Question – A single session of your dynamic meditation has left within me a greater bliss and sense of being than twenty years of having had to listen to the stories of the new testament and to pray to an almighty and distant god who stayed an unexperienceable godot to me. Is it possible that the teachings of jesus just might not be helpful to all seekers — yes, might even be poisonous to them, or to some?

Osho – Christianity and Christ should never be confused. Christ is totally different from Christianity so whenever you want to understand Christ, go directly and immediately — not via Rome; then you will never understand Christ. Christ or Krishna or Buddha cannot be organized: they are so vast that no organization can do justice to them. Only small things can be organized. Politics can be organized, not religion, Nazism can be organized, communism can be organized — not Christ, not Krishna. The sheer vastness is such that the moment you try to force them into a pattern they are already dead.

It is as if you are trying to grasp the sky in your small hands — with closed fists. With an open hand the sky may be touching, may be a little bit on your hand, but with a closed fist it has already escaped out of it. Whatsoever you have been hearing about Jesus is not about Jesus, the real man; it is about the Jesus that Christians have invented, decorated to be sold in the market. The Christian Jesus is a commodity to be sold; Christ himself is a revolution. You will have to be transformed through him; he is the baptism of fire. You can be a Christian conveniently… but you can never be a REAL Christian conveniently. If you are REALLY following Jesus, there is bound to be trouble.

He himself ended on the cross; you cannot end on the throne, But if you follow Christianity there is no trouble. It is a very convenient way to adjust Christ to yourself rather than adjusting yourself to Christ. If you adjust YOURSELF TO CHRIST, there will be a transformation; if you adjust Christ TO YOURSELF, there can be none. Then Christ himself becomes part of the decoration of your imprisonment, part of your furniture — your car, your house; a convenience at the most — but you are not related to him. That’s why twenty years look like they have been wasted.

The same will happen with me. You are fortunate that you are doing meditation with me. Once I am gone the meditation is going to be organized — it is impossible to prevent it; it is the way things move. Then you will do it for twenty years — or two hundred years — and nothing will happen. It does not happen through the technique; technique is just dead. It happens through the love that you feel for me, that I have for you. The technique is just an excuse. It is not the most important thing; the most important thing is your love, your trust. In that trust, the technique works and functions, becomes alive, gets roots into your heart.

Sooner or later everything becomes organized: prayer, meditation, everything. Then the glory is lost. Then you can go on doing it — you may become absolutely perfect, skilled; it may also give some sort of consolation — but the mutation will be missing. You will remain the same, a continuity. It will not be a baptism: you will not die in it, and you will not be reborn.

That’s why my insistence is on searching for an alive Master. Scriptures are there, once those rivers were flowing, but now they are frozen. They are lost in the desert land of churches, temples and organizations. The poetry no longer throbs in them: they are dead dogmas, arguments; the love has disappeared.

Remember this always: if you can find a living Master, forget all about scriptures. The living Master is the only scripture which is alive. Read his heart and allow your heart to be read by him. Be in a communion — that is the only way.

Jesus worked the same way as you feel I am working, but twenty centuries have passed. The first disciples who came around him staked their lives: they left all that they had, they moved with this man, they risked everything. It was worth it. This man was a treasure of the unknown world. Nothing was too much. Whatsoever was asked they did. And they had the opportunity to walk with a god on this earth, to be in close affinity with divinity.

Others were saying, “This man is wrong,” but those who were close to him knew that only this man is right — and if this man is not right, then NOTHING can be right, then ‘right’ cannot exist. They crucified this man, but those who were close knew that you cannot crucify him. This man had already entered immortality, this man had already become part of their immortal souls. You can kill the body, but not the spirit.

They had lived, walked, breathed, into the being of this man. They were transformed. It is not a question of technique. They prayed with this man but the real thing was not prayer, the real thing was just to be in the presence of this man. This man had a presence.

Have you observed? — very few people have what you call ‘presence’. Rarely do you come across a person who has a presence — something indefinable about him, something that you suddenly feel but cannot indicate, something that fills you but is ineffable, something very mysterious and unknown. You cannot deny it, you cannot prove it. It is not the body because anybody can have the body; it is not the mind because anybody can have the mind. Sometimes a very beautiful body may be there, tremendously beautiful, but the presence is not there; sometimes a genius mind is there, but the presence is not there; and sometimes you pass a beggar and you are filled, touched, stirred — a presence. Those who were in the presence of Jesus, those who were in his SATSANG — those who lived close, those who lived in his milieu — breathed HIM. If you allow me to say it, those who drank him and ate him, who allowed him to enter into their innermost shrine…. THAT transformed, not the prayer; prayer was just an excuse to be with him. Even without prayer it would have happened, but without prayer they might not have found an excuse to be with him.

You are here with me. I go on inventing meditations for you. They are just excuses so that you can be here a little longer, a little while more, so that you can linger around me — because nobody knows when my presence will touch you. Nothing can be said about it; it cannot be manipulated. It happens when it happens; nothing can be done directly for it. Just be here. Even without meditations the thing will happen, but without meditations you won’t have any excuse to be here.

I go on talking to you. Even without talk it can happen, it WILL happen, but if I don’t talk, by and by you will disappear because you won’t have an excuse. What are you doing here? I have to give you something to do so that you can be. I have to engage you and occupy you so that you don’t feel restless. The thing is going to happen from some other dimension, but when you are occupied that dimension remains open. If you are not occupied, you become too restless.

All meditations and all prayers and all methods are toys invented for children to play with, but that is useful, very significant. Once you are occupied, your innermost shrine is open to me. You are not restless — you are doing meditation — and then I can do my work. It is not good to say that I do my work. Then it starts happening.

You are right, twenty years of Christian teaching, listening to The New Testament stories, may have been futile — but not because those stories are futile. They are superb as far as stories go. The poetry of The New Testament, the poetry of the whole Bible, is something not of this world. There are great poets — Shakespeare and Milton and Dante — but nobody can surpass the Bible. The poetry is tremendously simple, but it has some quality which ordinary poetry cannot have. It has awe; that is, the religious quality.

Have you watched sometimes? You see a beautiful flower. You may appreciate it, it has an aesthetic quality. You appreciate it and you move ahead. You may see a beautiful face — even the face of a Cleopatra: the lines, the proportion, the marble-like body — but that too is aesthetic. And sometimes you come across a few things or a few beings that inspire not only aesthetic appreciation, but awe. What is awe?

Facing some thing or some being, thinking stops. Your mind cannot cope with it. You can cope with a Cleopatra, you can even cope with an Einstein — howsoever abstruse, abstract, difficult, you can cope with it. Just a little more training of the mind may be needed. But when you come across a Jesus or a Buddha the mind falls flat, it bogs down. SOMETHING is too much for it. You cannot think about anything, you are as if in a deep shock — and yet the shock is blissful. That is awe.

The Bible has awe in it — the quality of putting your mind completely at a stop — but that you will have to reach directly. The missionary, the priest, the bishop, they destroy because they start interpreting. They put their minds in it and their minds are mediocre. It is as if you are looking at a tremendously beautiful thing from the mind of a very stupid man. Or you are looking into a mirror that is broken, completely broken — it has gathered rust, nothing can be mirrored perfectly — and you look in the mirror and see the moon. Distorted. That is how it has been happening.

The Bible is one of the greatest events in the world — very pure, purer than the Bhagavad Gita because the Bhagavad Gita is very refined. The people who created it were very cultured and educated, and of course whenever a thing becomes very refined it becomes ethereal, unearthly. The Bible is rooted in the earth.

All the prophets of the Bible are people of the earth. Even Jesus moves on the earth; he is the son of a carpenter, uneducated, not knowing anything about aesthetics, poetics — nothing. If he speaks poetry, it is because he IS, not knowing it at all, a poet. His poetry is raw and wild.

Jesus has something of the peasant in him: the wisdom without knowledge. He is not a man of knowledge; no university would be willing to confer an honorary degree on him, no. He wouldn’t fit in at Oxford or Cambridge; he would look very foolish in the gowns and clown-like caps. He would look very foolish; he wouldn’t fit. He belongs to the earth, to the village, to ordinary, plain people.

Just the other night I was reading a small story, an Arabian story. A man died. He had seventeen camels and three sons and he left a will in which, when it was opened and read, it was said that one half of the camels should go to the first son, one third to the second and one ninth to the third.

The sons were nonplussed — what to do? Seventeen camels: one half is to go to the first son — is one to cut one camel in two? And that too won’t solve much because then one third has to go to the second. That too won’t solve much: one ninth has to go to the third. Almost all the camels would be killed.

Of course, they went to the man of the town who was most knowledgeable: the Mulla — the pundit, the scholar, the mathematician. He thought hard, he tried hard, but he couldn’t find any solution because mathematics is mathematics. He said, “I have never divided camels in my life, this whole thing seems to be foolish. But you will have to cut them. If the will is to be followed exactly then the camels have to be cut, they have to be divided.”

The sons were not ready to cut the camels. So what to do? Then somebody suggested, “It is better that you go to someone who knows something about camels, not about mathematics.” So they went to the sheikh of the town who was an old man, uneducated but wise through experience. They told him their problem.

The old man laughed. He said, “Don’t be worried. It is simple.” He loaned one of his own camels to them — now there were eighteen camels — and then he divided. Nine camels were given to the first and he was satisfied, perfectly satisfied. Six camels were given to the second, one third; he was also perfectly satisfied. And two camels were given to the third, one ninth; he was also satisfied. One camel was left. That was loaned. He took his camel back and said, “You can go.”

Wisdom is practical, knowledge impractical. Knowledge is abstract, wisdom is earthly; knowledge is just words, wisdom is experience. The Bible is very simple. Don’t be deceived by its simplicity. In its simplicity it has the wisdom of the ages. It is very poetic; I have never come across anything more poetic than the Bible. One can simply go on relishing it, one can go on repeating the words of Jesus. They come from the heart and they go to the heart.

But don’t go through a mediator. Those mediators are mediocres, they destroy the whole thing. I have looked through many commentaries on the Bible, but I have never come across a single intelligent commentary. They all destroy. I have never seen any single commentary from any theologian who has added anything to the Bible, who has in any way made its glory more manifest. They DIM it.

And that is bound to be so. Only a man of the quality of Jesus can reveal the truth of it, only a man of the quality of Jesus can enhance its beauty. People who live in the dark valleys and people who live on the sunny peaks of the Himalayas don’t understand each other’s language. When the man from the peak speaks and the man from the valley interprets, everything goes wrong.

Yes, you are right — your twenty years may have been wasted. But it will be a total misunderstanding if you think that Jesus is not for you. Jesus is for all, that is not the question. But go direct: become more meditative, become more prayerful, and go direct. And forget all that has been told to you about the Bible; the Bible is enough.

If you want to understand the Upanishads, it may be difficult to understand them directly because they are very refined. The people who have been talking in the Upanishads were great philosophers; they need commentaries. But Jesus is I plain, his truth is plain. He is a very ordinary villager; no commentary is needed. He is his own light. And if you cannot understand Jesus, then who will you be able to understand? Throw all the foolish commentaries away. Go direct. Jesus is so simple, you can have a direct contact,

I am not commenting on Jesus, I am simply responding. I am not a commentator. To be a commentator is to do a very ugly job. Why should I comment on Jesus? He is plain, he is absolutely simple. Just like two plus two make four — he is that simple. Just like in the morning the sun rises and everybody knows it is morning. He is so simple.

I am not commenting on him, I am responding. I read his words: something echoes in me. That is not a commentary. i My heart throbs with him, something parallel echoes in me, and I tell you what it is. So don’t take my words as commentaries. I am not trying to explain Jesus to you, there is no need. I am simply mirroring. I am telling you MY heart. What happens to me when I am listening to Jesus: I am telling you that.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 1″

Question – It is believed that Christ was the first politician of love in that he tried to save the world before he had saved himself, and that we are his children: politicians of love, seeking heaven on earth.

Osho – Politician, and Christ? Politics and love are impossible to be together. Love is anti-political; politics is anti-love. I know politicians talk about love, but don’t be deceived by their talk. They talk about peace and prepare for war. Never listen to what the politician says; always watch what he is doing. Whatsoever he says may be just a distraction, to distract you so you cannot see what he is doing. He goes on saying things absolutely contrary to what he is doing. That saying is a camouflage. It is a cover to hide.

That’s why politicians go on talking — so that you are not in any way helped to be aware of what they are doing. They distract by their talk. They don’t communicate, they don’t say much. In fact, they want to hide so that things are not known. They talk about peace and they all prepare for war. They talk about love and they all create hatred in the world.

But they are tricky, very diplomatic. When they say, “Love your country,” they are saying, “Hate your neighbors.” But they hide their hatred in the love of the country. When you say, “Love your motherland,” nobody is going to raise any question about it. There is no question: everybody has to love his motherland. But deep down in the teaching of the love of the motherland, they are preparing you for war. Then you start hating the neighbors: they don’t belong to your nation, they don’t belong to your race, they don’t belong to your religion. Love your religion — then what will you do with people who don’t belong to your religion?

Of course, it has to be understood that you will hate them. If you love your religion, you will hate other religions; if you love your country, you will hate other countries; if you love your color, you will hate people who are of a different color. If you really want to love human beings you have to stop loving the country, you have to stop loving the religion. you have to stop loving your color. If you really want to love human beings you have to stop all political nonsense.

But they are very tricky — diplomatic. They talk about love and they sow the seeds of hatred, they talk about nonviolence and they prepare you for violence. They say they are preparing for war because without war. peace will be impossible. And they have talked such nonsense for so long that you don’t even understand how contradictory they are. Then the whole humanity goes on moving in darkness.

Remember one thing: Christ is not a politician — not even of love — because politics is poisonous. It will poison love itself. Christ is not a politician at all. Had he been a politician, he would not have been crucified. Just a little diplomacy would have saved him. Just a little diplomacy: there was nothing much in it. But he was not a politician. That was the trouble. He was very authentic and true, not diplomatic. He said whatsoever he felt. Look: your so-called mahatmas are politicians. They try to live according to their principles, they try to BE according to their ideology. Whatsoever they preach, they try to live it.

Jesus is totally different. Whatsoever he lives, he preaches. There is the difference. A Mahatma Gandhi looks almost like Jesus. He’s not. He tries to live whatsoever he preaches, but the preaching is important. He wants others also to live according to his preaching. and he himself tries to live according to his preaching.

Jesus is totally different. He says and preaches whatsoever he lives. When you preach whatsoever you live, you are exposed. You are open and vulnerable. You are true to yourself, but then you start becoming unfit with the society. Society is politics, it is diplomacy. Many things are not to be said, many things have to be said which are not true.

When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus remained silent. He could have said something, he was an articulate man. He was a great poet in his utterances, he could have said something. And his whole life was depending on that. That was the last thing Pilate asked: “What is truth?” Jesus looked into his eyes and remained silent. Very undiplomatic, very nonpolitical. He embarrassed Pilate.

In that silence, Pilate felt very restless and uncomfortable. Jesus penetrated him deeply. His silence was something that he was saying from his heart. But Pilate wanted words. Pilate was not asking, “Show me the truth!” He was asking, “What is truth? ” He was asking for a definition. Jesus wouldn’t give the definition because HE was truth — and he was standing in front of him! He looked into his eyes. He must have stirred his soul. Pilate became uneasy. He turned away from Jesus. He said to the priest, “Take this man away and do whatsoever you like. Crucify him.”

I always think about it. In that moment, Pilate must have felt as if he was being crucified in silence. Just think about Jesus looking at you. All your falseness, all your masks, fall away because they cannot be there when Jesus looks at you. Naked and nude you stand before him. Empty, with nothing.

Pilate was the governor-general of the Roman Empire. But inside, a poor man, a beggar. All that falseness cannot deceive Jesus; he penetrates deeply. All your worldly riches are useless. He looks deep down into you and the beggar is caught. The beggar starts becoming restless. This was not asked for.

If Jesus was a little diplomatic, he would have given a philosophical answer. Pilate was a student of philosophy; he would have understood. Jesus could have convinced him, argued, persuaded. Pilate may have saved Jesus his life. But rather than saying anything he created a climate, a situation in which Pilate became very restless.

Just think: Jesus is looking in you. Silence becomes embarrassing. This man seems to be dangerous, as if he is pushing a dagger in your heart. Suddenly Pilate must have felt the emptiness, the poverty that he was. He turned aside. He said to the priest, “Take this man away and do whatsoever you like.” But he must not have slept that night, or even for months. Jesus must have haunted him.

A very nondiplomatic answer. Jesus should have said the same thing that Pilate believed. That would have been diplomacy. Politicians say only the things you already believe. Then you are with them. They don’t disturb, they console. Their answers are like ointments.

Jesus’ answer to the question, “What is truth?” — his answer is like a wound in the heart. For his whole life Pilate must have been haunted by the silence. “What did this man mean? Why did he remain silent, why did he look so deeply within me? Why?” In his dreams it must have become a nightmare.

Jesus was not a politician, not even of love. Love cannot be politics. Love is simple, not complex. Politics is very complex and cunning. Love is intelligence; politics is stupidity. Only mediocre people get interested in politics. Love is tremendous intelligence; it is understanding. When you love, you are transformed through it.

Politics is always concerned with the society, the nation, is always concerned with the collectivity. Love is always concerned with the individual. Love flows between two souls, there is no other way. Just like a river flows between two banks. Love flows between two souls. Love is individual, intimate, close.

It can flow between one individual and the whole existence, because the whole existence has a soul. That soul is God. But it cannot flow between one individual and society. Society is just a word. It cannot flow between one individual and humanity. Humanity is just a word. There is nobody to receive it, there is nobody to respond to it.

Jesus loved, but he was not a politician. And Jesus never tried to change the society, remember. That was a misunderstanding on the part of the priests: that he was trying to change the society. He was not trying to change the society at all. He was trying to change the individual. And that, too, not according to his ideology, hut according to the individual’s potentiality. There are a thousand and one instances….

Jesus never condemns, Jesus never creates any guilt. Jesus never says, “That is sin. Don’t do it.” He reveals what is sin, but he never says it. He makes you understand what is sin, but he never gives you a dead dogma in the hand. In life, dead dogmas are useless. Only an alive consciousness is useful because every moment the sin and the virtue changes. Something was a virtue in the morning. It may not be virtuous in the evening. It depends on you, on others, on circumstances. It is not a dead thing that you can carry with you. It is changing every moment. Unless you have a flexibility, a sensitivity to change with life, you will not be able to know what is sin. Every moment life goes on moving. Something was virtuous in a certain moment. The same thing can become a sin in another moment. So no dogma is possible.

Jesus gives a sensitivity to people. an awareness, a mindfulness, a meditation, so that they can feel their way, so that they can understand every situation and respond accordingly. If you go deeply into Jesus you will understand only one thing: that to act with awareness is virtue and to act with unawareness is sin. Sin is not a quality of any act. Neither is virtue. Sin and virtue belong to the presence or absence of awareness. It is not WHAT you do which is sin or virtue. it is HOW you do it: aware or unaware. It doesn’t depend on the action. It depends, deep down, on the consciousness — what quality you bring to it.

Jesus loved. That was one of his crimes: that he loved. A rabbi should preach, he should not love. A religious man should become an example, and induce and seduce people to follow his example. He was not an example at all. In the ordinary sense, he was not creating any ideal of his own. He was simply helping people to be more prayerful, to be more mindful, to be more watchful. And he lived, and loved.

He lived like a very ordinary man. But with very extraordinary awareness. He lived like a Zen master. Jews could not understand him, or only later on. Hassids would have understood, but they came very late. They would have understood him, they would have understood him absolutely. He was a Hassidic master, or a Zen master. But his followers also misunderstood him. They thought that he was a politician and he had come to change the society. His enemies also misunderstood him.

The same has happened again and again. I am here. I am not interested in society at all, not a bit. But the politicians go on thinking that I’m planning in some way or other. I’m a conspirator and I’m planning something in secret way.s to change the society or the government. It is difficult to convince them that I’m not interested at all in their government or in their society. They can go on playing with these stupid toys. I’m not interested.

But they cannot understand because it is beyond them. They cannot see the point: that somebody is not interested in government, in governing people. They think there must be some deception; something is hidden behind it. They think my talk about religion — changing the individual, loving the individual — is just a facade. Behind it there must be politics. They can understand only politics, and they will see politics everywhere.

It is understood. I can understand it. They cannot go beyond their own minds. It is just like a pickpocket who comes to see a saint. He cannot see the saint, he only looks at the pockets. He is a pickpocket. You walk on the road. Different people look at you in different ways. A shoemaker looks at your shoe and understands you according to the situation and the condition of the shoe. If the shoe is in a bad condition he knows that your economic position is not okay. If the shoe is not polished well he knows you may be unemployed. He need not see your face; he just Looks at your shoe.

If a man has been working on shoes for thirty, forty years, he becomes almost a psychologist. From the shoe he can say everything: what your financial position is, what your status in society is. Even what your mind is right now. When you are happy, you walk differently. When you are unhappy, you drag. The shoe can show that you have been dragging for long, as if you are pulling the whole load, the weight.

The shoe can show whether you are in love or not. Have you watched? When you are in love, you polish your shoes. Everything becomes significant. Some human being has become interested in you. Now everything is significant. When nobody loves you, you become careless. Who bothers whether the shoe is gathering dust? Let it gather. Nobody is interested in you — why should you be interested in the shoe?

A policeman has a different type of shoe than a schoolmaster. You can see the shoe and you will know which is which. The policeman has to be violent, his shoes will show that he is violent. A schoolmaster is just a schoolmaster. The shoes will tell the whole story.

A shoemaker looks at the shoe, a pickpocket looks at the pocket, a hairdresser looks at the hair. He knows whether you are a square or a hippy. Your hair will show it. And this is not new. In India one of the names of Krishna is Keshava. Keshava means’long-haired’. He was the first hippy in the world.

When a politician looks at a Jesus, or at me, immediately his understanding is political. He becomes afraid, he thinks a competitor has come. But Jesus is not a politician, a man who knows love cannot be a politician. Why? — because politics is ambition; love is nonambitious.

Politics is a way to rule over others. Love never wants to rule. The very effort to rule and possess and be powerful is violent. It is part of hatred. Love gives, and gives unconditionally. Love does not possess. Love is not a monopoly, is not a power-lust.

How can love be politics? Please don’t use that word with Jesus. He’s not interested in changing the society. He is interested in changing the heart, the heart of man. Maybe society is changed through it, but that is irrelevant. It can happen as a consequence, but that is not a concern.

If the heart of man changes, the society is bound to change, because with a different man a different society will arise. But that is a consequence. Jesus is not interested in that. His whole interest is in how the kingdom of God can be felt within. That’s why he goes on insisting, “The kingdom of God is within.” It has nothing to do with the without. Politics is without; religion is within. Love gives, politics takes; love shares, politics has nothing to share. It tries to possess.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 2″

Question – Are fear and guilt the same thing? and surely as light shows up darkness, So jesus must have made people aware of their guilt.

Osho – Fear and guilt are not the same thing. Fear accepted becomes freedom; fear denied, rejected, condemned, becomes guilt. If you accept fear as part of the situation….

It is part of the situation. Man is a part, a very small, tiny part, and the whole is vast: a drop, a very small drop, and the whole is the whole ocean. A trembling arises: “I may be lost in the whole; my identity may be lost.” That is the fear of death. All fear is the fear of death. And the fear of death is the fear of annihilation.

It is natural that man is afraid, trembling. If you accept it, if you say that this is how life is, if you accept it totally, trembling stops immediately and fear — the same energy that was becoming fear — uncoils and becomes freedom. Then you know that even if the drop disappears in the ocean, it will be there. In fact, it will become the whole ocean. Then death becomes nirvana, then you are not afraid to lose yourself. Then you understand the saying of Jesus: “If you save your life you will lose it and if you lose it you will save it.”

The only way to go beyond death is to accept death. Then it disappears. The only way to be fearless is to accept fear. Then the energy is released and becomes freedom. But if you condemn it, if you suppress it, if you hide the fact that you are afraid — if you armor yourself and protect yourself and are defensive — then a guilt arises. Anything repressed creates guilt; anything not allowed creates guilt; anything against nature creates guilt. Then you feel guilty that you have been Lying to others and Lying to yourself. That inauthenticity is guilt.

You ask: “Are fear and guilt the same thing? ” No. Fear can be guilt, but it may not be. It depends what you do with fear. If you do something wrong with it, it becomes guilt. If you simply accept it and don’t do anything about it — there is nothing to do! — then it becomes freedom, it becomes fearlessness.

“And surely as light shows up darkness, Jesus must have made people aware of their guilt.” No, not at all. Jesus tried to help people not to feel guilty. That was his whole effort. The whole effort was to tell people to accept themselves and not feel guilty, not feel condemned. Don’t say to yourself that you are ugly, wrong, a sinner. Don’t condemn. Whatsoever you are, you are., Accept the fact, and the very acceptance becomes a transformation.

Jesus never created guilt in people. That was one of his crimes. He tried to cheer up guilty people — that was his crime. He tried to tell them, “Don’t be guilty, don’t feel guilty. Even if there is something wrong, you are not wrong. Maybe you have acted wrongly, but your being is not wrong because of that.” Some action may be wrong, but the being is always right.

He accepted people; sinners were at ease with him, at home with him. That became the trouble. The rabbis, the bishops, the priests, started saying: “Why? Why do you allow sinners to be with you? Why do you eat with them, why do you sleep with them? Why are so many outcasts following you?”

Jesus said, “It is bound to be so. I come for those who are sick. The sick seek the physician; those who are already healthy, they need not. Go and think about it.” Jesus said: “I have come for the sick, for the ill. I have to support them and I have to make them strong. I have to bring light to them, I have to bring life to them again, so that their energy becomes dynamic and flowing.”

No, Jesus is a light that does not show darkness. In fact, when the light is there, darkness disappears. Darkness is not shown by light; it disappears by light. This is the difference. If a priest is there, he will show darkness. He is not a light; he cannot destroy darkness. He will make you feel guilty. He will create sinners — he will condemn and he will make you afraid of hell. He will create a greed and a desire for heaven and its awards. At the most he can create more fear and more greed in you. That’s what heaven and hell are: projections of fear and greed. But when a Jesus, a sage, appears, darkness is simply destroyed. When the light is there, darkness is not shown. Darkness simply is not, because darkness is nothing but the absence of light.

If there is darkness in the room and I give you a lamp and tell you, “Go. And take the lamp with you, because with the lamp it will be easy to see the darkness…” If you go in darkness, how will you be able to see the darkness? — it looks logical. But absurd! Darkness can be seen only when there is no light. If you take the light with you, you will never be able to see darkness, because once the light is there, darkness is no longer there.

Jesus simply destroys darkness, he destroys guilt. He creates hope, he creates confidence and trust. People who have been condemned for long, have lost all hope. They have accepted their sin, they have accepted their ugly life, and they know that nothing can be done now. They can only wait for hell. They have accepted that they are going to be thrown in hell and they have to suffer.

Jesus comes and helps people to come out of their closed darkness. He says, “There is no hell.” He says, “Come out. Except for your ignorance, there is no hell; except for your own closedness, there is no hell. Come out of it, flow again. Unfreeze and melt, and live life again. Come in the sunlight. God is available.”

That’s why he says, “Return, the kingdom of God is at hand.” He does not say that if you are a sinner then returning will take much time, and if you are a respectable religious man then returning will take less time, no. Just think of the whole thing as if you have dreamed a long dream that you are a sinner. Somebody else in the same room is dreaming that he is a saint. Will it take a longer time for you to get out of your sleep than it will take for one who is dreaming that he is a saint? The saint and the sinner both have been dreaming. They will take the same time to awaken from their sleep.

Paradoxically, sometimes it may take a little longer time for the saint, because he is having such a beautiful dream. He does not want to come out of it. The sinner is already in a nightmare. He would like to come out; he is crying, shrieking, that somehow he should come out of it. He is making every effort to come out. The dream is not beautiful, the dream is ugly. He is in hell. But the saint may not want to be disturbed. He would like to turn over to the other side and sleep a little more.

Remember, when you feel happy, returning is difficult; when you feel unhappy, returning is easy. That’s the meaning of the saying: “There are blessings hidden in misfortunes, hidden in curses.” When somebody is happy and everything is running smoothly, who bothers to transform oneself? When one is sad, in deep sorrow, in misery, in tears, then one would like to come out of it. Suffering is also good because it gives you an opportunity to awaken, to come out of your sleep. Nothing is wrong if you can use it rightly. Even poisons can be used as medicines and they can become life-enhancing.

If you feel guilty, try to see why you are feeling guilty. Yes, man is helpless. Right! And man is ignorant — that is right, too. In his ignorance he has done many things which were not as they should be — that, too, is right. Accept this helplessness, this ignorance, and pray. Let your tears come down, confess, repent, say to God, “I was helpless, I was ignorant, and I could not do better. And I still cannot do better, unless you help. As I am, I will again go wrong. As I am, I will again betray you. I cannot rely on myself. Help me. Only your grace can save me.”

That’s what Jesus’ whole teaching is: ask for God’s grace, don’t believe in yourself — because that very belief has been your whole undoing. No, he never created guilt in anybody. He tried to free people from guilt.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 2″

Osho – ONCE UPON A TIME, two explorers came to a clearing in the jungle. It was a beautiful place — thousands and thousands of flowers were blossoming. One of the explorers said, “There must be a gardener tending these flowers, looking after this plot.” He was a believer.

The other disagreed and said, “I don’t see any gardener here. I don’t even see anybody’s footprints. And there seems to be no point in making such a beautiful garden in such a dense and deep forest. Who will come to look? Who will enjoy these flowers? Nobody ever passes by. No, there is no gardener. The whole garden is just an accident.” They argued. The second was a nonbeliever, a skeptic. But there was no way to decide who was right, so they pitched their tent and waited for seven days. No gardener ever appeared.

The skeptic was very happy. He said, “Look, there is no gardener. It has been proven now.”
But the believer said, “The gardener is invisible. He comes, but we cannot see him; he comes, but we cannot hear his footsteps. This garden is impossible without a gardener.”

So they set a barbed wire fence up around the garden. They electrified the wires, they brought bloodhounds, and they patrolled day and night. But nobody ever entered. No shriek was ever heard from the shock of the electricity flowing in the wires. The bloodhounds never gave a cry. After seven days, the skeptic said. “Finished! Now it is proven beyond doubt that there is no gardener — visible or invisible.”

But the believer waS not convinced. He said, “The gardener is not only invisible, he is intangible. He has no scent. He is eternally elusive: you cannot catch him by electrified wires, you cannot catch him by bloodhounds, and our eyes cannot see him. But he is — for certain he is.”

Now the skeptical friend, in great despair, said, “What happened to your original statement? What is the difference between an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive God, or gardener, and one which is just imaginary, or one which does not exist at all? What is the difference between the two?”

I was reading this parable. I liked it, because this is how the argument has been going on, on earth. Believers go on talking about an invisible God, skeptical minds go on disproving any possibility of it, and they both seem to be right. Or, they both are wrong. The argument never comes to a conclusion.

From the very beginning, the whole line of inquiry has taken the wrong route. Once you separate the gardener from the garden — God from the creation — the problem arises. Then it can never be settled. The garden is enough proof of the gardener. But the gardener is not separate. He does not come to tend the garden: He is in the garden; He IS the garden. He does not look after the flowers: He is IN the flowers; He IS the flowers. Not that HE is invisible — He is visible, but visible as flowers.

If you have an idea of God, you will never find Him. The very idea will become the barrier. Only those who have no idea of God come upon Him, or allow God to come upon themselves. If you have a certain idea, the very idea is going to be the wall, the brick wall, between you and the truth.

The believer was not wrong, but he took a wrong line of argument: he divided the gardener from the garden. The gardener cannot be proved because the gardener doesn’t exist. A gardener separate from the garden is nonexistential. That’s why the skeptical friend could argue. And his argument is valid — valid not against God or the gardener; valid against the believer. The believer has taken the wrong argument.

To me, God is herenow. All that you see is God. God is not something beyond; God is something within. Or, if you like paradoxes, you can call God the within beyond or the beyond within. But God is intrinsic, God is the innermost core of existence. Unless you start in the right direction, you will go on missing. Never believe in a God who is separate from His creatures and the creation. He is not, He cannot be. He is one with it: He is in it, He is it. Once this is understood, you start flowing; your whole life becomes a prayer.

That is the basic message of Jesus. That’s why he goes on saying that “God is my father.” It is a way of saying what I am saying to you. Between the father and the son, or between the mother and the child, there is a continuity. The father goes on living in the son; the mother continues in the child. The son is nothing but an extension of the existence of the father — an extended hand: as if the old body has become incapable of existing and is going to disappear, and the father has created a new body to live within.

When Jesus says, “God is my father,” he simply means that “I am continuous with Him; there has never been a separation. He is flowing in me: in my every cell He is flowing. Nowhere has there been a discontinuity.” That is the whole meaning of it, but he uses the word’father’ because he is talking to very simple, unsophisticated people. He is talking to real people, not to plastic people; he is not talking in a university. He is talking to real people — people who are alive. He uses the word’father’. And it is beautiful in a way, because unless religion becomes personal, it remains a philosophy. When religion becomes personal, it becomes life. Religion is something to be lived, not something to brood about. It is something that should become a milieu around you; it is something that should become a continuous breathing, continuous beating of the heart.

Religion is a way of life, a way of being. It has nothing to do with thinking. When Jesus says, “God is father,” he means this existence is not alien, this existence is a home. You can rest in it, you can rely on it; you need not be afraid. This is one of the most significant things to be understood, because modern man is so much afraid. Never before has that been so. Never before in the history of humankind has man been as afraid as he is now. Every day I go on talking to people about their problems, and almost always, deeply hidden somewhere, is fear. Whenever they come deeper to their being, other problems finally disappear. Only one problem remains: fear. Why is modern man so afraid? It has never been so before.

Something has happened, something that is like a catastrophe. Once God is not there in your consciousness, you will be afraid — because without God, existence becomes alien. Then you are not at home, then it is as if everybody is against you.

If God is not there, then existence becomes inimical. Not that it really becomes inimical, but it looks that way to you. It appears to you that it is inimical. Life looks just like a competition, a struggle to survive. Great jealousy surrounds you. Love disappears if there is no God; at-homeness disappears if there is no God. ‘God’ is just a symbolic word. It simply denotes an attitude: an attitude that “I am at home.” If God is the father, then the whole existence is your home. You can be at ease, there is nothing to fear — everything is in the hands of your father.

Religion is personal. The whole effort is to look at life as if it is a family. The tree, howsoever far away, is related to you; it is a relative. And the rock also… and the oceans also… and the moon and the stars also. Everything is related to everything else; you exist in a related family.

You are a part of it — as if existence is trying to reach somewhere through you, reach to a higher peak of consciousness. Through you, God is trying to reach to a new existence, to a new peak of ecstasy, to a new peak of awareness, to a new way. It is as if God is trying to achieve a breakthrough, through you. Suddenly, you are accepted. Not only accepted: God is trying to do something through you. History is being created through you, existence is being created through you. You are significant; you have a tremendous significance. Without you, God will lack something.
Just think: without the son, the father will no longer be a father. Without the son, not only will the father lack something — he will no longer be a father. He will be barren, a desert. The son is a fulfillment.

YOU are the fulfillment. But once you forget God, or you drop the idea of God — as modern man has done — suddenly you are alien. Suddenly you are never at ease. Wherever you move, you move like a stranger — amongst enemies, not amongst friends.

One friend of mine stayed with me. He was a vice-chancellor in a university — a very atheistic man. I always liked trees, and I always liked trees to be so close to the house that they almost touch it and cover it. People don’t like that because there is a danger that the tree may destroy the wall, may destroy the foundation. But to me it is worth it. Even if the building disappears, it is beautiful.

In the morning the friend looked around and he said, “What have you done? You are creating a jungle. Don’t you know that trees are enemies of man? ” He is right in a way, because trees have been constantly fighting with man, and man has been constantly fighting with trees. All the cities that you know were once forests. Man has destroyed the trees, cleared the ground, claimed it. But now if you don’t do anything about the trees for even twenty years, they will spread and take over the land again. They will destroy the buildings and the roads and everything.

So he said, “What are you doing? Trees are enemies.”
For the first time, I heard the idea. It is historically true, but existentially false; scientifically true, but religiously false. Scientifically, all of life is a struggle. Everybody else is fighting you, and you are fighting everybody else.’Survival of the fittest’ — it is murderous competition, c.ut-throat competition. Nobody is friendly. Even those who you think are friends are not friends, cannot be — scientifically.

A new child is born. Now he is a new competitor in the world; one more enemy will be there. He will breathe, and he will destroy much oxygen which you could have used. Now he will be using it. He will need space, he will need food; he will need water and this and that. Now there is one more enemy. Whenever a man dies, one enemy is dead. You can celebrate the fact. Now that much oxygen is free, that much food will be available — one competitor is gone. It is scientifically true. Ask Malthus.

Yes, it is true. But religiously… religiously the world is a unity. Existence is a family; we exist together. Life is togetherness, and that togetherness is God. If you cannot feel that togetherness, you will feel alien and you will always be afraid. To a religious man, fearlessness happens spontaneously. To a non-religious man, fear is the only way to be. ‘God, the father’ can be translated. It means: existence is one; it is a togetherness. It is a harmony, not a conflict.

We are members of each other. Whenever somebody dies, something in me also dies. Whenever a new child is born, something is born into me also. Whenever a new child is there, life becomes more alive through him — life smiles. Whenever somebody dies, there are tears.

It has to be so, because I come out of life; I go back into life. Life was trying to do something through me. Everybody is a messenger; everybody is a messiah; everybody has a destiny to fulfill. And until you fulfill that destiny, you will never feel fulfilled. You can have much money, but fulfillment will not come through it. You can have much sex; fulfillment will not come through it. You can have much power; fulfillment will not come through it.

Fulfillment comes only when you have fulfilled a certain destiny that you were carrying, that was coded within you, that was deep in your blueprint. Unless you have become that for which you were made — unless you have attained to being — you will never be fulfilled. Fulfillment is peace, fulfillment is bliss, fulfillment is contentment. And only a fulfilled heart can pray, because only a fulfilled heart can be grateful and can feel the grace descending: the spirit of God, like a dove.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 2″

Osho – RELIGION CAN BE HEALTHY — as healthy as a new born babe, as healthy as the songs of the birds in the morning, as healthy as a newly opening lotus. Or religion can be ill, diseased, dying — just like an old man: shrinking, sad, moving.into death.

When religion is young, it has a fragrance — the fragrance of life, It has a song, it has a mystery around it. It has the quality of dance, joy, delight. It is a celebration. When religion is young, alive, fresh, religion is always a celebration. It is a feast. It is life-enhancing, life-affirmative. When religion is old, dying, or already dead — just a stinking corpse — then it is renunciation; then it is not celebration. Then it is anti-life, then it is life-negating. Then it leaves the world, it leaves all that is alive. It starts being suicidal — it shrinks.

Life expands, death is a shrinkage. When you are young, you are flowing in all directions. When you are old, you are frozen. You no longer flow. You only grumble: you become hard, the flexibility is lost. When religion is young, alive, it is ordinary. It has nothing in it to fulfill the ego — it is very ordinary. In fact, in its very ordinariness, it is extraordinary. It is superb in being just ordinary. Life is enough when religion is young; no other God is needed. Then life is God, life is divine.

When religion becomes old and ill…. Everything becomes old and ill, whatsoever is born has to die. Even a religion is born one day, lives for a while and then dies. But followers go on clinging to the dead body. Then the dead body kills the followers also: it becomes a source of illness, neurosis: it becomes an abnormality, a cancerous growth. When religion becomes ill or dead, it kills you; it is poisonous. This has to be understood from many directions.

Firstly, people are more willing to be in a dead religion than to be in an alive one, because you have been taught to be afraid of life, of love, of happiness. Every child is brought up in the world with a conditioning: with a feeling that there is something wrong in being happy. A very vague feeling, but it is there. It influences your whole life, you think that there is something wrong in being happy. So whenever you feel happy, you feel guilty — as if you have been committing some wrong, as if you have been sinning.

Only sinners seem to be happy, saints seem to be very sad. So whenever you are sad, everything is okay. You never feel guilty if you are sad — have you observed it? But if you are very happy, suddenly you try to hide it; nobody should know it. Why has this happened to the human mind? Every child is taught to be serious, somber, to be long faced. Every child is taught not to jump, not to run, not to shriek, not to be too delighted, not to laugh loudly. “Sit quietly” — as if there is something wrong in energy expressing itself. Whenever the child is happy the family, the people around, all start teaching him, as if something has gone wrong. And when the child is not happy, when he is unhappy, everybody sympathizes with him.

When the child is ill, everybody takes care of him; when he is healthy, everybody goes on stopping him: “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” When the child is Lying on the bed ill, the father comes, the mother comes, the relatives come. They are all very careful about him. By and by he starts learning that there is something basically wrong in energy, in happiness, in joy. In dancing, running around, shrieking with delight, there is something basically wrong. He gets the hint.

And there is something basically good in being sad, ill. Whenever he is sad, he is appreciated, sympathized with. Whenever he is healthy, everybody seems to be against him; the whole world is against him. This creates a guilt, a deep guilt in the child, and that guilt follows him his whole life.

If you go to see a saint and you see him laughing loudly, you will be shocked. You will be shocked — a saint, and laughing so loudly? A saint should be sad; you have a particular idea about the saint. It is okay to laugh in the pub, to laugh in the hotel — gamblers can do that — but to laugh in church? No, it is not allowed. One has to become serious when one goes to church; one has to become almost corpse-like.

Because of this training…. And the training has a vicious circle about it: you were trained by your parents, your parents were trained by their parents. Somewhere in the past, hidden deeply in unknown history, something went wrong. It may be that one who is happy cannot be forced to work because happiness is a play. Only sad people can be forced to work. That’s why, when you work, you become sad; when you are on duty, you become sad. A holiday has a different quality to it. You can laugh, you can enjoy.

Life was difficult in the past, man was in a constant struggle with nature. To survive was the only aim, and everybody had to work hard. If you are happy, you would like to dance not work; if you are happy, you would like to sing, play a flute, and not go hunting. If you are happy, who bothers about duty and about the office? If you are happy you would like to rest and relax. That was dangerous. That’s why happiness was condemned, laziness was condemned, rest was condemned. It has been taught, it is deep in your blood. that work is the goal of life. A good man is always working; a bad man seems to be always on holiday.

Mulla Nasruddin has not worked for a long time, for years. One day he was sitting by my side. The day was very sunny and he said, “If I had been working somewhere, I would have taken a holiday today.” And he has not been working for many days, for years! He is missing work because he cannot take a holiday. From where to take a holiday? He remembers the working only when it comes to taking a holiday.

The whole human mind has been trained for work. That’s why duty has been praised, playfulness condemned; business praised, gambling condemned. A gambler is playful; a businessman is serious. The businessman is respected; a gambler, simply condemned. He is thought to be below humanity.

Religion is a totally different dimension. There is every possibility that a gambler may enter in it, but a businessman is debarred. A drunkard may enter into religion. I am not saying that you should become drunkards; I am just emphasizing the quality of playfulness, the quality that can enjoy and be, and is not worried about results. But a very serious man is debarred by his own seriousness.

Jesus created trouble for himself. He was a religious man — healthy, young, vibrant with life. Life was his God. In the gospels, many times you come across scenes that depict him as sitting at the dining table — eating, drinking. How could the Jews and the people, his people, believe that he was religious? Fasting should be done and he was always feasting, he was always creating a feast around him. Wherever he moved he created happiness. What type of religious man was he?

His own relatives thought that he was a little beside himself, his own relatives thought that he was a little mad. And the society in which he lived thought that he was a glutton, a drunkard — he could be a sinner, but he could not be a saint. That’s why he was crucified outside the town. Jews had it as a law, they used to crucify in two ways: either in town or outside the town. When a person who belonged to the society had done something wrong, then he was crucified in the town. But if somebody who had done wrong was, at the same time, an outsider, to symbolize the fact that he didn’t belong to society, he was an outcast, he was crucified outside the town.

Jesus was crucified outside the town. Not only that: to emphasize the fact, two very dangerous criminals were crucified with him. On either side: two dangerous criminals. Right between these two he was crucified, just to emphasize the fact, to hit it hard in people’s minds, that he was just a criminal, a dangerous man — not at all respectable, an outcast. He had to be cut down like a worm, not like a man. What had he done? What sin had he committed? The sin of being happy.

That’s how I am condemned. People would have liked me if I was a sad man; they would have liked me if I was fasting and killing my body. They would have liked me if I was teaching to you some type of masochism — to be cruel to yourself. They would have liked me, they would have praised me like anything; they would have called me an avatar. But I teach you to be alive, I teach you to be happy. I give you only one gospel: the gospel of joy and love. That is a crime. That is creating a dangerous situation, that is corrupting people.

Jesus committed the crime of being happy. That was his only crime, nothing else. Christians have been trying to change his face. They say he never laughed. Can you imagine a man who is always seen at dining tables, eating well, drinking — and not laughing? Impossible! But Christians have to create a respectable Christ, a Jesus who is not a criminal. They have painted his face. You can’t find any picture of Jesus depicted by Christians, any statue of Jesus created by Christians, which is real or true. It is absolutely unreal. The man has been betrayed.

Just the other night I was reading a poem. I liked it. I would like you to listen to it. It is a poem by Adrian Mitchell.

The Liberated Christ Gives An Interview

I would have walked on the water
But I wasn’t fully insured.
And the B.M.A. sent a writ my way
With the very first leper I cured.

I would’ve preached a golden sermon
But I didn’t like the look of the mount.
And I would’ve fed fifty thousand
But the press wasn’t there to count.

And the businessmen in the temple
Had a team of coppers on the door
And if I’d spent a year in the desert
I would’ve lost my pension for sure.

I would’ve turned the water into wine
But they weren’t giving licenses.
And I would have died and been crucified
But like — you know how it is.

I am going to shave off my beard and cut my hair
Buy myself some bullet-proof underwear
I am the liberated Christ
And I have got no blood to spare.

Christians have made him totally different. He was not like that. He was a rebellious man, an extraordinary revolutionary. And he lived it, he lived his rebellion. He was not a theoretician: he lived it, he died for it. He loved life so much that he was ready to die for it. But he was not ready to be anti-life. That was his crime. Even with John the Baptist and his disciples there was trouble. John the Baptist was an old, traditional prophet. His disciples were ascetics: fasting, praying. They were anti-life. There was conflict between Jesus and the disciples of John the Baptist. These sutras are about that conflict.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 2″

Reflections on Jesus of Nazareth – “THEN COMETH HE TO SIMON PETER, AND PETER SAITH UNTO HIM: LORD, DOST THOU WASH MY FEET?”

Osho – It doesn’t look appropriate.’Dost thou wash MY feet? It is okay if I wash yours; you are our Lord, our Master.’ A question arises in the mind of the disciple Simon Peter: one who loves, one who has a little more faith than the others. Even to him a question arises, just a question,’Is it appropriate that the Master should touch my feet?’ A few didn’t say anything. They may not even have grasped the meaning of it, it was so sudden. They may even have missed. They may not have been present there; they may not have been able to understand what was happening.

Only Simon Peter, the man who was going to become the rock of Jesus’ church, raised a question:’Dost thou wash my feet?’ He had loved Jesus, he had respected him, but his faith was not yet total.’Man of little faith’ Jesus had called him. He had faith, but very little. If the faith had been total, then there would have been no longer any distinction between the Master and the disciple.

In Zen there are stories that sometimes the disciple would hit the Master, and the Master would laugh. They are stories of great love, they are stories of great faith and trust. They show that now the distinction is no more there; now nobody knows who is who. The Master is the absence of the ego, and when the disciple’s ego also disappears, there cannot be two absences.

For example: in your room there are two chairs; two chairs are present, two presences. You remove two chairs — now can you say that there are two absences because two chairs have been removed? No, there is only one absence; simply absence. You can remove a thousand chairs but the absence will not be of a thousand chairs; it will simply be absence. A Master is an absence, an emptiness; there is no ego in it. It is on the part of the disciple that they appear as two. From the side of the Master, because he is not there, there cannot be the other. When the’I’ disappears,’thou’ also disappears.

Peter loved him, respected him, but his love was not yet total. He was still present there; the disciple had not disappeared. The disciple asked,’Why? — you, and touching my feet?’ It didn’t look appropriate. Remember, in love there is nothing appropriate or not appropriate. In love, all distinctions disappear.

Just the other day somebody asked,’Can an enlightened man love an unenlightened man?’ He asked a very pertinent question. He said that it is said of Ramakrishna’s life that he would cry and weep for Vivekananda. Sometimes Vivekananda would not come to see him for a few days, so he would go to see him. He would find out where he was.’Is it possible,’ the questioner had asked,’that a man like Ramakrishna, in love, in such love that he cried and wept if Vivekananda did not come, went to where he was to search for him, and became very happy when Vivekananda came?’

The questioner had asked,’Osho, do you weep for somebody?’ I have so many Vivekanandas that if I start weeping, then there will be no time left. Hence, the difficulty. I cannot cry and weep, but I cry and weep for you because to me you are just potentialities of tremendous possibilities, seeds. Yes, Ramakrishna was deeply in love. And I tell you, only a Ramakrishna can be in deep love, ONLY a Ramakrishna. The unenlightened person can pretend that he loves, can deceive himself and others that he loves, but he cannot love. Love is the quality of enlightenment. It is the light that comes out of that inner lamp, that inner lamp of enlightenment. When that flame is burning inside, then the light flows outside. Wherever it falls, it is love.

Jesus loved these disciples. To say that Jesus loved or that Ramakrishna loved is really not a right way of saying it, because Jesus is not, a Ramakrishna is not — there is only love. When Jesus touched the feet of his disciples, love touched their feet. Not Jesus, remember, but love touched their feet. Ramakrishna went to seek and search where Vivekananda was, but Ramakrishna didn’t go anywhere. He was no more — where could he go? how could he go? who would go? — love went in search. When Ramakrishna cried and tears fell down, it was love crying. Even Vivekananda felt embarrassed when Ramakrishna would stand and start dancing when he came, or he would hug him. Even he used to feel embarrassed. Somehow it looked a little outlandish, eccentric. And this old man seemed to be crazy.

If psychoanalysts had been present there, they may have suspected homosexuality, because psychoanalysis tries to explain the flower through the fertilizer. Then, even the flower starts stinking; it smells of the fertilizer. But if you ask me such questions, I explain the fertilizer through the flower. Then, even the fertilizer has a fragrance in it. Jesus touched the feet, not of the fertilizer but of the flower, of the possibility.

Ramakrishna went in search. To ordinary people Vivekananda was just ordinary, but not for Ramakrishna. Something extraordinary was waiting there: it needed help, care; it needed attention, it needed love to explode into being. Jesus touched those disciples’ feet in deep reverence, in great hope. He touched their feet to show them,’You are not that which you think you are. You are that which you are seeking; you are my God.’

Those were only seeds, but Jesus could see the flowering. He touched their feet because of the possibility of the flowering — someday or other they would explode into beautiful flowers, they would blossom. He loved them, respected them for that. For him it was already a present phenomenon. They didn’t know, they were unaware, they were fast asleep. The seed is nothing but a flower, fast asleep and snoring. And what is a flower? — a seed that has discovered itself, a seed that has come to know itself, a seed that has become itself — that’s what a flower is.

Even a weed is not a weed; a weed is one who is on the path to discover itself. Even a weed has tremendous possibilities. You may not know that even wheat was once thought to be a weed; even wheat! Humanity discovered, by and by, that it was nourishment. Now you cannot think of wheat as a weed. And if you find some weeds in the garden, always be respectful — who knows? They are on the way; some day their capacities and possibilities will be discovered.

They were ordinary weeds, those disciples, very ordinary human beings, but not to Jesus. Jesus could look into their future. Their future was present to Jesus, and he touched the feet of that future. Even a man like Peter could not believe, could not see the appropriateness of it. But in love, there is nothing appropriate and not appropriate. In love, everything takes a totally different flavour. Then, everything is holy.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You Vol 4″

Question – Will you please explain to me the Lord’s Prayer, as given by Jesus?

Osho – MEDITATION CAN BE EXPLAINED, prayer never. It can be understood, but it cannot be explained. Prayer is something of the heart, very elusive, very indefinable. You can feel it, but you cannot think it. That is part of its nature. It is like love. It is not a technique.

Meditation is a technique. Prayer is not a technique. Meditation you can do: prayer you cannot do. You can only be prayerful. It has nothing to do with words: what you say in prayer is meaningless. How you say it, the space from where it arises, is meaningful — not the words.

Prayer is a gratitude, a deep thankfulness towards the whole, that you are here, that you are glad to be. It is against complaint. When you complain, you say you are miserable to be; when you pray, whether you say it or not, you mean that you are glad to be, you are thankful that you are. And Jesus’ prayer is tremendously beautiful. No other prayer is so beautiful. Vedas have prayers, but they come from very sophisticated minds, and whenever a prayer comes from a sophisticated mind, it loses much. It becomes very refined, meaningful: and that’s why it loses all meaning.

Jesus’ prayer is almost childish. That’s the beauty of it, the glory of it. If you want to understand Gayatri, the prayer in the Vedas, much can be said about it. It is a very condensed understanding; it is like a scientific formula; it is like Einstein’s formula: E=MC2. Much can be said about it, thousands upon thousands of pages can be written about it.

Jesus’ prayer is not a scientific formula, it is just an outpouring of a simple heart; a child talking to his father — simple, very simple, it cannot be more simple than that. So, if you talk to Hindus, they will say, “What type of prayer is this?” If you talk to Buddhists, they will laugh, because they have very refined prayers, very cultured, sophisticated, philosophical, speculative, saying much in them.

Jesus’ prayer does not say anything; it is simply an outpouring of the heart, as a lover talks to his beloved, or a child talks to his father. Let me repeat it: please don’t ask for explanations; do it, and you will understand it.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 3″

Osho – I AM A DRUNKARD. You may believe it or not, but I am a drunkard. You can look into my eyes and you can see it — I. am drunk with Jesus. And Jesus is a wine; he is not a man, he’s an intoxication. And once you have tasted of him, then nothing of this world will ever be meaningful to you. Once the meaning from the beyond enters into your life, this whole world becomes futile, immaterial, insignificant.

Religion is a sort of intoxication. This has to be understood because without a deep intoxication, your life will never have any meaning. It will remain superficial prose and will never become a poem. You will walk but you will never be able to dance, and unless you dance you have missed. Unless you dance with such abundance, with such forgetfulness that you disappear in it, that the dancer is lost and only the dance remains… only then. And only then will you be able to know what life is.

I remember: Once Alexander the Great asked Diogenes, “You are so learned, you know so much. Can’t you tell me something about God, what God is?”
Diogenes waited for a moment and then said, “Give me one day’s time.”

Alexander came the next day but again Diogenes said, “Give me two days’ time.” And it happened again, and he said, “Give me three days’ time,” and then four days and then five days, and then six days and the whole week was gone.
Alexander was annoyed and said, “What do you mean? If you don’t know the answer you should have told me before. If you know, then what is the explanation for the delay?”

Diogenes said, “That moment you asked me, I thought that I knew. But the more I tried to catch hold of it, the more it became elusive. The more I thought about it, the farther away it was. Right now, I don’t know anything, and the only thing I can say to you,” said Diogenes, “is that those who think they know God, they know not.”

God can be known only when you are not. This is the meaning when I say, “Until you become a drunkard” — so that your ego is lost. I am a drunkard, drunk with Jesus. And when I will be talking to you about Jesus, it is not about Jesus. I am not a theologian, not a Christian, not a scholar. Theologians talk ‘about’, they go round and round, they beat around the bush. I am not going to talk about Jesus, I am going to talk Jesus. And when I talk about Jesus, it is not that I am talking about him, rather, he talks himself. I give him way, I become a passage. All that I do is that I don’t hinder him. That is the only way to talk about Jesus or Buddha or Krishna. And when I will be talking Jesus I will not talk about Christ. Jesus is real, Christ is a principle. Jesus is concrete, Christ is abstract. Jesus is a man like you and me, of blood and bone. His heart beats. He laughs, he cries, he loves, he lives.

Christ is a dead concept, bloodless; there is no heart beating there. Christianity is concerned with Christ, I am not concerned with Christ. The word’Christ’ is beautiful, but corrupted, contaminated, polluted. The whole beauty of it has been destroyed. Whenever a word is used by theologians it loses meaning and purity and innocence — then it is no more virgin. Jesus is still virgin, Christ is corrupted. Christ is a concept, Jesus is reality, concrete reality.

Look! I love human beings, but not humanity. Humanity does not exist. Only concrete human beings exist — someone here, someone there, but it is always someone. Humanity is an empty word. And just like that is Christ. Jesus exists, sometimes in Gautam the Buddha, sometimes in Mohammed the prophet, sometimes in Krishna the fluteplayer — somewhere here, somewhere there, but it is always a concrete phenomenon. Christ is abstract. It exists only in the books of philosophy and theology. Christ has never walked on the earth. Or, we can say it another way: Christ is the son of God, Jesus the son of man.

Let me talk about Jesus the son of man, because only the son of man is real, and only the son of man can grow and become the son of God. Only man can grow and become God, because man is the seed, the source; God is the flowering. God does not exist anywhere. When you flower, God comes into existence — it comes into existence and disappears… it comes into existence and disappears. When Buddha was here, God existed. When Jesus was here, God existed. When Jesus disappears, God disappears — just as when a flower disappears, it disappears.

God is not somewhere, always existing, otherwise God will never be fresh and young — it will gather too much dust, it will become dirty. It comes into existence whenever a man realises his sins, whenever a man really exists. Whenever a man exists in totality, God exists in those rare moments. So when you come and ask me, “Where is God?” I cannot show you. Unless you have proof of him in your own being, he will not be there. Until you become him he is not. Everybody has to realise him in his own innermost shrine, in his own being. You carry him as a seed. It is up to you to allow it to grow and become a great tree.

So I will not be talking about Christ, but about Jesus. Let Christ be imprisoned in the churches — that is the right place for Christ to exist. I would like Jesus to enter your hearts. Forget Christ, remember Jesus. But just the opposite has happened. People have forgotten Jesus and their minds have been hammered continuously for two thousand years, hammered to remember Christ. Christ cannot transform you, because there exists no bridge between you and Christ. Then there exists an unbridgeable abyss. But with Jesus you are close. You can call Jesus ‘brother’, but you cannot call Christ ‘brother’. And until you feel a deep brotherhood, a bridge, how can Jesus be of any help to you? Jesus is tremendously beautiful his beauty has a dimension of its own. Buddha is beautiful, but Jesus is totally different from Buddha. In Buddha a different type of silence was incarnated.

l have heard about a Chinese emperor. He had two great painters in his court, and there was always rivalry. They were always fighting and competing, and it was almost impossible to decide who was the greater. Both were masters of their art. One day the emperor said, “Now you do one thing: you both paint on one theme so that it can be decided who is the greater, and the theme is’Rest’.”

The first painter, of course, chose a very obvious subject: he painted a very silent lake, far away in the mountains, lone, still, not even a ripple on the surface. Just looking at that painting you would feel sleepy. The other painter tried something absolutely opposite: he painted a thundering waterfall… for miles the white foam of it… and just near the waterfall a very fragile, delicate birch tree, the branches bowing down, touching the foam, and on the birch the small nest of a robin, and the robin sitting on the nest, with closed eyes, almost wet. The first is a non-dynamic silence: more like death, less like life. The opposite doesn’t exist in it. The rest has no tension in it; the ‘rest’ is more like absence than like presence. The second is a dynamic concept:’rest’, but not dead. It is alive, throbbing. The thunder, the waterfall, the tremendous activity, and the nest, and the robin sitting there, silent….

Jesus is like the second painting, Buddha comes closer to the first painting. Of course it is very silent, but the opposite is missing — and without the opposite, music cannot be created. Buddha has a single note, he is not an orchestra.Jesus has opposite notes meeting, merging and creating a harmony, a symphony. Buddha is silent, without revolution. Jesus is silent, with a deep rebellion around him.

This has to be remembered. Only then you will understand how to penetrate into his very heart. Why did Jesus become so significant, why did he appeal to so many people all through these centuries? — he has something of the wild in him. He is not a garden, he is a wilderness. He is raw, not refined. You touch him and you will know. You feel him and you will know. Buddha is very cultured, very refined. He has something of the court of a king. Jesus comes from a village, a carpenter’s son, uneducated, uncultured. He is like a wilderness: raw, but alive, rebellious. Hence, the appeal; hence he has touched millions of people’s hearts. You can understand him. He is more than you but you are in him. You cannot understand Buddha. He is more than you but you are not there. With Jesus a bridge exists.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You Vol 3″

Osho – Meditation means a state of no-mind — where all the functioning of the mind has ceased. The moment the functioning of the mind ceases you have a profound silence such that you have never known before, such clarity, such transparency — because all the clouds are gone, all the smoke is gone, there is nothing to hinder your insight. All is absolutely clear.

Meditation gives you innocence, clarity, insight into your own being and into the very being of the existence that surrounds you. Suddenly all misery disappears, all desires disappear. Desires are by-products of misery; because you are miserable you are always hankering for a better state of things — more money, more power, more prestige and that more is non-ending. When you attain it, again the mind is there asking for more.

Mind simply means the desire for more and more, ad infinitum. Mind means discontent, unquenchable thirst. The moment mind ceases there is suddenly contentment, absolute contentment, because there is no desire. One is so utterly happy in the now and the here that one cannot even conceive that things could be better than this. Then one moves in a world which is absolutely perfect. It is the same world, only you are not the same person.

And when there is deep contentment inside you, of course it changes everything in your life. Your very aura becomes that of peace, you carry an energy field around you. You become infectious. Even people who sit by your side will start feeling that something very strange and mysterious is there.

Those who are sensitive will be immediately moved, their hearts will start beating with a new joy. They will be surprised at what is happening. You are not doing anything, it is simply happening; you become a triggering point, a catalytic agent. Just your presence triggers some process in them.

It is a synchronicity. You don’t cause it, it simply happens. You are not a doer in it. It is like the sun rising and the birds starting to sing; suddenly from nowhere the trees are awake and the flowers start opening. The sun is not telling them to do it, the sun is not doing anything, the sun is simply present, but the presence is enough. It stirs the life on earth immediately, sleep starts disappearing, a deep awakening happens in nature. When one is contented one carries the climate of contentment around oneself.

First become contented, then your very life will become a source of joy for others. That’s the only true service — not the service that Christian missionaries go on doing. That is mischief and nothing else. It is exploiting people in the name of service, it is converting people, it is a political game. And the people who are converting them are not themselves converted.

Conversion does not mean a change of religion; it means a change of consciousness. That’s exactly the meaning of conversion: when you are no more asleep but awake, when you are no more full of the rubbish of thoughts and memories and desires, when you are utterly silent — that is conversion. When the head has disappeared — you are no more a head person — when the heart has taken its place then you are headless and just a pure heart — that is conversion. It is not a Hindu becoming a Christian or a Christian becoming a Hindu — that is sheer stupidity; just changing prisons from one prison to another prison, that is not conversion.

Conversion is something inner. The only conversion I know of is from mind to meditation, because is changes your whole being; from discontent it brings tremendous contentment to you. The lifestyle of a sannyasin has to be that of contentment. He lives in the now and lives fulfilled. If he dies the next moment, he happily dies, dancingly dies — because there is nothing more! All is already complete! He does not need any more time to do anything, nothing is incomplete. At every moment all is complete, all is accomplished. He is ready to go at any time. He will not even want to linger a single moment more.

Source – Osho Book “Just the Tip of the Iceberg”

Question – Beloved Osho, More than anything else i want your vision to happen. When i am not with you, and i am out in the world, alone, What part can i play in helping your vision to happen?

Osho – Just be yourself, utterly yourself. And never think in terms of how you can help my vision to happen in the world, because that’s what makes a missionary — and I am against missionaries. They are the poisoners. Their intention is good, they want to spread something which they feel is immensely valuable, but a missionary does not know that what he is trying to spread is not his own experience.

So I would like to make it clear that you just be yourself, and that will be the way of spreading my message to people, because that’s my message — to be yourself authentically, sincerely. It is not a question of saying something to somebody; it is a question of being somebody in a way that the vision radiates from you… that the people feel that something has happened to you that has not happened to them… that there is something in you that they are missing… that you are full and they are empty… that you can give and yet you will not be losing anything. And they are only beggars; they cannot give, they can only take. And whatsoever they take also disappears soon because it is not their own.

I would not like my people to be like Christian missionaries. I was in an American jail one morning… the jailer must have been a very fanatic Christian, and he came with a BIBLE, thinking that I am a religious man. And he said, “I would like to pray for you and I would like to present God’s word to you.” And before I could say anything, he started praying for me loudly, with closed eyes: “Jesus loves Bhagwan, Jesus will help Bhagwan. Jesus will save Bhagwan.”
I said, “Wait! You have gone too far!”
He opened his eyes; and he said, “Have I said anything wrong?”

I said, “Everything wrong… because Jesus could not save himself! And you are putting everything wrong: `Jesus loves Bhagwan.’ That’s not right. Put it: `Bhagwan loves Jesus, and Bhagwan will save Jesus.’”
He said, “I have prayed for many prisoners — what are you saying? You are in jail, you need to be saved.”

I said , “I am not in any difficulty. This whole world is a jail, so what difference does it make whether you are outside or inside? And you don’t understand anything of religiousness — you did not even ask my permission to pray for me.

“A prayer is trespassing my being. And to whom are you praying? I don’t have any god, so all your prayers are just stupid. And I don’t think that Jesus or anybody else can save anybody else. It is enough if you can save yourself. Without asking me you started praying! And who told you that this book is the word of God?”
He said, “It is written in the book itself.”

I said, “But it is written in so many other books too. It is written in the VEDAS, and Hindus believe the VEDAS are written by God. It is written in the GITA because Hindus believe it is spoken by the perfect incarnation of God himself. Mohammedans believe the KORAN is the word of God.

“What criterion have you got to choose which one is right? And I can write a book in which I can say, `These are the words spoken by God.’ Just because it’s printed, will you believe it?”

He was silent for a moment, and then he said, “I will think it over and I will come back to you. Because I used to think… I am a missionary and I always have five hundred prisoners in the jail, changing every day. So I have been preaching and helping them becoming real Christians.”

I said, “Are you a real Christian? Was Jesus Christ himself a real Christian? What do you mean by `real Christian?’ Jesus never behaved like a Christian. He was a very angry man. He teaches to love your enemy — and he curses a fig tree which is out of season. And it is not the fault of fig tree that it has no fruits! And he curses it in a very ugly way because it has not welcomed him and his disciples with fruits.

“Now, what can the fig tree do about it? And this man you think is a Christian, and this man you think can love his enemies! He cannot even be loving to a fig tree which has not done any harm to anybody. And the fruits come only in the season and it is not the season, so it is not the tree’s fault. This man is insane!

“And you are spreading his word. Have you tried to live his word? That would be the right way — live it! When somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other cheek. Should I try,” I asked him, “hitting you on one cheek, and will you give me the other cheek? And I would like to do it before all five hundred prisoners.”
He said, “You are a dangerous man!”

I said, “I am not a dangerous man, I am simply saying that to be a missionary is something ugly. You are trying to interfere in somebody’s being, his thought processes, his existence, without ever trying all that you want others to be on yourself. And my feeling is, if you try it on yourself, there is no need to spread it — it will spread on its own.”

So I would like to say: Just be yourself. Be meditative, be loving, be human, be respectful, be accepting of everybody; don’t be judgmental. And something will start radiating from you, and that will be my word. And it will not be just an empty word, it will be full of meaning and full of fragrance.

Source – Osho Book “Light on the Path”

Question – Beloved Osho, What is the difference between the christian way of being selfless, modest and humble, and your way of being egoless and ordinary?

Osho – The Christian way of being humble, modest, selfless, is basically wrong. The words they are using may sound exactly the same as I use, but they don’t mean the same. When Jesus says, “Be humble,” what does he mean? He means just the opposite of the ego: the ego is standing on its head, but the ego is there… upside down. When I say be ordinary, the ordinary is not against the ego; the ordinary man is not humble. I am not a humble man. I am not an egoist. I am just exactly in the middle. The humble man is exactly opposite to the egoist.

I am reminded of a small story. There were three Christian monasteries, very close to each other, belonging to three different denominations. One day, just by chance, the chiefs of all the three monasteries met on a morning walk. They sat under a tree to rest for a while.

One of them said, “Your monasteries are also doing our lord’s work” — carefully take note what he was saying: “Your monasteries are also doing our lord’s work, but as far as scholarship is concerned, you cannot beat our monastery.”
The second chief said, “I agree, I agree perfectly. Your monasteries are also doing our lord’s work, but as far as service to the poor, to the sick, to the old, to the orphans is concerned, you cannot come even close to us. You are far behind.”

The third monk said, “You are both right: your monasteries are doing our lord’s work. And this is true: the first monastery has great scholars in it, the second monastery has great servants of the people, of the poor, of the sick. But as far as humbleness is concerned, we are the tops.”

Humbleness is nothing but the ego standing upside down. A humble person is not egoless; he has repressed his ego, forced his ego to stand on its head. He is trying to be the humblest man in the whole world. But what is ego? Somebody is trying to be the richest man in the world — then it is ego. And somebody is trying to be the humblest man in the world — then is it not ego? If the president thinks he is at the top, then it is ego. And when the saint starts saying that he is at the top as far as humbleness is concerned, everybody is below him, then is it not ego?

Jesus has to be analyzed very carefully. He says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God.” On one hand to be meek… but why to be meek? The motive? The motive is given in the other part of the sentence: “to inherit the kingdom of God” — great meekness! Jesus also says, “If somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other too.” These statements look so beautiful because you have been conditioned to hear them again and again, and you have completely forgotten that they have to be analyzed, psychologically understood. Great research is needed, in depth. Research is needed into a statement like this.

When somebody hits you on one cheek, Jesus says, give him the other too. It looks like he is teaching nonviolence, he is teaching love, compassion. But what he is teaching is to behave like a superman, and reduce the other man to sub-humanity. Have you ever thought that if somebody hits you, and you give the other cheek, what you are doing to him? Are you not saying to him, “Look, I am a saint”? Yes, you are not saying it, but it is all over the place. It is quite loud, even though you are not saying it: that, “Look at my saintliness, my humbleness, my meekness; you hit me on one cheek, I give you the other.”

When Jesus was teaching this message to his disciples, one of them had asked him, “And if he hits you on the other too?” Jesus may not have thought of the possibility of such a question. Yes, that is possible, because if you yourself are offering another cheek, it will be just ungrateful not to accept the offer. And if you enjoyed the first hit so much that you are welcoming another, he may give even a stronger one.

So the man asked, “Then what have we to do?”
Jesus said, “You have to forgive seven times.”

He said, “Okay.” From the way the man said “Okay,” it was clear that he knew that seven times he could tolerate it, but let the eighth come, and in just one single hit, “I will show him that what he has not been able to do in seven, I can do in a single one.” Looking at the man, the way he said, “Okay,” Jesus said, “No! Seventy-seven times.” But even seventy-seven times will be finished….

Jesus is not trying to solve the problem, he is simply postponing it. First he postponed it twice, then seven times. Now seeing the person, that it makes no difference — after seven times he will do exactly the same as he would have done the second time, the first time, in the first place…. But he is again postponing it, making it longer — seventy-seven times. But I say, even seventy-seven times will be finished; then will your humbleness be finished too? And then what are you going to do?

No, this is not the right way. You are not being humble. On the contrary, you are humiliating the other person. Jesus has told you to give him the other cheek. “Deep down he is saying: Humiliate him. He may not be conscious himself of what he is saying. He may be thinking that he is giving you a great teaching. I do not doubt his intention, but his intention is not in question at all. What is in question is the statement, the principle. What is the basic psychology in it? Somebody hits you and you give him your other cheek; you reduce him into a subhuman being, and deep down your ego is fulfilled — so pious. But the ego feeling pious is far more dangerous than the ego feeling wrong, ugly — because you can get rid of the ugly ego; you cannot get rid of the pious ego. The pious ego is a treasure to be saved, to be protected: that man has made you a saint.

That’s what Jesus himself did on the cross. Even on the cross he is humiliating the people. He is asking God, “Forgive these people because they know not what they are doing.” As if he knows! In fact, those people know perfectly well what they are doing. They know that they are crucifying him because of his claim that he is the messiah, and the scriptures say that the messiah will be crucified and the miracle will happen: he will be resurrected by God. And that will be the only proof of his being the true messiah; otherwise he is a false one.

They knew perfectly well what they were doing. But even hanging on the cross… the pious ego still has the last word: “God, father, forgive these poor people. They don’t know what they are doing.” Only he knows, and nobody else there knows. And what does he know? Just a few moments before he himself was asking God, “Have you forsaken me?” There was doubt. He was shocked that the miracle was not happening, that nothing was happening, that the sky was absolutely silent, no response. All kinds of doubts must have arisen in his mind.

You can think of yourself on the cross, and you have been declaring… and he believed it. I never doubt his intention. It was not that he was befooling, or cheating. He was not a fraud, he was sincerely insane. He believed he was the messiah who had come to redeem the whole of humanity. And he went to the crucifixion himself.

There is every possibility of a strange conspiracy. Only Gurdjieff used to talk about it; he was the first man to talk about it. Christians of course cannot talk about it. And Jews have never bothered about the crucifixion; they have not even mentioned anywhere that this carpenter’s son was crucified. They simply ignored it — just a mad guy — in their history books, their religious book. Nnowhere is crucifixion mentioned, other than in Christian books. That is the New Testament, which was written three hundred years after Jesus’ crucifixion, so-called crucifixion.

Gurdjieff had a few very significant ideas. I can only call them ideas because they cannot be authenticated by any other source; but Gurdjieff was a man of penetrating mind. One idea was that the story of Jesus is not historical. It was a drama that was played year after year in olden times, just as Rama’s story in India has been played year after year for five thousand years. Even today, every year in every village, every town, every city, even the smallest village has its own group of actors playing the story of Rama, Ramleela. The same time each year the story is played. There is a possibility that there has never been such a man as Rama; it has been only a story, but it has been played for five thousand years continually so that it has taken a historicalness about itself.

Gurdjieff said Jesus’ crucifixion and the whole story of Jesus was a drama played every year; no historical event happened. I don’t agree with this, because if it was so the Jews would have continued to play the story, just as Hindus have continued to play the story. Why were they stopped? What happened? The story is beautiful; why did Jews simply stop it? And no Jewish source mentions it, even as a story. And if it was being played for thousands of years, it is impossible that there was no other source where it was related. And why did it suddenly stop two thousand years ago? No, it cannot be just a drama. And a drama cannot create so much trouble in the world. A drama cannot create Christianity. A drama cannot create all that the Christians have done to humanity. No, no drama is so powerful.

His second idea is also very significant, and there are moments when I think perhaps he is right about the second idea. With the first idea, I simply disagree with him. But the second idea is that Judas did not betray Jesus — he was Jesus’ closest disciple. It was Jesus who persuaded Judas to deliver him to the enemies. That too has no source anywhere. Gurdjieff was a strange man, but once in a while he used to stumble upon certain fragments of truth, certain aspects.

I can see some possibility of truth in this, because there was no need for Judas to betray. They had never been in a fight. There was no question about his being the successor, because he was the most literate, the most cultured, the most educated person amongst Jesus’ apostles. All the others were just very ordinary people from the masses. He was the only one — he was far better educated, far more cultured than Jesus himself. It was absolutely certain that he was going to take over once Jesus was gone. There was nobody to compete with him. There was no conflict. There had been no fight, and it was not possible that he would sell his master for thirty silver pieces. And if he was really so much against Jesus, then why did he commit suicide after Jesus’ crucifixion?

Christians don’t talk about Judas’ suicide, which is very significant. Perhaps Gurdjieff is right. Perhaps Jesus persuaded Judas, ordered Judas, “Go and deliver me to them, and deliver me in such a way that they don’t suspect that you are being sent by me — so if they offer some bribe, you accept.” They offered thirty silver pieces. He accepted gratefully and he brought them to the place where Jesus was staying. Jesus was caught and the next day he was crucified. It seems Gurdjieff has a point there, because Jesus knew beforehand that he was going to be crucified the next day. How did he know it? He knew that Judas was going to deliver him to the enemy. How did he know it?

The Christians will say, “He is all knowing, he is omniscient: he is the son of God.” But what happens to the son of God on the cross? Suddenly God abandons the son?… forgets about him?… does not listen to his prayer? No, the possibility is he knows, because it is his own plan that he should be delivered to the high priest, and only Judas could do it because he was so obedient and he could be relied upon. The others were emotionally attached to Jesus; only Judas was intellectually attached to Jesus. The others were not reliable. They might say, “No, we cannot do this. How can we do this to you? What are you talking about?” And even if they were sent, they would have come back without telling anybody about Jesus. They were simple folk.

Only Judas was capable of some integrity. And if Jesus says, “This is the way we have to function. You deliver me to the high priest and let them crucify me, and let God show the miracle of resurrection, so immediately we become recognized, and we can transform the whole world and redeem everybody from suffering.” And Judas believed it. He was not against Jesus and he was not betraying Jesus; he was really obeying him, obeying to the very extreme. Only a very obedient disciple could do that. But he also believed that there was no problem in crucifixion. Crucifixion was just a game: he was the son of God.

You should put yourself in Judas’ position, then you can understand that he was not betraying. He never thought for a single moment that this is a betrayal. He is simply fulfilling the plan and the master is giving him the order. And it is written in the scriptures, “The messiah will be betrayed by his own disciple.” Everything is written in the scriptures. He knows the scriptures, he is the only person who can read. So a disciple has to play the role — it is just a role — because he believes totally that after the resurrection the world will be redeemed. And he is doing a great service to humanity. He is not betraying Jesus, he is fulfilling his mission on the earth.

Gurdjieff’s idea is a little outlandish, but worth consideration. Anyway, whether it is right or wrong, one thing is certain, that Jesus was very keen to be crucified, more keen than the chief priest of the great temple of the Jews. He rushes fast towards Jerusalem for the annual festival, because it is known all over the country that this time, if Jesus comes to the temple…. Last year he had created chaos in the temple, he had upturned the tables of the moneychangers, thrown them out, had beaten them, and declared, “This business cannot continue in my father’s house. The temple is my father’s house.”

So there had been a rumor around for one year continually: “Next time, if he comes, the priests are ready. Last year they were not ready; it happened suddenly, they could not do anything. But this time they are getting ready, and they have persuaded the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, ‘This man is dangerous religiously to us, and politically to you.’”

Jesus knew. All these rumors were reaching him through his disciples and people and travelers, but still he rushed to the festival. For what? He had a tendency to be a martyr. That is another name for the suicidal instinct — a good name. But he believed, madly believed, that nobody could harm him. When God is the savior, who can harm him? But on the cross his hopes disappeared. But still, the ego, the arrogance of the humble man — who always forgives, even if you crucify him — is there: “These poor people should be forgiven.”

And who were these poor people? Learned rabbis — their whole life they had wasted in learning the Torah — the high priest and hundreds of other rabbis… because the temple of the Jews was one of the biggest temples in the world. Hundreds of priests were functioning there, working there. And the chief priest, the high priest was in egoistic conflict with Jesus. Unless Jesus had that ego there, the conflict would not have arisen.

It was the rule that every year the centralmost shrine of the temple was opened; the only man who entered there was the high priest, and the door was closed. Only he was allowed to utter the name of God. That’s why — you will be surprised — in Jewish books written in English, they don’t write G-O-D — God — because that would be pronouncing the full name. The ‘o’ is dropped, leaving an empty space in place of ‘o’: ‘g’ — empty space for ‘o’ — and ‘d’. You should not pronounce it, because unless you are pure enough you should not pronounce the name of God.

Only the high priest was entitled to pronounce the name of God; others were not entitled even to hear it. So the door was closed in the innermost shrine, completely closed — and there was only one door. Then he would call out, “God!” and pray and ask for the redemption of the Jews: “Send the messiah.”

And this man Jesus entered into the temple the year before, disturbed the whole structure of the temple, the system of the temple, and declared himself the messiah. Not only that, he declared, “I am the only begotten son of God. This is my father’s house, and what business is it that you are doing? I will not allow this kind of business here. Get out of the temple!”

Now, this was a sure challenge for the high priest that an even higher priest has arrived, the messiah has arrived, the prayer has been heard. Not only the messiah, God has sent his own son. Now this son has to be somehow finished with; otherwise the purpose, the function of the high priest and the thousand priests and the whole temple is lost.

Jesus rushed, got caught, was crucified; but even in crucifixion his arrogance was the same. He asked that these people should be forgiven, because they did not know what they were doing. If you enter deeply into such statements, you will be surprised that what appears on the surface is not the whole reality. So when the Christians say humble, they mean the ego has been repressed. But it has come in from the back door, claiming that “I am the most humble person.” When they say selfless, they tell you to practice selflessness, be humble.

Once a Christian monk came to see me. He was traveling all over India, and one of my Christian friends had given him a letter saying that if he passed through my city he must see me. He had written a letter to me saying that “Brother So-and-so is coming on these dates, and he is the humblest person you will ever come across — absolutely selfless. He is exactly what you teach. So I am telling him to meet you, and I implore you also to meet him. He is a man worth meeting.”

Brother So-and-so appeared one morning. He was carrying a Bible, and was living just like a Hindu monk; he looked very simple, gentlemanly. But I didn’t say to him to sit down.
He said, “Your friend has sent me.”
I said, “I have received the letter. But why are you carrying that rubbish with you?”
He said, “Rubbish? This is The Holy Bible.”
I said, “This is holy nonsense.”

His eyes became fire and he said, “What kind of man are you? My friend was saying that I would be welcomed and received. You have not even asked me to sit down and you call my holy Bible ‘holy nonsense,’ rubbish. I cannot stay here anymore.”

I said, “I don’t want you to stay here anymore — because you are not the person whom he describes in this letter, the Brother So-and-so who is very humble, the humblest person you will ever come across. You are not a humble person. If you were, what is wrong in my calling your Bible rubbish? You should have laughed. You should have said, ‘Okay, that is your opinion.’

“And if I have not asked you to sit down, nor have I prevented you. The chair was there; why were you waiting for me to tell you to sit down? A humble person? You could have sat down; I have not prevented you. And just think of your anger — you are enraged!” I said, “Now I say, please sit down. Put your holy Bible here on the table.”
He said, “No. I cannot stay here a single moment more. You are a dangerous man. You disturbed my twenty years’ humbleness.”
I said, “A humbleness which has been practiced for twenty years and is disturbed within twenty seconds is not worth much.”

You can repress the self, you can repress the ego, you can behave the way a humble man behaves. You can discipline yourself in any way, but it is all a circus, disciplining. Deep down you will remain the same. Anybody who knows how to scratch your thin layer of discipline can bring your reality out within seconds.

When I say be without the ego, I am not saying repress the ego, I am saying try to understand the ego. I am not saying fight with it. I am saying become aware of it. And the more you become aware of the ego, the less it is. The day you are fully aware of the ego, it is not found. When the ego is not found, then a quality arises in you like a fragrance — which is humbleness, which I call ordinariness, just to make the difference from humbleness. That word humble has been so misused by religious people that I have to use the word ordinariness, because no religion has used that word.

So I don’t want to use the words humble, selfless. I would like you simply to understand that I am just ordinary as everybody else is ordinary. And this understanding comes by becoming aware of the ego, not by repressing it.

One woman has written a letter in which she says, “You are not a gentleman; not only that, you are not even a Christian.” I started to think, “Is to be a Christian a necessary condition for being a gentleman? Then the whole world who is not Christian, is not gentlemanly. Only Christians are gentlemen.” And my experience shows, and your experience shows, that this is not the case. Christians, because of Jesus’ egoistic claims, continue in the same egoistic stream — their pope is infallible.

I used to think that I have come to know all the kinds of idiots, but coming here to Oregon I came to know that that was not right. The Oregonian idiot is a special category in itself.

Okay Sheela?

Source – Osho Book “From Unconsciousness to Consciousness”