looked at Jesus without any doubt. The sun was rising and the man was beautiful, this man Jesus. And his eyes -- they were deeper than the lake, and his radiance was greater than the sun. They threw away their nets and they followed Jesus.

This is trust. Not a single question: "Who are you, stranger?" They didn't know him, he was not of their village; they had never seen him, they had never heard him. But it was enough -- the call, the invitation was enough. They heard the invitation, they looked at Jesus, felt his sincerity, and they followed him.

Just when they were going out of the town a man came running and he said to those two fishermen, "Where are you going? Your father has died suddenly. Come back!"

So they said to Jesus, "Can we go home and bury our dead father, and then we will come?"

Jesus said: "Don't worry about the dead. There are enough dead in the town; they will bury their dead. Come and follow me. You need not bother about the dead." And those two fishermen followed. This is trust: they heard, they saw Jesus.

He meant -- and he was right: "When the father is dead, what is to be done? When somebody is dead, he is dead. There is no need to go. And there are enough dead in the town; they will do the remainder, they will do the ritual, they will bury your father. You come and follow me." So they followed and they never turned back, they never looked back. Trust means not looking back. Trust means not turning back.

A doubting mind is always looking back, always thinking of the alternative, always thinking of what he has not done, always thinking whether he has done right: should he go back or follow this madman? Who knows -- he says he is the son of God, but who knows? Nobody knows about God, nobody knows about his sons -- "and this man looks just like us!" But the fishermen followed Jesus.

If you follow a man like Jesus, sooner or later he will become infectious, but you have to follow in the beginning. Sooner or later you will feel that he is the son of God -- and not only that, through him you will realize that you are also sons of God. But in the beginning you have to trust. If in the beginning there is doubt, doors are closed.

This relationship between master and disciple has disappeared because of three centuries of successful science. Science has succeeded so much, and it has done miracles -- useless miracles of course, because they have not added a single bit to human happiness, and a miracle is useless if happiness has not increased through it. Rather, happiness has decreased. The more technology, the more comfort, but the less happiness: this is the miracle that science has done. The more things can be done by mechanical devices, the less you are needed. And the less you are needed, the more you feel futile, useless, meaningless. Sooner or later, the computer will replace you and then you will not be needed at all. Then you can go and commit suicide because the computer will do everything.

Happiness comes out of being needed. When you are needed you feel happy, because you feel your being has meaning, you feel your life has meaning; you feel that you are needed, and that without you things would be different. But now, without you, nothing will be different. Rather, things will be better without you because machines can do everything better than you. You are just a hindrance, just an out-of-date thing. Man is the most out-of-date thing today, because every year everything else comes in a new edition: a new model of Ford car comes out, a new model of everything. Only man remains an out-of-date model. Amidst so many new things, you are the only old thing.

The modern mind continuously feels a meaninglessness, because nobody needs you. Even children won't need you, because the government, the welfare state will take care of them. Your old father and mother will not need you, because there will be homes -- government, state homes -- which will take care. Who needs you? And when you feel nobody needs you, you are just an unnecessary burden, how can you be happy? In the old days you were needed.

Somewhere, a Jewish mystic, Hillel, who must have been a very trusting man, a very prayerful man, said to God in his prayer, "Don't think that only I need you -- you also need me. You will be nothing without me. If Hillel is not there, who will pray? Who will look up to you? I am a must. So remember this: I need you, that is right, but you also need me."

When the whole universe needed you -- even God -- then you had a meaning, a significance, a fragrance. But now nobody needs you. You can be disposed of easily, you are nothing. Technology has created comfort and made you disposable. Technology has made you better houses, but not better men, because better men need some other dimension -- and that dimension is not of mechanics. That dimension is of awareness, not of mechanicalness.

Science cannot create a Buddha or a Jesus, but science can create a society in which a Buddha will be impossible. Many people come to me and they ask why there are no more buddhas now, no more tirthankaras, no more Jesuses. Because of you! You have created such a society that it becomes more and more impossible for a simple man to exist, for an innocent man to exist. And even if he does exist you will not recognize him. It is not that buddhas are not there -- it is difficult to see them but they are there. You may be passing them every day when you go to your office, but you cannot recognize them because you are blind.

Trust has disappeared. Remember this: Jesus lived in an age of trust, deep trust. His whole glory, his whole significance can be understood only through that dimension of trust. Now, we shall enter this small piece of Jesus' sayings:

THE DISCIPLES SAID TO JESUS: TELL US WHAT THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE.

They were not questioners, they were not curious people, they were not going to argue. Their question was innocent. When a question is innocent, only then can a Jesus answer it. When is a question innocent, do you know? If you already have the answer then the question is not innocent. You ask, "Is there a God?" and you already have the answer. You know that yes, there is, and you have come to me just for confirmation. Or you know that there is not, and you have come just to see whether this man knows or not. If the answer is there then the question is cunning, then it is not innocent. Then it cannot be answered by a Jesus because Jesus can answer only innocence.

When a disciple asks, there is no answer in his mind. He does not know, he simply does not know and that is why he is asking. Remember this: when you ask something, remember well, are you asking because you already have an answer? Are you asking through your knowledge? Then there can be no meeting. Then even if I answer, the answer will never reach you. You are not empty enough to receive the answer. The answer is already there: you are prejudiced, poisoned already.

There are two types of questioning: one is out of knowledge, and then it is useless because then only a debate is possible, not a dialogue. But when you ask out of ignorance, knowing well that you don't know, when you know that you don't know, and ask, you have become a disciple. Now it is not going to be an argument. You are just thirsty and you ask for water; you are hungry and you ask for food. You don't know and you ask; you are ready to receive. A disciple asks knowing well that he doesn't know. When you don't know you are humble. When you know you become egoistic, and a Jesus cannot talk to egos.

posted December 11, 2007 11:47 AM            

Jesus continuously talked about the kingdom of heaven, and that created much trouble. The very terminology created much trouble, because the word kingdom is political and politicians became afraid. He was crucified because they thought, "This man is talking about some kingdom which is coming on earth, and this man is saying, 'I am the king of that kingdom.' This man is trying to create a revolution, to overthrow the government. This man wants to create another kingdom!"

The king, the viceroy, the officials, the priests, they all became scared. And this man was influential because people listened to him; and people not only listened to him -- whenever they listened to him they were transformed, they became aflame, they were totally new, something happened within them. So the priests, Pontius Pilate the viceroy, Herod the king, the whole government -- both the secular government and the sacred government -- all became scared of this man. He seemed to be dangerous. Such an innocent man there never had been, yet he looked dangerous. He was misunderstood.

But there is always the possibility of a Jesus being misunderstood. The problem is that he has to use your language because there is no other language. Whatsoever he says he has to say in your words. There are no other words and your words are already overburdened: they carry too much meaning already, they are too loaded. He was talking simply of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. But 'kingdom'? -- that word is dangerous. 'Kingdom' gives a hint of politics.

Jesus was not a revolutionary of this world. He was a revolutionary, a master revolutionary -- but of the inner world. He was talking of the inner kingdom. But even the disciples were not aware of what he was saying. When you come to a master there is a meeting of two different dimensions. The meeting is just like the meeting of the sky and the earth... just on the boundary. If trust is there you can move into the sky; if trust is not there you cling to the earth. If trust is there you can open your wings and move, but if trust is not there you cling to the earth. This man brings a danger to you. What is the kingdom of heaven? What type of kingdom? This kingdom is absolutely opposite, diametrically opposite the kingdom of this world. And Jesus explained and explained but it was difficult to make people understand. He said, "In my kingdom of God the poorest will be the richest, the last will be the first." He talked exactly like Lao Tzu, and he was a man like Lao Tzu. "The last will be the first in my kingdom of God." He was saying that the humblest will be the most significant, the poorest will be the richest, and one who is not recognized at all here will be recognized there -- all upside down. It has to be so.

If you stand near a river and the river is silent, there are no ripples and you look at your reflection, it is upside down. A reflection is always upside down. In this world we are really upside down, and if we are to be put right, everything has to be put rightside up. But that will look as if everything is going to be upside down. A state of chaos is needed.

Buddha became a beggar -- the last man of this world. He was a king, but the kingdom of God belongs to the last. He left the kingdom of this world, because the kingdom of this world is just useless, it is a meaningless burden. You carry it but it is not a nourishment. It destroys you. It is a poison -- although it may be such a slow poison that you cannot feel it.

One man was drinking and another was passing by, a friend. So the friend said, "What are you doing? That stuff is slow poison."

The man said, "It's okay -- I'm not in a hurry."

Whatsoever you call life is a slow poison because finally it comes to death. It kills you, it never does anything else. You may not be in a hurry, but that doesn't make any change in the quality of the poison. It may be slow, you may not be in a hurry, but still it will kill you. The kingdom of this world belongs to death, but the kingdom of heaven belongs to eternal life. So Jesus says: "Those who are ready, come to me. I will give you life abundant."

Jesus was passing through a village. He was thirsty and he came to a well. A woman was drawing water from the well and Jesus said, "I am thirsty, give me a little water to drink."

The woman said, "But I belong to a very low caste and it is not allowed, I cannot give you water."

Jesus said, "Don't worry. Give me water, and in exchange I will also give you water -- from my well. Once you drink out of it you will never be thirsty again."

The disciples are asking, "What is this kingdom of heaven LIKE?" -- because that which is not known to us can be explained only in terms of 'like'. Hence all myth. Mythology means trying to explain things which you don't know, and cannot know in this state of mind, through something which you know. Trying to explain the unknown in terms of the known is myth -- bringing some understanding to you where you are.

The kingdom of heaven cannot be explained directly, immediately. It is impossible. Unless you enter it there is no way to say anything about it. Whatsoever is said will be wrong. The truth cannot be said. Then what are Jesus, Lao Tzu and Buddha doing continuously, for years? If the truth cannot be said, what are they doing? They are trying to explain something to you which cannot be explained, through some symbols which you know; trying to explain the unknown through the known. This is the most difficult thing in the world -- parables, myths, stories.

And there are foolish people who try to analyze a myth, dissect it and say, "This is a myth, this is not truth." They analyze and dissect, they do surgery on the myth and then they say, "This is a myth, this is not history." But nobody has ever said that myth is history. And myth cannot be dissected because it is simply symbolic. It is just as if there is a milestone on which there is an arrow and by the arrow it is written 'Delhi', and you dissect the stone, you dissect the arrow, the ink, the chemicals and everything, and you say, "Some fool has done this -- there is no 'Delhi' in it!"

Myths are milestones, arrows towards the unknown. They are not the goal, they simply indicate. That is the meaning of the disciples' question: TELL US WHAT THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE. We cannot ask what the kingdom of heaven is. Look at the quality of the question: we cannot ask what the kingdom of heaven is -- that would be too much. We cannot expect the answer for that either. We can only ask what it is like, which means: "Say something which we know; make some indications through it so we can have a glimpse."

It is just like a blind man asking what light is like. How can you ask what light is when you are blind? If you ask, the very asking debars the answer. It cannot be answered. Light can be known, but you need eyes. But "What is light like?" means: "Say something in the language of the blind."

All parables are truths in the language of the blind; all mythologies are truths garbed in the language of the blind. So don't dissect them; you will not find anything there. They are just indications. And if you have trust, indications are wonderful.

In one temple in Japan there is no statue of Buddha. People go inside and they ask, "Where is the statue?" There is no statue, but on the pedestal there is just one finger pointing towards heaven -- and this is Buddha. The priest will say, "This is Buddha." I don't know whether the priest understands it or not -- this finger pointing to the moon. What is a buddha? Just a finger pointing to the moon!

The disciples ask what the kingdom of heaven is like: "Tell us, tell us in a parable, in a story that we children can understand. We don't know, we don't have any experience. Say something which can give us a glimpse."

posted December 11, 2007 11:48 AM            

Jesus has used this mustard seed very often, for many reasons. One: the mustard seed is the smallest seed. God is invisible, smaller than the smallest, so how can you indicate him? At the boundary of sight is the mustard seed, the smallest thing.... Beyond that you will not be able to understand because beyond is the invisible. The mustard seed is the boundary, the smallest thing in the world of the visible -- you can see it but it is very small. If you go beyond you enter the world of the subtle, that which is smaller than the smallest. This mustard seed exists on the boundary.

And this mustard seed is not only the smallest visible thing, it also has a very mysterious quality: when it grows it becomes the biggest of plants. So it is a paradox: the seed is the smallest and the plant is the biggest. God is the invisible and the universe is the most visible; the universe is the tree, the plant, and God is the seed; God is the unmanifest and the universe is the manifest.

If you break down a seed you will not find the tree there; you can dissect it but you will not find a tree hidden there. And you can say there is no tree and people were just foolish saying that a great tree is hidden in this seed when there is nothing. This is what analysts have always been doing. You tell them that this flower is beautiful; they will take it to the lab and they will dissect it to find where the beauty is. They will come upon chemicals and other things, they will dissect it and analyze it, and they will label different fragments of the flower in many bottles -- but there will not be a single bottle in which they will find beauty. No, they will come out of the lab and they will say, "You must have been under some illusion, you were dreaming -- there is no beauty. We have dissected the whole flower, nothing has been left, and there is no beauty."

There are things which are known only in their wholeness; you cannot dissect them. They are greater than their parts, this is the problem -- a basic problem for those who are in search of truth. Truth is greater than all the parts joined together. It is not just the sum of the parts, it is greater than the parts. A melody is not just the sum of all the notes, of all the sounds. No, it is something greater. When all the notes meet, a harmony is created, a harmony becomes manifest which was not there in single notes. I am speaking to you: you can dissect my words, they will all be found in a dictionary, but you cannot find me in the dictionary. And you can say, "All the words are here, so why bother?"

It happened once that Mark Twain went to listen to a friend who was a priest -- the friend had been insisting for many, many days. He was one of the greatest orators, a very poetic orator, and he was very highly appreciated. Whenever he spoke the church would be overcrowded, but Mark Twain never came to listen to him. The friend insisted again and again until Mark Twain said, "Okay, I am coming this weekend."

For the Sunday the priest prepared his best; he arranged all that was beautiful in his mind because Mark Twain was coming. Mark Twain sat right in the front and the priest delivered his best speech ever. He brought his whole energy to it and it was really beautiful; it was a symphony, it was poetry.

But by and by he became afraid, apprehensive, because Mark Twain was sitting there as if dead. Not even a glimpse of appreciation came to his face. The people clapped so many times, they were ecstatic, but Mark Twain just sat there not giving any indication at all that he had been impressed this way or that, neither negative nor positive. He remained indifferent -- and indifference is more deadly than negative attitudes, because if you are against something, at least you have some attitude towards it; if you are against you give some meaning to it. But if you are indifferent you say that this is absolutely useless, not even worth being against.

When the speech finished, Mark Twain went back in the car with the priest. The priest could not ask anything and they remained silent. Just when Mark Twain was getting out of the car the priest said. "You have not said anything about my lecture."

Mark Twain replied, "It is nothing new. I have a book in my house and you have simply copied from it. This lecture is borrowed and you cannot fool me. You can fool those fools there in the church, but I am a man of letters and I study. By chance, only last night I was reading that book."

The priest couldn't believe it. He said, "What are you saying? I have not copied it from anywhere. It is impossible!"

Mark Twain said, "Every word that you said is there. And tomorrow I will send the book." Tomorrow came; he sent him a copy of a big dictionary and he said, "You can find all the words here!"

This is the mind of the analyst. He can kill poetry immediately. He can say it is just words joined together. He cannot see between the words, he cannot see between the lines -- and the poetry exists there. The beauty exists there, and the ecstasy and God and all that is significant always exists between the words, between the lines.

The mustard seed is the smallest and contains the biggest. You cannot see God because he is the smallest -- the mustard seed -- but you can see the universe. And if the universe is there the seed must be there. How can there be a tree without the seed? Can there be a tree without a seed? Whether or not you can see it is not the point. Can this universe exist without a final cause, a source? The Ganges is there -- can the Ganges be there without a source? This vast universe -- and you think it can exist without a source? And this universe is not only vast, there is also such a harmony in it, such a universal symphony, such a universal system. It is not a chaos -- so much discipline in it, everything in the right place. And those who know well, they say that this is the best of all possible worlds, that nothing can be better than this.

There must be a seed, but the seed is very small, smaller than the mustard seed. The mustard seed is used as a myth, to indicate. These were fishermen and farmers and gardeners who were asking, and they would understand the parable, the parable of the mustard seed. If you dissect it you miss. If you dissect religion you miss; either you can see it directly without dissecting it, or you cannot see it.

There is one way which trust uses: in the seed you cannot see the tree, but you can go and sow the seed in the ground -- this is what trust will do. He will say, "Okay, this is a seed; I trust it will become a tree, and I will go and put it in the field. I will find suitable soil and I will protect this seed. I will wait and pray, I will love and hope, and I will dream...."

What else can you do? You can sow the seed and wait and dream, and hope and pray. What else can you do? Then suddenly one day, one morning, you awake and the seed has become a new thing, new sprouts are coming out of the earth. Now the seed is no longer a seed -- it is becoming a tree, it is blooming.

What happens when a seed becomes a tree? That too is part of the parable. The seed has to die -- only then does it become a tree. God has died into this universe; he cannot remain aloof, he is in it, he is lost in it. That is why you cannot find God. You can go to the Himalayas, to Mecca, to Kashi, or anywhere you like, but you will not find him anywhere, because he is here, everywhere, just as the seed is now in the whole tree. You cannot find the seed; the seed has died into the tree and become the tree. God has died into this universe, into this existence, and has become the cosmos.

He is not a separate thing. He is not like a carpenter who makes something and remains separate. That is not possible. He is like a seed: the tree grows out of it, but then it disappears into the tree. You can find God again only when this tree disappears.

Hindus have been saying that you can find God either in the beginning of creation or you can find him at the end of creation. In the beginning, when the world is not, the seed is there, but you are not there to find him -- because you are part of the tree, you are leaves of the tree. Or, he will be there in pralaya, when the whole world dissolves, when the tree becomes old and dies. And this happens with every tree: when the tree becomes old, new seeds come again -- millions of seeds.

In pralaya you will find millions of gods again -- but then you will not be there, that's the problem. There is only one way to find God: you can find him only if you can find him here and now, on every leaf. If you are looking for a particular image, a Krishna, a Rama, then you will not find him. They are also leaves -- more beautiful, of course, more alive and more green, because they have realized God, realized that he is everywhere.

When Jesus says, "The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed," he is saying millions of things. That's the beauty of a parable: you say almost nothing, you say nothing much, and yet you say many things. When the seed dies the universe is there; when the seed dies the tree is there. This is the kingdom of God; here is the kingdom of heaven. And if you are looking for it somewhere else, you are looking in vain. If you want to look into the kingdom of God, you also have to become like a seed and die: and suddenly the tree is there -- you are no more and God is there. You will never encounter God. If you are there, God is not there because the seed is there. When you disappear, God is there; so there is no encounter really.

When you are not, God is there; emptiness in your hand, then God is there. When you are no more, then God is there. Again a paradox: the seed contains the tree, but the seed can also kill the tree. If the seed becomes too egoistic, if the seed thinks, "I am enough," and if the seed becomes afraid of death, then the very container will become the prison; the very shell that was protecting the tree before it reached the right soil will become the prison -- and then the tree will die in the seed.

You are like seeds which have become prisons. A Buddha is a seed, a Jesus is a seed, which is not a prison: the seed, the cell has died, and now the tree has sprouted.

posted December 11, 2007 11:50 AM            

... BUT WHEN IT FALLS ON THE TILLED EARTH.... Right earth is needed. Just a dying of the seed won't do, because you can die on a stone and then there will be no tree, there will be simple death. You have to find right soil, right earth -- and that is the meaning of discipleship. It is a training. Discipleship is a training, a learning to become a tilled, right earth. The seed is there but the right earth has to be found. You have the tree within you; the master can only give you the right earth. He can till you, he can throw the weeds out, he can make the soil worthy to receive. He can make the soil rich with fertilizers -- he is a gardener.

You contain all, but still you will need a gardener; otherwise you will go on throwing the seeds anywhere. They may fall on a cement road and they will die there, or they will fall on a path and people will walk over them and they will die. Somebody is needed when you are dying who can protect you. Look: when a child is born you need a midwife. Nobody says that without a midwife it would be good.... A midwife is needed because the moment is very delicate. But greater is the moment when the truth is born; greater is the moment when God is born in you -- greater than all births.

The master is nothing but a midwife. Otherwise, without a master many things are possible: a miscarriage may happen and the child may die before it is born. A master is needed to protect you, because the new sprout is very delicate, helpless -- anything can happen to it. It is very dangerous. But if you trust -- and trust is needed, there is no other way, for if you doubt then you will shrink and the seed will never die -- but if you trust, the seed dies. The seed cannot know the tree, that is the problem. The seed wants to be certain,"If I die I will become the tree." But how can you make the seed certain?

This is the absurdity of faith. Faith is absurd. You want to be certain that, "I can become a sannyasin, I can renounce all, I am ready to die, but what is the guarantee that when the seed is no more, the tree will be there?" Who can give you the guarantee and how can the guarantee be given? And even if the guarantee is given, the seed to whom it is given will not be there. And what guarantee can prove to the seed that when it is not there the tree will be there? No guarantee is possible.

That's why faith is absurd. Believing in that which cannot be believed is the meaning of faith -- believing in that which cannot be believed; there is no way to believe it and still you believe it. The seed dies in deep trust and the tree is born. But a 'tilled earth' is needed, a right ground is needed. The whole of discipleship is just to become a tilled ground.

posted December 11, 2007 11:51 AM            

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE A MUSTARD SEED....
You are the kingdom of heaven, you are like a mustard seed. Be ready to die, prepare for your death! Of course there will be trembling and fear and apprehension. The jump is going to be difficult. Many times you may come back, many times you will go to the very brink and turn back and escape, because there is an abyss. The seed can only know the abyss, the seed cannot know the tree. There is no way that the seed can witness the sprouting tree -- there is no way. The seed has to die and trust in the unknown -- that it will happen.

If you are ready to die, it happens. Go and sow seeds in the ground: when the tree has come, then dig the ground again and see where the seed is. It will have disappeared, it will not be there. Go and dig in a Buddha, in a Jesus -- you will not find the man, the seed. This is the meaning of Jesus being the son of God, no more the son of Joseph the carpenter -- because the seed came from Joseph the carpenter and Mary, but now the seed has disappeared, the shell has disappeared. This tree never came from the visible, it is from the invisible.

Look at Jesus: the seed is no longer there, only God is there. Be ready to die so that you can be reborn. Drop the mind, the body, the ego, the identity. Suddenly you will find that something new is growing within you: you have become a womb, you are pregnant. And to be spiritually pregnant is the peak of creation, because you are creating yourself through it. Nothing is comparable to it. You may create a great painting or a great sculpture, but nothing is to be compared with when you create yourself, when you 'self-create' yourself.

BUT WHEN IT FALLS ON THE TILLED EARTH....

Be ready to die! But before you are ready to take the jump, become 'the tilled earth' -- become a disciple, become a learner, become humble; become as if you are not. Soon you really will not be -- but get ready for it, behave as if you are not. Then:

IT PRODUCES A LARGE TREE AND BECOMES SHELTER FOR ALL THE BIRDS OF HEAVEN

It has always been happening so. You are here near me; my seed is dead -- that is why you are here. It is not because of you that you are here, it is because of me that you are here. But to say 'because of me' is not correct because there is no 'me'; the seed has disappeared and now it is just a tree. And if you get a glimpse of your own possibility through me, the work is done.

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE A MUSTARD SEED

You are the seeds, you are the possibility of that kingdom. Get ready to die, because that is the only way to be reborn.

Enough for today.

posted December 11, 2007 02:45 PM            

THE SECOND SAYING

JESUS SAID: MEN POSSIBLY THINK THAT I HAVE COME TO THROW PEACE UPON THE WORLD, AND THEY DO NOT KNOW THAT I HAVE COME TO THROW DIVISIONS UPON THE EARTH -- FIRE, SWORD, WAR.

FOR THERE SHALL BE FIVE IN A HOUSE: THREE SHALL BE AGAINST TWO AND TWO AGAINST THREE; THE FATHER AGAINST THE SON AND THE SON AGAINST THE FATHER; AND THEY WILL STAND AS SOLITARIES.

JESUS SAID: I WILL GIVE YOU WHAT THE EYE HAS NOT SEEN, AND WHAT THE EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND WHAT THE HAND HAS NOT TOUCHED, AND WHAT HAS NOT ARISEN IN THE HEART OF MAN.

Jesus is very paradoxical, but meaningfully so. To take in the meaning many things have to be understood. First, peace is possible if everybody is almost dead. There will be no war, no conflict, but there will be no life either. That would be the silence of the graveyard. But that is not worth anything; then even war is better because in war you are alive and vital.

Another type of peace -- a totally different dimension of peace -- exists when you are vital, alive, but centered in your being: when self-knowledge has happened, when you have become enlightened, when the flame is lit and you are not in darkness. Then there will be more life, more silence, but the silence will belong to life, not to death. It will not be the silence of the graveyard.

This is the paradox to be understood: war is bad, hate is bad; they are the evils on the earth and they must go. Disease is bad, health is good; disease must go, but you must remember that a dead man never falls ill; a dead body can deteriorate but cannot be ill. So if you don't understand, all your efforts may create a dead world. There will be no disease, no war, no hatred -- but no life either.

Jesus would not like that type of peace. That type of peace is useless; then this world, with war, would be better. But many have been endeavoring, and their attitude is just negative. They think, "If war stops, everything will be okay." It is not so easy. And this is not only the ordinary man's conception -- even very great philosophers like Bertrand Russell think that if war is finished everything will be okay. This is negative -- because war is not the problem, the problem is man. And the war is not outside, the war is within. If you have not fought the war within, you will fight it without. If you have fought the war within and have become victorious, then the war without will cease. That is the only way.

In India, we have called Mahavira 'the conqueror', 'the great conqueror' -- the jinna. The word jinna means the conqueror. But he never fought with anybody so whom has he conquered? He never believed in violence, never believed in war, never believed in fighting. Why do you call this man Mahavira, the great conqueror? This is not his original name; his original name was Vardhaman. What has happened? What phenomenon has occurred? This man has conquered himself, and once you conquer yourself your fight with others ceases immediately -- because this fight with others is just a trick to avoid the inner war. If you are not at ease with yourself, then there are only two ways: either you suffer this unease or project it on somebody else. When you are inwardly tense you are ready to fight -- any excuse will do. The excuse is irrelevant; you will jump on anybody -- the servant, the wife, the child.

How do you throw your inner conflict and unease? You make the other responsible, then you pass through a catharsis. You can become angry now, you can throw your anger and violence and this will give you a release, a relief -- of course temporary, because the inside has not changed. It will again accumulate, it remains the old. Tomorrow again it will accumulate anger, hatred, and you will have to project it.

You fight with others because you go on accumulating rubbish inside yourself and you have to throw it out. A person who has conquered himself has become a self-conqueror, has no inner conflict. The war has ceased. He is one inside -- there are not two. Such a man will never project, such a man will not fight with anybody else.

So this is a trick of the mind to avoid the inner conflict, because the inner conflict is more painful -- for many reasons. The basic reason is that every one of you has an image of yourself as being a good man. And life is such that without this image it will be difficult to live.

Psychiatrists say that illusions are needed to live. Unless you have become enlightened, illusions are needed to live. If you think you are so bad, so devilish, so evil, if this image -- which is the truth that you are -- gets inside, then you will not be able to live at all. You will lose all self-confidence, and you will be filled with such condemnation towards yourself that you will not be able to love; you will not really be able to move, you will not be able to look at another human being. You will feel so inferior, so bad, so devilish, that you will die -- this feeling will become a suicide. And this is a truth -- so what to do?

One way is to change this truth: become a man of God, not a man of the devil -- become divine. But that is difficult, arduous, a long hard path. Much has to be done; only then can the devil become divine. It can become divine! You may not be aware of the root of the word devil: it comes from the same word from which 'divine' comes. Both 'devil' and 'divine' come from the same Sanskrit root, deva. The devil can become divine, because the divine has become the devil. The possibility is there; they are two poles of one energy. The energy which has gone sour, bitter, can become sweet. An inner transformation is needed, an inner alchemy is needed -- but that is long and arduous. And the mind always looks for the shortcut where the least resistance is. So mind says, "Why bother about becoming a good man? Just believe that you are good." This is easy because nothing is to be done. Just think that you are good, just create an image that you are beautiful, heavenly, that nobody is like you, and even this illusion of goodness gives you energy to live.

If illusions can give you so much energy, you can conceive how much will happen when the truth is realized. Even the illusion that you are good gives you life to move, gives you legs to stand on, gives you confidence. You become almost centered even with the illusion, and this center that happens in illusion is the ego. When you are really centered, that is the self. But that happens only when the truth is realized: when your inner energies have been transformed, the lower has been transformed into the higher, the earthly into the heavenly; when the devil has become divine, when you have become radiant with the glory that is yours; when the seed has come to sprout, when the mustard seed has become a great tree.

But that is a long process; one needs the courage to wait, one needs not to be tempted by the shortcut. And in life there are no shortcuts; only illusions are shortcuts. Life is arduous because only through arduous struggle does growth come to you -- it never comes easily. You cannot get it cheaply; anything that is cheap cannot help you to grow. Suffering helps -- the very effort, the very struggle, the long path that gives you sharpness, growth, experience, maturity. How can you achieve maturity through a shortcut? There is a possibility -- now they are working with animals, and sooner or later they will work with human beings. There is a possibility: you can be injected with hormones. A child of ten can be injected with hormones and he will become a young man of twenty. But do you think he will attain the maturity that he should have attained if he had passed through ten years of life? The struggle, the arising sex, the need to control, the need to love: to be free and yet controlled, to be free and yet centered; to move with the other, to suffer in love, to learn -- all that will not be there. This man who looks twenty is really ten years of age. Through hormones you have only blown up his body.

But they are doing this with animals, with fruit, with trees. A tree can be injected, and the tree that would naturally come to flower in three years will come in one year. But those flowers will lack something. It is difficult to see because you are not flowers, but they will lack something. They have been forced, they have not passed through a seasoning. Fruit will come sooner but those fruits will not be so mature; they will lack something -- they are artificial.

Nature is not in a hurry. Remember: mind is always in a hurry, nature is never in a hurry -- nature waits and waits, it is eternal. There is no need to be in a hurry; life goes on and on and on, it is an eternity. But for mind time is short, so mind says, "Time is money." Life never says that. Life says, "Experience!" -- not time. Life waits, can wait: mind cannot wait -- death is coming near. There is no death for life, but for mind there is death.

Mind always tries to find a shortcut. And to find a shortcut, the easiest way is to create an illusion: think that you are what you want to be -- then you have become neurotic. That is what has happened to many people who are in madhouses: they think they are Napoleon or Alexander, or somebody else. They believe it and they behave that way.

I have heard about one man who was being treated, psychoanalyzed. He thought that he was the great Napoleon. After three or four years of treatment and psychoanalysis, the psychiatrist thought, "Now he is absolutely okay." So he said, "Now you are okay and you can go to your home."

The man said, "Home? Say, 'To your palace.'" He was still Napoleon. It is so difficult if you have become Napoleon -- to be treated is very difficult, because even if you are treated and you become well, what is going to happen is that you are going to lose.

One general found a captain who was always drunk, so he caught hold of him. The man was very good -- drunkards are almost always good, they are beautiful people, just taking a shortcut. So the general said, "You are a good man and I appreciate you, and everybody loves you, but you are wasting yourself. If you can remain sober, soon you will become a colonel."

The man laughed and he said, "It's not worth it, because while I am drunk I am the general already. So it's not worth it: if I remain sober I am only going to become a colonel, and while I am drunk I am always the general!" There is too much involved in the illusion. How can this man let go of his illusion? -- so cheaply he has become the general.

Mind finds shortcuts, and illusions are the shortcuts; maya is the easiest and the cheapest thing to achieve. Reality is hard, arduous: one has to suffer and pass through fires. The more you pass through fires the more seasoned you become; the more seasoned, the more valuable. Your divinity cannot be purchased in a market, and cheap; you cannot bargain for it, you have to pay with your whole life. When your whole life is at stake, only then does it happen.

You fight with others because this is an easy way. You think you are good, the other is bad, and the fight is outward. If you look at yourself then the fight becomes inward: you know you are bad, it is difficult to find a more devilish man than you. If you look within then you find you are absolutely bad, and something has to be done. An inner fight, an inner war starts.

And through that inner conflict -- and it is a technique, remember, it is one of the greatest techniques that has been used through the centuries -- if there is inner conflict, then you become integrated. If there is inner conflict, then beyond the conflicting parties a new center of witnessing arises. If there is inner conflict, then energies are involved, your total being is in turmoil: chaos is created and out of that chaos a new being is born.

Any new birth needs chaos; this whole universe is born out of chaos. Before you are really born chaos will be needed -- that is the war of Jesus. He says: "I have come not to give you peace" -- not that he has not come to give you peace, but not the cheap peace that you would like to be given. Now try to understand his words.

posted December 11, 2007 02:46 PM            

But if you come to a true master, this is the criterion: whatsoever peace you have, that too will be destroyed; whatsoever 'at-easeness' you have is going to go to the dogs. He will create more turmoil, more conflict. He is not going to console you because he is not your enemy; all consolations are poisons. He will help you to grow. Growth is difficult, you will have to pass through many difficulties. Many times you would like to escape from this man, but you cannot because he will haunt you. Consolation is not the goal; he cannot give you a false peace. He will give you growth, and out of that growth some day you will flower. And that flowering will be the true peace, the true silence. Consolation is false.

People come to me and I can see the way they come, the problems they bring: they want consolation. Somebody comes and he says, "I am in much difficulty. My mind is not at peace, I am very tense. Give me something -- bless me so that I become peaceful."

But what will that mean? If this man can be made at peace, what will that mean? Then this man is never going to change. No, that is not the way. Even if a real master consoles you, that consolation is just like a fishing net. You will be caught in the consolation and then, by and by, he will create the chaos.

You have to pass through the chaos, because as you are you are absolutely wrong. In this state if somebody consoles you he is your enemy. With him you will lose time, life, energy, and in the end consolations won't help. When death comes all consolations will evaporate.

There was one old man whose son died. He came to me and he said, "Console me!"

I said, "I cannot do that; that is sin."

He said, "I have come for that."

I told him, "You may have come for that, but I cannot do it."

He said, "But I went to this shankaracharya and he consoled me. He said, 'Don't bother, don't be worried; your son is reborn in a high heaven!'"

I knew his son also, and that is impossible because he was a politician -- they all go to hell, they never go to heaven. And not only was he a politician, but a successful politician -- he was a minister of state, with all the cunning of a politician, with all the ambition of a politician. How can he go to heaven? And this old man was also a politician. Basically he was not disturbed because his son was dead; the basic thing was that his ambition was dead, because through that son he was achieving more and more and more and more. He himself had become old; he had worked continuously his whole life, but he was a little foolish, not very cunning, a little naive. He worked hard, he sacrificed his whole life, but he could not attain any post. And that was the deep hurt, it was a wound. And then through the son he had been trying, and the son had been achieving. Now that his son was dead his whole ambition was dead.

When I told him, "This is the reason you are suffering so much; it is not your son," he was very disturbed. He said, "I had come for consolation and you are disturbing me more. It may be," he said. "Whatsoever you say sounds true. It may be that my ambition has been hurt and it is not for the son that I am weeping -- it may be for the ambition. But don't say such hard things to me, I am in such pain right now. My son is dead and you are saying such hard things to me. And I went to this mahatma, and to that shankaracharya, and to this guru, and they all consoled me. They said, 'Don't worry, the soul is eternal; nobody ever dies. And your son -- he was no ordinary soul, he has reached a high heaven!'"

These are consolations, and if this old man goes on listening to these consolations he is missing a great opportunity. He is missing an opportunity in which he could face his ambition, which is his problem. He could have encountered the fact that all ambition is useless, futile, because you work and work and work, and then death takes everything. He could have penetrated to this. But no, he stopped coming to me. He used to come to me, but since that time he has never come. He went to others who would console him.

Are you here to be consoled? Then you are in the wrong place. That is what Jesus says. He says:

MEN POSSIBLY THINK THAT I HAVE COME TO THROW PEACE UPON THE WORLD, AND THEY DO NOT KNOW THAT I HAVE COME TO THROW DIVISIONS UPON THE EARTH -- FIRE, SWORD, WAR.

Whenever a man like Jesus comes, the world is immediately divided between those who are for him and those who are against him. You cannot find a single person who is indifferent to Jesus. Whenever a Jesus-type is there, immediately the world is divided. Some are for him and some are against him, but nobody is indifferent. It is impossible to be indifferent to Jesus. If you hear the word, if you look at the Jesus, immediately you are divided: either you become a lover or you become a hater; either you fall in line or you go against; either you follow him or you start working against him.

Why does this happen? Because a man like Jesus is such a great phenomenon and he is not of this world. He brings to this world something from the beyond. Those who are afraid of the beyond immediately become the enemies -- that is their way of protecting themselves. For those who have a desire, a seed hidden somewhere, who have been searching and searching and longing for the beyond, this man becomes charismatic, this man becomes a magnetic force -- they fall in his love. They have been waiting for this man for many lives.

Immediately the world is divided: either you are for Christ or you are against him. There is no other alternative; you cannot be indifferent. You cannot say, "I'm not bothered"; that is impossible, because a person who can remain in the middle will become a Jesus himself. A person who can stand in the middle, in neither love nor hate, will go beyond the mind himself. You cannot stand in the middle; you will fall, you will become a 'rightist' or a 'leftist', you will be on this side or on that. He creates great turmoil -- not only in individuals but in society too, on the earth; everything comes to be in a conflict, a great war starts. Since Jesus there has never been peace in the world. Jesus created a religion. He brought something into the world which created such a division, such a conflict in all minds, that he became the focus of all history. That is why we say 'before Christ', 'after Christ'; he became the focal point.

History is divided, time is divided, with Jesus. He stands on the boundary. Before Jesus it is as if time was of a different quality; after Jesus time became of a different quality. With Jesus, history starts. His attitude, his approach towards the human mind, is very different from that of a Buddha or a Lao Tzu. The ultimate goal is one, the ultimate flowering is going to be one, but Jesus' approach is absolutely different. He is unique.

What is he saying? He is saying that through conflict growth is achieved; through struggle centering happens; through war peace flowers. But don't take him literally; whatsoever he is saying is a parable. Christianity took it literally and missed the point. Then Christians took the sword in their hands, and they have killed millions unnecessarily, because that was not the meaning of Jesus. Then the church, Jesus' church, became a warring church, it became a crusade. Christians have been fighting Mohammedans, Hindus, Buddhists -- they have been fighting everywhere. But they missed the point. Jesus was talking of something else. He was not talking of the swords of this world; he brought a sword of a different world. What is this sword? It is a symbol. You have to be cut into two, because in you two things meet: this world -- the earth -- and heaven; they meet in you. One part of you belongs to the mud, to the dirt; one part of you belongs to the divine. You are a meeting point, and Jesus brought a sword to cut you asunder, so the earth falls to the earth and the divine enters into the divine.

You cannot make any distinction as to what belongs to the earth. When you are hungry, do you think you are hungry? Jesus says, "No, take my sword and cut it!" Hunger belongs to the body because it is a bodily need. Consciousness has no hunger; it becomes aware because the body has no consciousness.

You may have heard one old Panchtantra story.... It happened that a big forest accidentally caught fire. Two men were there, one was blind and one was lame. The lame one couldn't walk, couldn't run, but he could see; and the blind one could walk and run, but he could not see. So they made a pact: the blind man took the lame man on his shoulders, and as the lame man could see and the blind man could walk, they became one man. They came out of the forest -- they saved their lives.

This is not just a story -- this is what has happened in you. One part of you feels hunger, but cannot know it because it has no eyes to see. Your body feels hunger, your body feels sexual desire, your body feels thirst, your body needs comfort -- all the needs are of the body -- and your consciousness only sees, your self is only a witness. But they have made a pact because without the body the consciousness cannot walk, cannot move, cannot do anything; and without the consciousness the body cannot realize what is needed, whether the body is hungry or thirsty.

posted December 11, 2007 02:49 PM            

... I HAVE COME TO THROW DIVISIONS UPON THE EARTH -- FIRE, SWORD, WAR.

Why 'fire'? Fire is a very old kabalistic symbol, and a very old Hindu symbol also. Hindus have always talked about inner fire; they call that inner fire tap because it is heat. And to kindle that inner fire so that your fire is burning inside, they call yagna. And there are techniques for burning that inner fire. Right now it is almost dead, covered with ashes. It has to be poked, discovered, rekindled; more fuel is needed and the fuel has to be given. When the inner fire burns in its totality, suddenly you are transformed -- because there is no transformation without fire. You heat water and at a particular degree, a hundred degrees, the water evaporates, becomes vapor; the whole quality changes.

Have you observed that when water changes into vapor, the whole quality changes? When it is water, it always flows downwards. That is the nature of water, to flow downwards; it cannot flow upwards, it is impossible. But when at a hundred degrees it evaporates, its whole nature changes: the vapor floats upwards, never downwards. The whole dimension changes and it happens through heat.

If you go to a chemist's lab, what will you find? If you take fire away nothing will happen there, because every transformation, every new change, every mutation is through fire. And what are you except fire? What are you doing when you are living? When you breathe, what do you breathe? You breathe oxygen and oxygen is nothing but fuel to fire. When you run, more fire is needed so you breathe more deeply; when you rest, less fire is needed so you breathe less deeply, because less oxygen is needed. Oxygen is fuel to the fire. Fire cannot exist without oxygen because oxygen burns. You are fire -- moment to moment, through food, through air, through water, fire is created in you. When it is too much you have to release it. When animals have the sexual urge we say they are 'on heat'. It is meaningful because it is a sort of heat. It is a sort of heat, and when you have more fire than you can absorb it has to be released, and sex is an outlet.

Remember, in hot countries people are more sexual than in cold countries. The first books on sexology appeared in hot countries: Vatsyayana's Kamasutra, Koka Pandit's Kokashastra, appeared first. The first Freudians were in the East -- and they appeared before Freud, three thousand years before Freud. In the West sex has just become important. In a cold country there is not enough fire in the body to create much sexuality. Only within the last three or four centuries has sex become very important in the West, because now the country may be cold, but central heating is there. So people are not so cold; otherwise the fire of the body continuously fights with the cold. That's why in the East the population goes on growing and it is difficult to prevent it, but the West does not have so much of a population explosion.

I heard it happened that when the first Russian astronauts landed on the moon, they were very happy. But they were surprised when they saw three Chinese walking there. The Russians looked at them and said, "You have reached before us? And you don't have any means, any technology, any science -- how did you do it? You have done a miracle. How did you reach here?"

Those Chinese said: "Nothing like a miracle! A simple thing -- mathematics: we stood on each others' shoulders and reached!" The Chinese can reach, the Indians can reach, there is no problem. Once they decide they can reach anywhere!

Sex is a heat phenomenon, a fire phenomenon. Whenever the fire is burning you will feel more sexual, and whenever the fire is not burning so much you will feel less sexual. Everything that happens in you, whether it is a sexual transformation in the body or a spiritual transformation, depends on fire.

Hindus, Kabalists, Jews and Sufis.... Jesus was trained in an Essene community -- in a very occult, esoteric society which knew many methods to create inner fire. So fire is not just the fire you know, it is the innermost fire upon which life exists. If this fire can be raised to a particular level... but it is only possible to bring it to a particular degree if it is not released, and that is why all the religions which use this fire are against sex. If it is released through sex then it cannot be brought to a particular degree, because then you have an outlet. So all the outlets have to be closed completely so there is no leakage of the fire and it reaches the one-hundred-degree point: a certain degree at which, suddenly, the transformatin happens. The soul and the body are separate -- the sword has worked! Then you know what is earth in you and what is heaven; then you know what has come from your father and mother and what has come from the invisible.

... FIRE, SWORD, WAR....

A deep inner conflict is needed. You should not be lethargic, you should not relax unless the relaxation happens -- and that is totally different. You have to fight and create conflict and friction. Friction is the right word for the inner war. Gurdjieff worked through friction; he would create friction in the body. You may not be aware now but remember it: some day you will become aware that your body has many layers of energies. If you are not in friction then you use only the superficial layer. If much conflict arises, the superficial layer is finished and then the second layer starts functioning.

Try it this way: you always go to sleep at ten at night. At ten suddenly you feel sleepiness coming over you -- don't go to sleep. Sufis have used this method very often, and Jesus also used it -- vigil. For the whole night he would not sleep; in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights he would not sleep. He remained in the hills alone without sleeping. What happens? If you don't sleep at ten, for a few minutes you will feel very, very lethargic, sleepier and sleepier and sleepier. But if you resist and fight, a friction is created, you become two: the one who wants to sleep and the one who doesn't want to sleep. Now there are two parts fighting. If you stick and don't yield, suddenly you will find all sleepiness has gone and you have become as fresh as you have never been in the morning. Suddenly all sleepiness has gone, you are fresh, and even if you want to go to sleep it will be difficult now. What happened? There were only two possibilities, and through the friction between them energy was created.

Energy is always created through friction. All science depends on creating friction; then energy is created. All dynamos are just friction techniques to create a fight, a war between two things. You create a war: your body wants to go to sleep and you don't want to go to sleep. Friction is there, and much energy is created.

If you yield that will be very bad, because if you yield, the body has won and the consciousness has lost a fight. So if you try, only try with a mind determined not to yield; otherwise it is better not to try. Friction methods are dangerous: if you try then you have to win. If you don't win you are lost, because then you lose your confidence. Your consciousness will become weaker and the body will become stronger. And if you lose many times, then there is less and less possibility of winning.

Once you use any friction method then make it a point to win. It is not to be lost, the battle must be won. And once you win you achieve a different layer of energy. Now you can see that if you win, the energy that was in the other part is absorbed by you so you become stronger. And then every fight will make you stronger, still stronger, until a moment comes when the whole energy of the body is absorbed by the self.

Gurdjieff used friction very deeply and in such unbelievably dangerous ways. When he was very old, just within a few years of his death, he made a very dangerous car accident happen. He did it -- it was not really an accident. In the life of a person like Gurdjieff there is no accident. He is so aware that accidents are not possible. But he can allow an accident or he can even create one -- and he did create one.

He was a fast driver and in his whole life there had never been a single accident. He was also a very dangerous driver; all those who sat with him would always be on edge: any moment.... He was absolutely mad, didn't believe in any traffic rules or anything. He would go this way and that, and as fast as possible, and anything was possible at any moment -- but it never happened.

One morning, when he went to Paris from his ashram in Fontainebleau, somebody asked, "When will you be back?"

He said, "If everything happens as I think it will happen, by the evening; otherwise, difficult to say."

And in the evening when he was coming back there was an accident. The accident was so severe and dangerous that the doctors said that nobody could have survived -- impossible! The whole car was crashed to bits. But Gurdjieff was found. He had sixty fractures all over his body -- almost dead. But he was found perfectly aware, lying under a tree very far away from the car. He had walked to the shade and was lying there perfectly aware. He was not unconscious. He was taken to hospital perfectly conscious. He said that no anesthesia should be given to him -- he wanted to remain perfectly conscious.

This was the greatest friction he ever created with his body. The body was just on the verge of death; he had created the whole situation and he wanted to remain absolutely alert. He remained alert, and at this moment he attained the greatest centering that can happen to a man: he became centered in his consciousness -- the earthly layer was completely separated. It became a vehicle: he could use it, but he was not identified with it.

This is the meaning of Jesus when he says:

... I HAVE BROUGHT FIRE, SWORD, WAR -- ALTHOUGH MEN POSSIBLY THINK THAT I HAVE COME TO THROW PEACE UPON THE WORLD....

FOR THERE SHALL BE FIVE IN A HOUSE: THREE SHALL BE AGAINST TWO AND TWO AGAINST THREE; THE FATHER AGAINST THE SON AND THE SON AGAINST THE FATHER; AND THEY WILL STAND AS SOLITARIES.

FOR THERE SHALL BE FIVE IN A HOUSE.... This is a parable: in your body there are 'five in the house' -- the five senses, the five indriyas. Really, deep down you have five bodies, because each sense has its own center, and each sense goes on manipulating you in its own direction. The eye says, "Look at the beauty"; the hand says, "Touch, it is so lovable." The eye is not at all interested in touch; the hand is not at all interested in looking at a beautiful person, a beautiful body or a beautiful tree.

All five senses exist as five separate centers and your mind is just a coordinator; it goes on coordinating between these five. When you look at me and you hear me, you hear from the ears and you look from the eyes. Eyes never hear, ears never look; then how do you conclude that you hear the same person you see? How can you conclude? The mind goes on coordinating. It is a computer: whatsoever the eyes feed in, whatsoever the ears feed in, it combines and gives you the conclusion.

The method of friction which Gurdjieff used, which Jesus used.... And those who know the innermost secret story of Jesus' life say that he was not crucified, but that he managed to be crucified just like Gurdjieff. He managed to be crucified -- it was a drama that he arranged.

Those who were crucifying him thought they were killing him, but such a man as Jesus cannot be forced to die. He could have escaped very easily, for it was well known that he was to be caught. He could have moved away from the capital or away from the country, there was no problem -- but he came to the capital. It is said that he enacted the whole thing, and that Judas was not his enemy but his friend who helped, who helped Jesus to be caught. The whole thing was managed and controlled by him.

What happened on the cross was the last inner war, the last and greatest friction. When he was dying, but not losing trust in the divine; when the earth was falling back to the earth; when the division was absolute, total -- he was not identified at all. He allowed it.

Gurdjieff used to say that this crucifixion of Jesus was a drama, and that really, the author of the drama was neither Pontius Pilate nor the high priest of the Jews, but Jesus himself. He managed it, and he managed it so beautifully that even up to now it has not been discovered -- not exactly -- what happened and how.

You cannot imagine managing your own crucifixion, but that is what religion is: managing your own crucifixion. Going to the cross means going to the climax of friction -- where death is.

posted December 11, 2007 02:51 PM            

FOR THERE SHALL BE FIVE IN A HOUSE: THREE SHALL BE AGAINST TWO AND TWO AGAINST THREE.

A friction has to be created. The senses have to fight and the fight has to be made conscious. They continuously fight but the fight is not conscious; you are fast asleep and the fight goes on. The eye is continuously fighting the ear, the ear is continuously fighting the eye -- because they are competitors.

Have you observed that a blind man has more listening capacity than a man who has eyes? That's why blind men become beautiful musicians, singers. Why does this happen? They have more capacity for sound, rhythm, more sensitivity in their ears. Why? -- because the eye is no longer a competitor. The energy that was being used by the eyes is available for the ears; they are the competitors.

Your eyes are using eighty percent of your energy, leaving only twenty percent for the other four senses. They are starved; they are continuously fighting. The eyes have become the supreme, the dictatorial force. You live through the eyes and some senses have gone completely dead. Many people have no smell, that sense has gone completely dead; they never bother, they are not even aware that they cannot smell. The eyes have completely exploited the nose, because it is so near that it can be exploited. Children have a sense of smell, but by and by it is lost because the eyes go on using more and more energy. The eye has become the center of your being, which is not good.

Methods of friction use the senses against each other. In many methods the seeker remains with closed eyes for many months. The energy starts moving, you can feel it. If you remain constantly with closed eyes for three months, you will be able to feel the energy moving continuously towards the ears, towards the nose. Your sense of smell may come back, you may start smelling. There have been methods and schools where seekers completely cut one sense against the other; a fight is created. If you close the ears for three months and just see, don't listen, then you will see there is a constant movement of energy.

If you can see your senses fighting, you will become separate because you become a witness. You are no longer the eyes, no longer the ears, no longer the hands, no longer the body -- you are a witness. The fight goes on within the body and you are an onlooker. This is the meaning, the deepest meaning of the parable, but it is also true in another sense.

FOR THERE SHALL BE FIVE IN A HOUSE: THREE SHALL BE AGAINST TWO AND TWO AGAINST THREE; THE FATHER AGAINST THE SON AND THE SON AGAINST THE FATHER; AND THEY WILL STAND AS SOLITARIES.

In another sense too this is true, that in a family of five, three will be against two and two will be against three. Whenever a religious person happens in a family friction starts, because for a family a religious person is the most dangerous person. The family can tolerate anything except religion, because once you become religious you will not be identified with the body.

The family is related to the body: your father is your father because of your body. If you think you are the body, then you are related to your father. But if you come to know that you are not the body, who is the father? How are you related to him? The mother has given birth to your body, not to you. You are so identified with the body that you think the mother has given birth to you.

When you are not identified, the identification is broken, then who is the mother? She has not given birth to you but only to this body which is going to die. So the mother has not given you life; rather, on the contrary, the mother has given you one more death. The father has not given you life, he has given you one more possibility to die. Once you are not identified with the body you have broken from the family, you are uprooted.

So the family can tolerate it if you go to a prostitute. It is okay, nothing is wrong -- rather, on the contrary, you are getting more and more identified with the body. If you become an alcoholic, if you are a drunkard, it is okay, because you are getting more and more identified with the body. Nothing is wrong in this. But if you become a meditator, if you become a sannyasin, then it is not okay. Then it is difficult because you are being uprooted. Then the family no longer has power over you; then you are no longer part of the family, because you are no longer part of this world.

So Jesus says: Father will be against son, son will be against father. And: I have come to disrupt, to divide, to create conflict and friction.

This is true. You can worship a Buddha, but ask Buddha's father -- he is against him. Ask Buddha's relatives -- they are against him, because this man has gone beyond their control. Not only that: he is also helping others to go beyond the control of the society, of the family.

The family is the basic unit of society. When you go beyond society you have to go beyond the family, but this does not mean that you should hate it -- that is not the point; nor that you should go against it -- that is not the point either. That is going to happen anyway. Once you start to find yourself, all that has been before will be disrupted, there is going to be chaos. So what should you do? They will pull you back, they will try to bring you back, they will make every effort to do so. What should be done?

There are two ways: one is the old way which is to escape from them, not to give them any opportunity -- but I think that is no longer applicable. The other is to be with them, but as an actor: don't give them the opportunity to know that you are moving beyond them. Move! Let that be your inner journey, but outwardly fulfill all formalities: touch the feet of your father and your mother and be a good actor.

The old way cannot be followed by many. That's why the earth could not become religious -- because how many people can go out of society? And even if they go out of society, the society has to take care of them. When Buddha was here, or Mahavira or Jesus, then thousands left their families. But still only thousands -- millions were left behind and they had to take care of them. The whole earth cannot become religious if that is the only way. And it is not good either; it can be done in a more beautiful way, and that beautiful way is to be a good actor.

A sannyasin must be a good actor. By being a good actor I mean that you are not related at all, but you go on fulfilling the formalities. Deep down you are uprooted, but you don't even give a hint that you are uprooted. And what is the use of giving a hint? -- because then they will start trying to change you. Don't give them any chance. Let this be an inner journey and outwardly be completely formal. They will be happy then because they live in formalities. They live on the outside, they don't need your inner worship. They don't need your inner love -- just the show is enough.

These are the two ways: one is that of Buddha and Jesus, the other is that of Janak and me. Be wherever you are. Don't create any outward show that you are changing and becoming religious, because that can create trouble and you may not be strong enough right now. Create the conflict inside but don't create it outside. The inner conflict is more than enough; it will give you the growth, the maturity needed.

posted December 11, 2007 02:52 PM            

This word solitary has to be understood deeply. When you become religious you become solitary; then there is no society for you, you are alone. And to accept that you are alone is the greatest transformation that can happen to you, because mind is afraid of being alone; mind wants somebody else to hang on to, to cling to. Alone you feel a trembling, a fear grips you. Alone...? And immediately you rush towards society, to the club, the conference, the sect, the church, somewhere where there is a crowd, where you can feel that you are not alone, where you can lose yourself into the crowd. That's why the crowd has become so important. Go to the racecourse, go to the cinema hall -- but a crowd is needed in which you are no longer solitary, where you can relax.

But a religious man is a solitary because he is trying to reach his highest peak. He is not to lose himself in others. He has to remember, become more mindful, he has to become more aware and alert -- and he has to accept the truth. This is the truth: that everybody is alone and there is no possibility of any togetherness. Your consciousness is a solitary peak. But that is the beauty of it and you are unnecessarily afraid of it. Imagine Everest in a crowd of Everests -- then the whole beauty is lost. Everest is beautiful and challenging because it is alone, a solitary peak. A religious man is like Everest: he becomes a solitary peak, alone, and he lives and enjoys it. That doesn't mean that he will not move in society, it doesn't mean he will not love. On the contrary, only he can love. On the contrary, only he can move in society, because only he is. You are not -- so how can you love? He can love but his love is not going to be like a drug, he is not going to be lost. He can share, he can give himself completely and still remain himself. He can give himself to you and still not be lost, because his mindfulness remains the innermost peak. There, in that shrine, he remains alone. Nobody enters there, nobody can enter there.

In the innermost core of your being you are alone.

The purity of aloneness and the beauty of aloneness....

But on the contrary, you feel afraid. Because you have lived in society -- you are born in society. you have been brought up by the society -- you have completely forgotten that you can also be alone. So to move for a few days into loneliness, just to feel your aloneliness, is beautiful. Then come to the marketplace, but bring your aloneness with you. Don't get lost there. Remain aware and alert: move into society, go into a crowd, but remain alone. You can be alone in the crowd if you want; you can be in the crowd even while you are alone if you want. You can go to the Himalayas and sit there and think of the market -- you are in the crowd.

It happened when Junnaid came to his master: he was alone and the master was sitting in a temple. When Junnaid entered, the master was alone and he said, "Junnaid, come alone! Don't bring the crowd with you!" So Junnaid looked back, of course, because he thought there was somebody else coming with him. But there was no one. The master laughed and said, "Don't look back, look within."

Then Junnaid closed his eyes and he found that the master was right. He had left his wife but his mind was clinging to her; he had left his children but their images were still there; and the friends who had come to give him the last send-off were still standing in his mind.

The master said, "Go out and come alone, because how can I talk with this crowd?"

So Junnaid had to wait for one year outside the temple to be freed of 'this crowd'. And after one year the master called, "Now Junnaid, you are ready, come in. Now you are alone and a dialogue is possible."

You can carry the crowd; you can also be in the crowd and yet alone. Try it: the next time you are moving in a big crowd in the market, just feel alone -- and you are alone so there is no problem, you can feel it. And once you can feel that you are alone, you have become a solitary. Jesus says he has come to make you solitaries, to stand alone.

I WILL GIVE YOU WHAT THE EYE HAS NOT SEEN, AND WHAT THE EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND WHAT THE HAND HAS NOT TOUCHED, AND WHAT HAS NOT ARISEN IN THE HEART OF MAN.

Your eyes can see that which is without, they cannot see within, there is no way. Your ears can hear that which is without, they cannot hear within, there is no way. They are outgoing, all senses are outgoing. There is not a single sense that is ingoing. So when all the senses stop functioning, suddenly you are in. There is no sense that goes in.

Jesus says: I WILL GIVE YOU WHAT THE EYE HAS NOT SEEN -- but first become a solitary. And that is what I mean by a sannyasin: a solitary. First become a sannyasin, first realize that you are alone, and be at ease with this aloneness. Don't be afraid. Rather enjoy it, rather see the beauty of it, the silence and the purity and the innocence. No dirt has ever entered there because nobody has entered into that shrine. It has remained eternally pure, it is virgin; nobody has been there.

Your virginity is hidden within you. Become a sannyasin, a solitary, and then, Jesus says: I WILL GIVE YOU WHAT THE EYE HAS NOT SEEN.

When you become a solitary, totally alone, suddenly you realize that which no eye can see, no ear can hear, and what the hand has not touched. How can you touch your self? You can touch the body, but that is not your self. The hand cannot enter in, it cannot touch your consciousness -- there is no way.

And the last sentence is the most beautiful uttered by any person on this earth:

posted December 11, 2007 02:54 PM            

... Because your soul is beyond even your heart. Of course, your heart is very deep within; but still, as far as your soul is concerned, it is also without, it is not within. The hands are without, the eyes are without, the heart is also without, on the periphery. The innermost core is not even the heart. Hunger arises in your body, love arises in your heart -- not prayer. Prayer is still deeper, deeper than the heart. Hunger is a bodily need; love is a need of the heart. God is a need of the beyond, not even of the heart. One has to transcend the mind, one has to transcend the heart too. One has to transcend all peripheries so that only the center remains.

And what has not arisen in the heart of man? God has not arisen in the heart of man. In the mind science arises, philosophy arises; in the heart, art, poetry arises -- but not religion. Religion arises at a deeper layer, at the deepest beyond which there is no going, at your very center, which is not even the heart.

I WILL GIVE YOU... WHAT HAS NOT ARISEN IN THE HEART OF MAN.

That which is beyond and beyond and beyond. You cannot catch hold of it, you cannot see it, you cannot hear it, you cannot even feel it. Here Jesus transcends even those mystics who are of the heart.

There are three types of mystics: first, mystics of the head -- they talk in terms of theology, philosophy, they have proofs for God. There is no proof at all, or, everything is a proof. But there is no need for a proof and you cannot prove God anyway, because all the proofs can be disputed and all the proofs can be proved wrong. Then there are mystics of the heart: they talk of love, of the beloved, the divine, of Krishna; they talk in songs, poetry -- they are romantic. Their search is deeper than the head but still not deep enough.

Jesus says: I will give you something which has not arisen even in the heart... where no theology reaches and no poetry has any glimpse of, nor logic nor love -- where both stop. I WILL GIVE YOU THAT WHICH HAS NOT ARISEN IN THE HEART OF MAN.

This is the deepest, the most profound possibility -- and Jesus opens it. But in Christianity it is lost. Christianity started to weave theories around it, it became a head affair -- not only a heart affair, it became a head affair. Christians have produced great theologicians. Look at Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica -- hundreds of volumes of theology. But they missed because Jesus is not in the head. And because of these head-oriented theologicians, mystics who were of the heart, who were a little deeper, were expelled from the church. Eckhart and Francis were expelled. They were thought fools, or to have gone mad, or to be heretics -- because they were talking of the heart, they were talking of love.

But Jesus is missed by both. He is neither head-oriented nor heart-oriented; he is not oriented at all. He says, simply throw all orientations, throw all that is without and come to the innermost core where only you are, where only the being throbs, where only existence is. You can come to this, and if you come to this, then every mystery is revealed and all doors are opened. But even at the door you can miss. If you remain head-oriented you remain standing at the door, theorizing, or you may be standing at the door and poetizing -- talking in poetry and singing.

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin went once to a psychiatrist and said, "I am very puzzled: now do something. It has become impossible. Every night I have a recurrent dream that I am standing at a door and I am pushing and pushing and pushing. There is a sign on the door and I push and push to no end. Every night I wake up perspiring and the door never opens."

The psychiatrist started to note whatsoever he was saying. After half an hour's talk he asked, "Now tell me, Nasruddin, what is written on the door, on the sign?"

And Nasruddin said, "It says 'pull'."

If 'pull' is written on the door then don't go on pushing; otherwise you will have a recurrent dream, you will push eternally! And there is no problem at all: simply look at what is written on the door. Jesus says neither head nor heart is written on the door -- it is beyond both.

So do one thing: go beyond. Neither fall a victim of logic, of intellect, nor become a victim of emotions, of sentimentality. The head is in the body and the heart is also in the body. Go beyond both. What is beyond? There, is simple existence, you simply are.

Being is without any attributes. That simple 'beingness' is dhyan, that simple 'beingness' is meditation -- and that is written on the door.

Suddenly the door opens when you are a simple being -- not emotions, nor thoughts; no cloud around you, unclouded; no smoke around the flame, just the flame. You have entered.

... AND WHAT HAS NOT ARISEN IN THE HEART OF MAN I WILL GIVE YOU.

posted December 11, 2007 03:29 PM            

THE THIRD SAYING

JESUS SAID: I TOOK MY STAND IN THE MIDST OF THE WORLD AND IN FLESH I APPEARED TO THEM.

posted December 11, 2007 03:29 PM            

Jesus never renounced the world, he was standing in the midst of us all. He was not an escapist; he moved in the marketplace, he lived with the crowd. He talked to prostitutes, laborers, farmers, fishermen. He didn't go out of the world, he remained here amidst you. He knew the world better than anybody who has escaped from it.
It is no wonder that Christ's message became so powerful; Mahavira's message never became so powerful, but Jesus converted almost half of the world. Why? -- because he remained in the world, he understood the world... its ways, the people, the mind. He moved with them, he came to know how they function -- asleep, drunk -- and he started to find ways and means to awaken them.
On the last night, when Jesus was caught -- or managed to be caught -- when the last drama was enacted, one disciple was with him. And Jesus said, "This is my last night, so I will go into deep prayer. I have to pray, and you are to keep vigil. Don't fall asleep! I will come and see... and this is my last night, remember!"
Jesus went and after half an hour he came again. The disciple was fast asleep. He awakened him and told him, "You are fast asleep, and I told you to keep vigil because this is my last night. Remain alert, because I will not be here again! Then you can sleep for ever and ever. But with me... at least on my last night remain alert!"
The disciple said, "Excuse me, I was feeling so sleepy that I couldn't help it. But I will try now."
Jesus went again into prayer. After half an hour he was back and that disciple was fast asleep. He awakened him again and said, "What are you doing? The morning is coming near and I will be caught!"
The disciple said, "Excuse me, forgive me, but the flesh is very strong and the will is very weak; and the body was so heavy, and I thought, 'What is wrong in taking a little sleep? By the time you come, I will be awake again.'"
A third time Jesus came and the disciple was fast asleep....
But this is the situation of all disciples. Many times I have come to you and I have found you fast asleep. Whenever I came to you I found you were fast asleep. Sleepiness has become just second nature. What does sleepiness mean? It means that you are not aware that you are -- then whatsoever you do is irresponsible. You are mad, and whatsoever you do you are doing just like a drunkard.
Mulla Nasruddin was caught. When he came out of court he said to a friend, "It has been very hard: the judge first fined me fifty rupees" -- because he had kissed a woman, a stranger, on the road. So he was telling his friend, "The judge first fined me fifty rupees for kissing her -- and then when he looked at the woman he fined me fifty more for being drunk!" ... Because the woman was almost no woman at all -- she was so ugly that nobody could kiss her if he was in his senses!
You have all been kissing the ugliest things possible. That is possible only because you are drunk and asleep. Have you ever thought about things that obsess you? How ugly! Can you find anything more ugly than power? Can you find a more ugly man than Hitler, Napoleon, Alexander? But that's your ambition also; deep down you would like to be like Napoleon, Alexander, Hitler -- successful in the world, powerful in the world. But can you find anything more ugly than them?
Power is the ugliest thing, but everybody wants power, to dominate. Have you seen the ugliness of wealth? It has to be ugly, it cannot be beautiful, because it depends on exploitation. Blood is there, death is there, and many have been deprived of their lives... only then does your bank balance go on increasing. You cannot find anything more ugly than that, but deep down, everybody is in search of wealth.
Whenever the last judgment day comes, you will be fined fifty rupees first, and when God looks at the things you have been kissing you will be fined fifty more... because you have been drunk, otherwise this would not be possible.
Says Jesus:
I TOOK MY STAND IN THE MIDST OF THE WORLD AND IN FLESH I APPEARED TO THEM.
And he was not a spirit. Many masters go on continuously visiting you in their spirits. Buddha still knocks at your door, but in the spirit. And if you cannot see a person who has come in the flesh, how can you recognize Buddha?
In this century, when H.P.Blavatsky discovered -- or rediscovered -- the existence of masters who go on working and helping people who are on the path, in spirit, nobody believed her. They thought she had gone crazy, and people would say, "Give us proof -- where are those masters?" One of the greatest things that Theosophy achieved was the rediscovery of masters, because anyone who has become enlightened remains in the world, for there is nowhere else to go. This is the only existence there is. So he remains, but without the body, and his being goes on functioning, helping, because that is his nature -- it is not something he has to do.
It is just like a light: a light is there, and it goes on and on lighting everything that is around it. Even if the path is lonely and nobody passes, the light still goes on burning because that is its nature. If somebody comes to the path, then the light is there and the light guides him; not that it is something to be done on his part -- it is just his nature. Whenever a being becomes enlightened he remains a guide. But you cannot recognize a guide in the spirit if you cannot recognize a guide in the body.
Jesus says: I appeared in the flesh to them -- I was in the body, they could see me, they could hear me, they could feel me, but still they missed. They missed because... I FOUND THEM ALL DRUNK. They were not there really, no consciousness at all. I knocked at their doors, but they were not at home.
If Jesus comes to your home and knocks, will you be there to receive him? You will be somewhere else; you are never at home. You go on wandering all over the world, except to your home. Where is your home? Inside you, where the center of consciousness is, is your home. You are never there, because only in deep meditation are you there. And when you are deep in meditation you can recognize Jesus immediately -- whether he comes in the body or bodiless makes no difference. If you are at home you will recognize the knock. But if you are not at home, what can be done? Jesus will knock and you will not be there. That is the meaning of the word drunk: not at home.
Really, whenever you want to forget yourself you take alcohol, drugs; whenever you want to forget yourself you drink. Drinking means forgetfulness, and the whole of religion consists of remembering; hence, all the religions insist against drinking. Not that there is something wrong in drinking in itself -- if you are not moving on the path there is nothing wrong in it. But if you are moving on the path, then there cannot be anything more wrong than that, because the whole path consists of self-remembering, and drinking is forgetfulness.
But why do you want to forget yourself? Why are you so bored with yourself? Why can't you live with yourself? Why can't you be alert and at ease? What is the problem? The problem is that whenever you are alert, alone, you feel empty; you feel as if you are nobody. You feel a nothingness inside and that nothingness becomes the abyss. You get scared, you start running from it.
Deep inside you, you are an abyss, and that's why you go on escaping. Buddha called that abyss no-self, anatta. There is nobody inside. When you look it is a vast expansion, but nobody is there -- just inner sky, an infinite abyss, endless, beginningless. The moment you look you get dizzy, you start running, you immediately escape. But where can you escape to? Wherever you go that emptiness will be with you because it is you. It is your Tao, your nature. One has to come to terms with it.
Meditation is nothing but coming to terms with your inner emptiness: recognizing it, not escaping; living through it, not escaping; being through it, not escaping. Then suddenly the emptiness becomes the fullness of life. When you don't escape from it, it is the most beautiful thing, the purest, because only emptiness can be pure. If something is there, dirt has entered; if something is there, then death has entered; if something is there, then limitation has entered. If something is there, then God cannot be there. God means the great abyss, the ultimate abyss. It is there, but you are never trained to look into it.
It is just like when you go to the hills and look into the valley: you get dizzy. Then you don't want to look because a fear grips you -- you may fall. But no hill is so high and no valley so deep as the valley that exists inside you. And whenever you look inside you feel a dizziness, nausea -- you immediately escape, you close your eyes and start running. You have been running for millions of lives, but you have not reached anywhere, because you cannot.
One has to come to terms with the inner emptiness. And once you come to terms with it, suddenly the emptiness changes its nature -- it becomes the all. Then it is not empty, not negative; it is the most positive thing in existence. But acceptance is the door.
That's why there is so much attraction for alcohol, LSD, marijuana -- drugs. And there are many types of drugs: physical, chemical, mental; wealth, power, politics -- everything is a drug.
Look at a politician: he is drugged, he is drunk with power; he does not walk on the earth. Look at a man of wealth: you think he walks on the earth? No, his feet never touch the earth, he is very high, he has wealth. Only poor men walk on the earth, only beggars; a rich man flies in the sky. When you fall in love with a woman, suddenly you are on high; suddenly you never walk again on the earth -- a romance has entered. The whole quality of your being is different, because now you are drunk. Sex is the deepest alcohol that nature has given to you.
Jesus said:
I FOUND THEM ALL DRUNK; I FOUND NONE OF THEM ATHIRST.
This has to be understood, a very delicate point: if you are drunk with this world, you cannot be thirsty for the other. If you are drunk with ordinary alcohol, with ordinary wine, you cannot be thirsty for the divine wine -- impossible! When a man is not drunk with this world, a thirst arises. And that thirst cannot be fulfilled by anything that belongs to this world. Only the unknown can fulfill it, only the invisible can fulfill it.
So Jesus says a very contradictory thing: I FOUND THEM ALL DRUNK; I FOUND NONE OF THEM ATHIRST. Nobody was thirsty because they thought they had already found the key, the treasure, the kingdom. So then there was no search.
God is a drunkenness of a different type. Kabir has said: "Aisi tari lagi -- I have fallen into such a drunkenness that nothing now can disturb it, it is eternal." Ask Omar Khayyam -- he knows, he talks about the wine of the other world. And Fitzgerald totally misunderstood him, because he is not talking of the wine that you can get here; he is talking of the divine wine, which is the Sufi symbol for God. Once you are drunk with God, then there will be no thirst at all.
But this world and its wine can give you only temporary relief, can give you only temporary gaps of forgetfulness. And the difference is diametrical: when someone is drunk with God's wine he is totally alert, aware, fully conscious; when somebody is drunk with this world and its wines he is hypnotized, asleep, moves in a slumber, lives in a sleep -- his whole life is a long dream.
I FOUND THEM ALL DRUNK; I FOUND NONE OF THEM ATHIRST.
AND MY SOUL WAS AFFLICTED FOR THE SONS OF MEN, BECAUSE THEY ARE BLIND IN THEIR HEART AND THEY DO NOT SEE THAT EMPTY THEY HAVE COME INTO THE WORLD, AND EMPTY THEY SEEK TO GO OUT OF THE WORLD AGAIN.

posted December 11, 2007 03:30 PM            

Only the heart can see how empty you are! What have you gained? What maturity, what growth has happened to you? What ecstasy has come to you? -- no benediction yet? The whole past has been a rotten thing. And in the future you are going to repeat the past: what else can you do? This is the affliction of a Jesus, of a Buddha. He feels miserable for you.
BUT NOW THEY ARE DRUNK. WHEN THEY HAVE SHAKEN OFF THEIR WINE, THEN THEY WILL REPENT.

posted December 11, 2007 03:30 PM            

This is the affliction of a Buddha, of a Jesus: looking at you -- emperors, who have the kingdom of God, begging; asking for worthless things, wasting your time, your life, energy, opportunity.
Repent! Look at what you have been doing. It will look so foolish, you will not even be able to believe that you have been doing this. The whole thing will look nonsense!
Look at what you have been doing with your life, look at what you have done to yourself. You are just a ruin, and the ruin is growing every day. In the end you will be just a ruin, totally ruined. And in your begging heart, in your begging mind, there lives the king, the supreme. This is a marvel!
And a Jesus feels very much, hence he is so sad, he cannot laugh. Not that laughter is difficult for him -- he cannot laugh because of you. He is so sad, he feels so much for you that he goes on devising methods, devising keys to unlock you, to make you that which you already are, to make you realize who you are.
Go through these words and remember one key word: Repent. And if you can come to realize that repentance is the key, it will cleanse all your past. You will suddenly be fresh and virgin again.
And when you are fresh, God is there, because God is nothing but your freshness, your virginity.
Enough for today.

posted December 12, 2007 10:20 PM            

THE FOURTH SAYING

JESUS SAID: TAKE NO THOUGHT FROM THE MORNING UNTIL THE EVENING AND FROM THE EVENING UNTIL THE MORNING, FOR WHAT YOU SHALL PUT ON.

HIS DISCIPLES SAID: WHEN WILT THOU BE REVEALED TO US AND WHEN WILL WE SEE THEE?

JESUS SAID: WHEN YOU TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHING WITHOUT BEING ASHAMED, AND TAKE YOUR CLOTHES AND PUT THEM UNDER YOUR FEET AS THE LITTLE CHILDREN AND TREAD ON THEM -- THEN SHALL YOU BEHOLD THE SON OF THE LIVING ONE, AND YOU SHALL NOT FEAR.

Man lives not as he is but as he would like to be: not with the original face, but with a painted, false face. That is the whole problem. When you are born you have a face of your own -- nobody has disturbed it, nobody has changed it, but sooner or later the society starts working on your face. It starts hiding the original, the natural, the one you were born with, and then many faces are given to you for different occasions because one face won't do.

Situations change so you need many false faces, masks. From the morning till the evening, from the evening till the morning, thousands of faces are used. When you see a man approaching who is powerful, you change the mask; when you see a man who is a beggar approaching you, you are different. The whole time, moment to moment, there is a constant change in the face.

One has to be alert about it because it has become so mechanical that you need not be aware of it, it goes on changing by itself. If a servant comes in the room you don't even look at him. You act as if he is not a man, as if he doesn't exist, as if nobody has entered. But when the boss comes in the room you suddenly jump, you have a smiling face, receiving, welcoming, as if God himself has entered into the room.

Watch your face, the changes that occur continuously. Look in the mirror and think of the many faces that you can change. Look in the mirror and bring the face that comes when you approach your wife; look at the face that comes when you approach your beloved; look at the face when you are greedy, when you are angry; create the face when you feel sexual; create the face when you feel dissatisfied, frustrated. And watch in the mirror: you will find you are not one man -- you are a crowd. And sometimes it will be difficult even to recognize that all these faces belong to you. A mirror can be a great blessing. You can meditate in the mirror, change your faces and look at them. This will give you a glimpse of how false your whole life has become. And none of these faces is you.

In Zen it has been one of the deepest meditations: to find your original face, the one you had before you came to this world -- and the one you will have when you leave this world, because you cannot carry all these faces with you. They are gimmicks, techniques to deceive, techniques to defend yourself, they are armors around you. These faces have to be dropped, only then can you see Jesus, because when you see your original face you have seen Jesus.

Jesus is nothing but your original face, Buddha is nothing but your original face. Buddha is not outside you, neither is Jesus. When you drop all the falsity and you are naked -- just the original you, without any change, modification -- you are Jesus; Jesus in his absolute glory is revealed. It is not in the son of Joseph that he is to be revealed: suddenly you become Jesus. And only the like can know the like -- remember that law always: if you are like Jesus, only then can you recognize him; otherwise how will you recognize him? When you feel your own inner being, then you can recognize the inner being of somebody else.

The light can recognize the light, the light cannot recognize the darkness. And how will the darkness recognize the light? If you are false you cannot recognize a real man, and Jesus is the most real man, the most real that is possible. He is not a liar, he is authentic, and if you are lying with your life continuously -- your words, your gestures, everything is a lie -- then how can you recognize Jesus? It is impossible. In your total nudity you will recognize the inner Jesus, and only then will the outer be recognized. The inner is the first to be recognized, because the recognition can come only from your innermost source of being. There is no other way.

One of the oldest Jewish sayings is that you start seeking God only when you have found him. It looks paradoxical but it is absolutely true, because how will you start seeking him if you have not found him -- found him within yourself, realized him within yourself? Only then does the search start, but then there is no need to search really. The search starts and ends at the same point, the first step is the last step.

Only one step exists between you and the divine. There are not two steps so there is no path. Just one step: drop all falsities that you have taken upon yourself, drop all borrowed masks.

But why do we have faces? What is the need and what is the fear of dropping them? The whole mechanics has to be understood, only then will these words be clear to you.

First: you have never loved yourself -- otherwise there would be no need. You hate yourself, and if you hate yourself you will hide your face. If you hate yourself how can you reveal your face to others? You yourself hate it, you yourself don't want to see it, then how can you reveal it to others? Why has it happened that you hate yourself? The whole conditioning of society depends on creating hatred in you about yourself, a self-condemnation, a guilt. Religions have existed, priests have existed, society exists -- all types of exploitation exist on this basic seed that you hate yourself.

Why should you go to a priest if you don't hate yourself? What is the need? When you hate you feel guilty; when you hate you feel some transformation is needed; when you hate you think some help is needed -- somebody is needed to change you, to make you lovable, worth loving. Your parents say to you, "You are wrong, this is wrong, that is wrong!" They go on continuously saying, "Don't do this, don't do that!"

I have heard: One small child wanted to play on the beach with the sand. The mother said, "No, because the sand is wet and you will spoil your clothes." Then the small child wanted to go near the water. The mother said, "No, absolutely no! It is slippery and you may fall there." Then the small child wanted to run and jump around, and the mother said, "No! You may get lost in the crowd." Then the child asked for ice cream, because the ice cream vendor was near. The mother said, "No, because that always creates a problem with the throat and it is bad for the health." And then she said to a person who was standing by, "Have you ever seen such a neurotic child?"

And the child is not neurotic; the mother is neurotic. To play with sand is not neurosis, to go near the water is not neurosis, to run around is not neurosis, but a neurotic mind always says "No!" A neurotic mind cannot say "Yes!" because a neurotic mind cannot allow freedom to himself or herself, so how can a neurotic mind allow freedom to you? And this mother and almost all mothers are like that, and all fathers. Remember, when you become a mother or you become a father, they are all like that. Freedom is killed and the child is forced, by and by, to feel that he is neurotic, he is wrong; whatsoever he proposes to do he is told "No!"

I have heard about a small child who went to school for the first day, came back, and his mother asked, "What did you learn there?" The child said, "For the first time I learnt that my name is not 'Don't'. I always feel that 'Don't' is my name -- 'Don't do that, don't go there, don't be like that!' So I was thinking that my name is 'Don't'. In school I learned that that is not my name."

posted December 12, 2007 10:21 PM            

It is almost impossible because everybody around is mad and they will force him to be like themselves. They will kill his freedom and they will create the feeling that he is wrong, he is always wrong. That creates a condemnation, a self-condemnation -- you start hating yourself. And remember: if you hate yourself you cannot love anybody else. Impossible! How can you love somebody when you hate yourself? If poison exists at the source, it will poison all your relationships. So, you are never able to love anybody.

And remember the second thing which follows as a logical consequence: if you hate yourself, how can you think that anybody is going to love you? If you cannot love yourself, who is going to love you? So you know deep down that nobody is going to love you; and even if somebody tries, you never believe him. You go on suspecting that he must be deceiving you. How can anybody love you? -- you cannot love yourself. Then even if someone loves you, you are skeptical about it, doubtful. You cannot trust, and you will find ways and means to prove that he doesn't love you. And when it is proved, you are at ease, then everything is right.

This hatred is the base of all false faces -- you start hiding. Clothes exist not because of the climate, that is just a minor part of it. They exist to hide the body, they exist to hide the sexuality, they exist to hide the animal in you. But the animal is life -- all that is alive in you is animal-like. Except for your head, everything is animal-like, so everything has to be hidden except the head. Only the head, thinking, is not animal-like, so that is allowed. The society would be very happy if your whole body were cut off and only the head existed.

They are trying to do this, and the experiments have been successful. It is possible for the whole body to be dropped and the mind to go on functioning. The brain goes on functioning just through mechanical help: a mechanical heart goes on beating, a mechanical blood system goes on moving the blood, circulating it in the brain -- and the brain exists without the body. Scientists are doing many experiments, and they are in confusion as to what the brain should be thinking inside, because the body is no longer there -- the brain may be having dreams, thinking thoughts, creating systems.

They were successful in this just a few years back, but society has been successful with the same experiment in a different way: your whole body is cut off from your consciousness, only your head is allowed. If you suddenly come upon your body without the head, I am certain you will not recognize that this is your body. If you suddenly come upon your body without the head, will you be able to recognize that this is your body? You have never seen it; even in the bathroom you have never seen your body. Clothes have become too much. They are not just on the body, they are on the mind also.

Two small school children were passing a big wall and they wanted to know what was going on behind the wall. They found a small hole but it was very difficult to reach, so one boy stood on the other boy's shoulders, looked through the hole and said, "Wonderful! Many people are there and they are playing, but they are all nude. It seems to be a nudist club."

The other boy became excited and he said, "Tell me something more -- whether they are men or women."

The small boy who was standing on top said, "I cannot say, because they have no clothes."

A man is recognized as a man because of his clothes, a woman is recognized as a woman because of her clothes. The small child is right. He says, "How can I say who they are? They have no clothes." Clothes are the identity. That's why a king will not allow you to wear clothes like him -- no! If ordinary people start wearing clothes like the king, then where will he be? It cannot be allowed because he should be something special.

Clothes are identities. And they become so heavy on you that even in your dreams you never see yourself naked, you always see yourself with your clothes on. This is something! It has gone very deep. Even in dreams you never see yourself naked, society naked. No! Clothes have gone into the very unconscious, because a dream is an unconscious phenomenon. At least in a dream you should be natural, but even there you are not natural; masks, faces continue.

This whole falseness exists, this pseudo-personality exists, because at the base you hate yourself. You want to hide, nobody should know your real self, because how will they be able to tolerate it if they come to know? How will they love it, how will they appreciate it? You have become actors. This is the base of Jesus' sayings.

posted December 12, 2007 10:22 PM            

From where does this uneasiness come? It comes because teachers have been teaching you, and these teachers are the great poisoners of life. They are not really teachers, they are enemies. They have been teaching: "This is animal, that is animal -- and you are a MAN." What are they saying? They are saying, "Whatsoever is animal in you, deny it!" And I say to you that man is not something against the animal, man is the suprememost animal. Not something against -- the highest, the very peak. If you deny animality, you deny your very source of life. And then you will always be false.

If you make love to a woman and you deny animality, what will you do? That's why many people have become almost incapable of loving. You may be surprised that in the East I think ninety-nine percent of women have never known any orgasm. The same was the case in the West also, but now it is changing. Ninety-nine percent of women have never known any sexual ecstasy, because they were never allowed to. Men were allowed to be a little animal-like. but never women. They have to be stiff while making love, dead, almost like a corpse. They should not show any emotion, they should not show that they are enjoying it -- because only bad women enjoy sex. A prostitute is allowed to enjoy it, but not a wife. If she enjoys and becomes ecstatic, then the husband will feel hurt and think that this woman is not very good because she should behave like a goddess, not like an animal. But to behave like a goddess without being a goddess is bound to create falseness. The woman lies down, dead, corpse-like, with no emotions.

Have you ever observed the word 'emotion'? It comes from the same root as 'movement', 'motion'. When you are in an emotion your whole being moves: it is thrilled, it throbs, it is alive -- it is wild. No, a woman is not allowed to be wild, to be alive. She has to remain corpse-like, dead; then she is a good woman, then she has transcended animality. But if you deny sex and you say that this is animal, then you will have to hide it.

In America, just three or four years ago, one manufacturer of toys got into deep trouble and the case went up to the supreme court. And the trouble was this: that he created a few toys with penises, vaginas -- real. A girl must have a vagina if she has a face, a boy must have a penis if he has a face. Toys with sex organs! He got into trouble, and he had to cancel his productions. He did a beautiful thing, but the courts wouldn't allow it, society wouldn't allow it.

Why don't your toys have sexual organs when they have everything else? You want the child to be unaware of a fact? -- then you are creating a false face. And why did people get so mad against those toys? Toys are toys! But priests, missionaries, so-called do-gooders, they got mad, and they brought the man into court. And he had done a beautiful thing, an historic thing. Children must know the whole body because the whole body is beautiful. Why hide it, why cut it? A fear, a deep fear of animality. But you are animals, it is a fact: you can transcend it but you cannot destroy it. Destruction means one thing: if you destroy the fact you will have a false face, your mask will be a false thing, your godliness will be just a mask.

If you transcend it, then your godliness will be something authentic. But transcendence means accepting it; passing through it with alertness, not being lost in it; passing through it and going above. And denial means never going into it, never passing through it, just bypassing it. In life nothing can be bypassed; and if you bypass it you will always remain immature, juvenile, you will never be a grownup. Life has to be lived -- only then do you grow. There comes a moment when you transcend sex, but that moment comes through knowing, that moment comes through experience; that moment comes through deepening of consciousness and love -- not through denial, not through repression.

Jesus says:

posted December 12, 2007 10:22 PM            

Don't put on anything. I am not saying go and move naked in the town, but don't put on anything: just be yourself! Whatsoever life has made you, accept it, enjoy it, welcome it. Celebrate it. Be thankful to the divine that he has made you, whatsoever you are. Don't reject, because when you reject anything in you, you have rejected God because he is the creator, he created you this way.

Of course, he knows more than you. When you reject anything in you, you have rejected the creator, you are finding fault with the universe, with existence itself. This is foolish, stupid, but such people have become very respectable.

Jesus says don't think about what you are going to put on, just move spontaneously in life. Be responsive to life, but don't bring any falseness between you and the flow of life.

Live moment to moment without thinking, because thinking is the deepest mask. You go to a woman and you rehearse in the mind what you are going to say: "I love you," or, "There is nobody like you." If you are making a rehearsal you are not in love; otherwise, there is no need because love will speak on its own, love will flow on its own -- of their own accord things will happen. Flowers will flower, but of their own accord -- no rehearsal is needed.

Once Mark Twain was asked by a friend -- he was coming from a lecture hall where he had delivered a beautiful talk, and the friend asked, "How was it? Did you like your talk or not -- you yourself?"

Mark Twain said, "Which talk? because there is the one I had prepared, the one that I have delivered, and the one that I wanted to deliver -- which talk are you asking about?"

But this is your whole life: you prepare something, you deliver something else, and you wanted to deliver something else entirely. Why does this happen, so much division? Because you are not spontaneous. One who is spontaneous will need only one thing, nothing else -- that is being alert, mindful. Then he will respond out of his mindfulness. You prepare because you are unaware, not mindful. You are afraid, you are fearful, because who knows what situation will be there? "Will I be able to respond or not?" The fear! Then you become false. But Jesus says: "Don't think about what you shall put on."

posted December 12, 2007 10:23 PM            

JESUS SAID: WHEN YOU TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHING WITHOUT BEING ASHAMED, AND TAKE YOUR CLOTHES AND PUT THEM UNDER YOUR FEET AS THE LITTLE CHILDREN AND TREAD ON THEM -- THEN SHALL YOU BEHOLD THE SON OF THE LIVING ONE, AND YOU SHALL NOT FEAR.

Try to understand each single word. The disciples asked: WHEN WILT THOU BE REVEALED TO US? Jesus is there, revealed in all his glory; he is present to them, before them. They are asking Jesus himself: WHEN WILT THOU BE REVEALED TO US? They think as if Jesus is hiding himself.

Once Buddha was asked. He was passing through a forest. Dry leaves were on the path, leaves were falling, wind was blowing and there was much noise in the fallen dry leaves. Ananda asked there was no one else there, because some disciples had gone ahead and a few others were coming behind, following them, but at that moment only Ananda was near Buddha. He said, "I have always wanted to ask one thing: have you revealed everything that you have? Or are you hiding something from us?"

Buddha said, "My hand is an open hand -- a buddha has no fist. Look at this forest as it is revealed, nothing is hidden. I am just as open as this forest, and a buddha has no fist." Then he took a few dry leaves in his fist and said, "Now my fist is closed, you cannot see those leaves." People who are greedy about their knowledge -- those who would not like to share it -- they are like fists.

Then Buddha opened his hand, the leaves fell down and he said, "But the hand of a buddha is not like a fist, he is open. I have revealed everything. And if you feel that something is still hidden, it is because of you, not because of me."

Jesus is there, present. The disciples are asking: WHEN WILT THOU BE REVEALED TO US? He is revealed! AND WHEN WILL WE SEE THEE? They think as if Jesus is hiding himself. No, Jesus is not hiding. Rather, on the contrary, the disciples are not open, they are closed; their eyes are not open. They are hiding, not Jesus.

Truth is not hidden: you are closed. Truth is revealed everywhere, every moment. Truth by its very nature cannot be hidden. Only lies try to hide themselves, not truth; only lies are secretive. Truth is always like an open hand, it is never like a fist. But you are closed.

"The problem is with you," said Jesus. WHEN YOU TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHING WITHOUT BEING ASHAMED. Because you can take off your clothing and still feel ashamed, then this nudity is not nudity really, this nudity is not innocent. Shame is cunningness.

In Christianity shame is the original sin. You have heard the story of what happened to Adam and Eve. At which moment did the sin happen? It has been a continuous search to find in exactly what moment the sin happened. They were forbidden to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, but they were tempted. It is natural: whenever anything is forbidden, temptation comes -- this is how mind behaves. But mind has another trick also: it tempts you, but it always makes somebody else responsible. Whenever something is forbidden the mind becomes interested, it becomes an invitation. The mind wants to know, to poke its nose in, inquire.

Adam and Eve were tempted by themselves, nobody else was there. But the story says the devil, Satan, tempted them. This is a trick of the mind to throw the responsibility on someone else. And this 'devil' is nothing but a scapegoat, this 'devil' is nothing but a trick of the mind to throw all responsibilities. You are tempted, but the 'devil' is the tempter so you are not responsible. He has persuaded you, he seduced you, so he is the sinner not you. But the temptation came from the forbiddance, and this was a trick of the mind. The story is beautiful:

God said, "Don't eat the fruit from this tree!" If they were trusting, then they would have avoided the tree. But they were not trusting. They said: "Why? Why does God forbid us this tree, and this tree is the tree of knowledge?" The mind must have said to them, "If you eat, you will become like gods because you will be knowers. And he is forbidding you because he is jealous. He is forbidding you because he would not like you to become like gods. You will be knowers, then nothing will be hidden from you." But the story says the devil tempted them and said, "He has forbidden it because he is jealous and afraid." This was just a situation for Adam and Eve to prove whether they had trust or not -- nothing else.

But the mind persuaded them -- mind is the 'devil'. The devil came in the shape of a snake, and the snake is the oldest symbol of cunningness -- mind is the snake, the most cunning thing. Adam and Eve both made the devil responsible, threw the responsibility on the devil -- and Adam also threw the responsibility on Eve. Man has always said that woman is the tempter, so men have always been condemning women. In all the scriptures of the world the woman is the tempter: she leads you into temptation, she seduces you, and she is the cause of all trouble. So your so-called saints go on condemning women.

This is the way of the mind:

Eve says, "The devil"; Adam says, "Eve"; and if you ask the devil, if you get him somewhere, he will say, "God -- because why should he forbid in the first place? That created the whole trouble. Otherwise, the garden of Eden was so big and there were millions of trees, that by themselves Adam and Eve would never have come upon the tree of knowledge. 'Forbidden!' They knew this was the tree, and then the whole garden became uninteresting, their whole interest became focused -- it was God's fault!"

But the story is beautiful and has millions of dimensions around it; it can be interpreted in many, many ways -- that is the beauty of a parable. They took the fruit of the tree, they ate it, and immediately they became ashamed of their nakedness. Where did the sin happen? By disobeying God? If you ask the pope of the Vatican, he will say, "By disobeying God," because priests would like you to always obey, never disobey.

If you ask philosophers, not theologians, they will say: "By eating the fruit of knowledge." Because when you start thinking trouble arises. Life is innocent without thinking: children are innocent because they cannot think, trees look so beautiful because they cannot think. Man looks so ugly because his mind is always burdened and tense with worries and thoughts and dreams and reveries, and he is always burdened -- the whole grace is lost. So if you ask existentialist philosophers, they will say that it is because of the tree of knowledge.

But if you ask the psychologists, whose approach is deepest, they will say, "Because of shame." Because when you feel shame you have started to hate yourself, when you feel ashamed you have rejected yourself. But it came through knowledge. Children cannot feel ashamed; they move naked easily, there is no problem. You force them by and by to feel ashamed: "Don't be naked!" The more they become knowers, then the more they will hide themselves.

Jesus says: WHEN YOU TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHING WITHOUT BEING ASHAMED. But what did Adam and Eve do? They put fig leaves around their sex organs, the first clothing invented -- the world started. How can you enter again into the garden of Eden? Throw away your fig leaves! -- that's what Jesus says. He says this is the way back to paradise. This is the way back: WHEN YOU TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHING WITHOUT BEING ASHAMED. Because you can take off your clothing and remain ashamed, then deep down the clothing is there: you are hiding, you are not open. So nudity is not nakedness; you may be nude, but not naked.

Nakedness has a deeper dimension: it means no shame, no feeling of being ashamed; it means accepting your body in its totality as it is. No condemnation in the mind, no division in the body -- a simple acceptance, then it is nakedness. Mahavira is not nude, he is not a member of a nudist club; he is naked, he is naked like a child. In a nudist club you are not naked. Even your nudity is calculated, it is manipulation from the mind. You are revolting, you are rebellious, you are going against the society -- because the society believes in clothes, you are throwing the clothes. But it is a reaction so you are not innocent, innocent like a child.

posted December 12, 2007 10:23 PM            

First, you should accept your nakedness as you are before God, just like a small child before his father and mother -- not ashamed. You should not be ashamed before the divine, then you will be real. If shame is there then masks will be used, they are bound to be used.

And a second thing: if the feeling of being ashamed disappears, you shall not fear. They are joined together: if you feel ashamed you will be afraid; if you don't feel ashamed you will not be afraid at all. The fear disappears with shame. And when fear and shame both disappear, your eyes are open -- and then you will see the son of God, or THE SON OF THE LIVING ONE; then Jesus will be revealed to you, then you can know a Buddha.

People come to me and they ask, "How can we recognize whether a master is enlightened or not?" You cannot recognize an enlightened master as you are. It is just like a blind man asking how he can recognize whether the light is on or off. How can a blind man recognize this? Recognition needs eyes and the blind man's eyes are closed. You cannot recognize whether a man is realized or not, enlightened or not, whether he is really a Christ or not -- you cannot recognize. Otherwise, how could Jesus have been crucified if people had recognized him?

They treated him very badly, they made him look foolish, they forced him to look foolish. The day when he was carrying his cross to Golgotha, there were soldiers, urchins, a mass of people all around, throwing stones and dirty things, enjoying themselves: "This is the 'king of Israel', this is the 'son of God', this carpenter's boy -- he has gone mad!" Jokingly they placed a crown of thorns on his head and said, "Look! Here is the 'king of Israel', here is the 'son of God'!"

And then when he was crucified, the final joke was that they put thieves on both sides of him. He was crucified as a criminal with two thieves. And not only the crowd, even those thieves made a joke of Jesus. One of the thieves said, "Now we are all going to be crucified, remember us; don't forget us in your 'kingdom of God'. We are also being crucified with you, so take note of us because you are 'the son'! So when we reach the kingdom of God, make some arrangements for us too. And you can do it -- you can do anything!" They were also joking. Jesus was made to look like a fool.

How do we miss recognizing a Jesus? We have our eyes closed. And the eyes are closed because of your clothing; not just because of your clothes, but many types of clothing: clothes of shame, fear, self-hatred, self-condemnation, guilt -- layers upon layers of clothing.

Jesus says:

WHEN YOU TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHING WITHOUT BEING ASHAMED, AND TAKE YOUR CLOTHES AND PUT THEM UNDER YOUR FEET AS THE LITTLE CHILDREN.

When in the beginning a child is forced to put on clothes for the first time, he rebels. He is against it because it confines his freedom and it gives him a falseness. His resistance is natural. But you can force him, you can persuade him. You say, "When we go out you have to put on these clothes, when we come back you need not; because in society clothes are needed -- otherwise you cannot come with us." And he wants to come so he has to put on the clothes.

But the moment he is back, this is what he will do: he will take off the clothes, and not only take them off, he will also jump on them. They are the enemies, they make him false. He is no more himself when those clothes are there. Now he is free again. He will celebrate this nakedness by throwing off the clothes and putting them under his feet, treading on them and celebrating the nakedness. If you do that like children, THEN SHALL YOU BEHOLD THE SON OF THE LIVING ONE, AND YOU SHALL NOT FEAR.

In your nakedness there is no fear, because fear is something that is added to you; fear is created through shame. Many religions have been creating guilt, so that you are guilty. Feel shameful and then you become afraid. Then a neurosis is born, and then you go to the same persons who have been creating guilt and fear in you, you go to the same persons to learn how to transcend them! They cannot be helpful because they are the creators of fear. They will say: "Pray to God and be God-fearing." They cannot lead you beyond fear. Jesus can lead you beyond fear, but then the whole thing has to be demolished from the very foundation. This is the foundation: don't accept yourself, and you will always be afraid.

Accept yourself, and there will be no fear. Don't think in terms of 'should' and 'should not', 'ought' and 'ought not', and you will never be afraid. Be real and trust reality; don't fight with reality. If sex is there, it is there, accept it; if anger is there, it is there, accept it. Don't try to create the opposite: "I am angry, this is not good: I must not be angry, I must be forgiving. I am sexual, this must not be there, I must be celibate." Don't create the opposite end, because if you create the opposite end you are trying to create masks. Anger will remain, your forgiveness will be just a false face; sex will be there, moving deeper and deeper in the unconscious, and on your face there will be a mask of BRAHMACHARYA. That is not going to help.

I have heard: One scientist was working to find the secret of diamonds. He worked hard and almost all the clues were revealed to him, except one single point. If he came to know that single thing he would become the richest man in the world. But he worked hard and couldn't find the single clue. Then somebody suggested, "You are wasting your life and time. I have heard there is a woman in Tibet, a very wise woman, and she knows all the answers. You go to her and just ask the simple question about this, your problem, and she will give you the answer. Why waste time here?"

The man traveled to Tibet, but it took many years. It was very difficult to reach the wise woman. He went through much hardship and many times his life was at stake, but he got there. In the morning he knocked at the door and the wise woman opened it. She was a very beautiful woman, such as he had never seen before. And not only was she beautiful, but her very being was inviting -- in her eyes, the glimmer of "Come hither!" She said. "Okay, so you have arrived. My husband has gone out, and this is the rule: you can ask only one question and I will answer it. One question only, remember, no second question." The scientist blurted out: "When will your husband be back?"

This is the one question he had come to ask. Somewhere deep down in the unconscious, sex must have been the problem, the real problem. Working with diamonds, finding the secret of diamonds, must have been a distraction. Deep down in the unconscious he must have been thinking, "When I become the richest man in the world, all the women, all the beautiful women, will be mine" -- somewhere, although he may not have been aware of it.

You can go on working on the surface without being aware of the unconscious, but at the right moment it will come, it will explode. Escape is futile. Only transformation can be helpful, and transformation needs deep acceptance of your being as you are. With no judgment, not saying, "This is good, that is bad" -- with no evaluation. Don't be a judge! Just trust your nature and flow with it, and don't try to swim upstream -- that is what nakedness means.

Move with life with a deep trust, wheresoever it leads. Don't create your own goal; if you create your own goal you will become false. Life has no goal; if YOU have a goal you are against life. Life moves not like a business, it moves like poetry; life moves not from the head, it moves from the heart -- it is a romance. Trust is needed, doubt won't be helpful. Life is not scientific, it is irrational. Life doesn't believe in Aristotles and the logicians, it believes in love, in the poets, it believes in the mystics. It is a mystery to be lived, not a riddle to be solved -- it is not a puzzle, it is not a problem. The secret is open, only you are closed. It is revealed everywhere: in each tree, in each leaf, in every ray of the sun it is revealed -- but you are closed.

Why are you closed? You don't accept life within you, how can you accept life without? Accept! Start from the center of your being. Accept yourself as you are and then you will accept everything as it is. And with acceptance comes transformation: you will never be the same as you are once you accept.

The transformation happens by itself, it comes of its own accord, but it always comes in a letgo. This is what Jesus says: Be naked so that you can be in a letgo. Drop all that the society has given to you -- that is the meaning of the 'clothing'. The society has not given you life, it has given you only the 'clothing'. The society has not given you the self, it has given you the ego. Drop the clothing and the ego disappears. Think of yourself walking on the street nude.

posted December 12, 2007 10:24 PM            

What happened? He was a man with great potential, that's why the master demanded so much. A master demands only that much which is possible for you. The more potential you have, the more he will demand, but if you are just poor, he will not demand so much. Ebrahim was a man with much potential -- he himself became a great master in his own right. What happened? This happened, as Jesus is saying to his disciples: clothing dropped, ego dropped -- all that society has given to you.

Many times the ego drops by itself because it is a burden, but again you put it on your head and carry on. Many times you are a failure, many times you don't succeed. Many times the ego falls by itself, but again, bruised, frustrated, defeated, a failure, you will carry the burden in some hope.

Here is one story I have heard: One day the lion came to the tiger and said, "Who is the boss of this forest?"

The tiger said, "Of course, master, you are the one, you are the king!"

Then the lion went to a bear, grabbed hold of him and asked, "Who is the master? Who is the boss?"

The bear said, "Of course, there is no need to ask -- you are the king of all the animals, you are the boss!"

And then the lion went to the elephant and asked the same question: "Who is the boss here?"

The elephant grabbed the lion and threw him away, at least fifty feet. He was struck by a rock, bleeding, bruised, weak, but he stood and said, "If you don't know the right answer this is no way to behave!"

This is what you have been doing. But you will not drop, you will also say, "If you don't know the right answer this is no way to behave! Why be so rough? You can simply say, 'I don't know the answer.'"

If you can recognize that in failure all that society has given you falls, the failure can become the beginning of the greatest success that is possible in life. That is why only in failure does a man become religious -- if he can recognize the failure. It is very difficult to become religious when you succeed. Then the clothing is giving you so much, why bother about being naked? Then the clothing is such a good investment. But in failure, suddenly you become aware of the nakedness that is there. Nothing can hide it, you can only deceive yourself.

Use your failures! And when you are thrown against a rock, bruised and bleeding, don't repeat the stupidity of the lion. Recognize that there is no success in this world. There cannot be because this whole thing is so false, and with false faces how can you succeed? Even your Napoleons, your Secundars, Alexanders, your Genghis Khans, are all failures.

A Jesus succeeds because he stands in his originality, he stands in his nature. Try to understand this; and not only through understanding but by dropping, by and by, your clothing; become naked and you will be pure. Then you will have thrown that apple Adam and Eve ate; then the door of paradise is open again.

Christians say that with Adam and Eve humanity was thrown out of paradise; with Jesus the doors are again open -- you can enter. But it will not happen just by being a Christian. You will have to recognize Jesus, and that recognition comes only when you have recognized yourself as Jesus -- nothing less can do.