Chapter title: Gods in Exile

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‌Chapter title: Gods in Exile‌

22 October 1975 am in Buddha Hall

Question 1

WHO PREPARED THE WAY FOR YOU?

NOBODY HAS PREPARED THE WAY FOR ME, and neither am I preparing the way for anybody. This has to be understood.

There are four possibilities. One, the oldest and the most used, is what happened in Jesus' case. John the Baptist prepared the way; the disciple preceded the Master. It has its benefits, but it has its own limitations and defects also -- bound to be so. When the disciple precedes the Master he will create limitations which belong to him and the Master will have to function within those limitations. It has its benefits because when the Master comes he will not be worried about preparing the ground -- the ground will be ready; he can immediately start sowing the seeds -- but the ground will be ready according to the disciple. It cannot be according to the Master, so he will have to function under limitations.

That's what created the whole trouble in Jesus' story.

John the Baptist is a different type of man from Jesus, a very fiery man, almost in flames -- and always in flames. He uses a language which fits him, but which can never fit Jesus. Jesus is very silent, very peaceful. John the Baptist is not that type of man.

He is a prophet, Jesus is a messiah, and the difference between a prophet and a messiah is great. A prophet is a religious man, deeply religious, but functioning like a politician: using the language of revolution, using a very violent language

-- arousing the hearts and beings of men, stirring them. A prophet is like an earthquake. A messiah is very soothing, silent like a Himalayan valley -- lazy, sleepy. You can rest in a messiah. With a prophet, you will always be on the go.

Because of this, John the Baptist used the terminology of politics: revolution, the kingdom of God. And even that 'kingdom' has to be taken by force. It has to be,

in fact. attacked. He was misunderstood because whenever you use the language of the outside world for the inner world, you are bound to be misunderstood.

The politicians became afraid: "About what kingdom is this man talking? about what revolution? What does he mean by saying that the kingdom has to be taken by force?"

John the Baptist is very impatient. He wants immediate change; he cannot wait.

He created the atmosphere in which Jesus had to function. John the Baptist died in imprisonment. he was beheaded by the rulers -- he was absolutely misunderstood -- but nobody was at fault: he himself was.

But because of him.… And Jesus was to follow him, Jesus was a disciple of his own disciple. He was initiated by John the Baptist because John the Baptist preceded him. He became linked. Then he had to use the same terminology. It was almost certain that he would be misunderstood.

John the Baptist died in prison, beheaded. Jesus died on the cross -- killed, murdered. John the Baptist was also talking about the kingdom of God. Of course he was not aggressive, but the very terminology appeared political. He was a very innocent man, nothing to do with politics.

But John the Baptist helped in a way. Jesus could work because all the disciples of John the Baptist were ready to receive him, he was not a stranger. John the Baptist had created a small opening, a small clearance in the wilderness of humanity. When he came he was received; there was a home ready for him -- a few people receptive to him. That would not have been possible if he had come alone without a predecessor. But the home was made by John the Baptist and the disciples whom he attracted were attracted by him. That created the trouble.

This is the oldest format: the Master is preceded by a disciple who functions as a predecessor and prepares the ground. Because of its defects and limitations, there has been another, the opposite.

Ramakrishna is succeeded by Vivekanand; he is not preceded by anybody. The Master comes first, then the disciple follows. This has its own benefits because the Master creates the whole climate, the Master creates the whole possibility of growth -- how the thing is to go. He gives language, pattern, direction, dimension.

But there are defects because the Master is infinite and when the disciple comes he is very finite. Then the disciple has to choose, because he cannot move in all directions. The Master may be showing all the directions, he may be leading you towards infinity, but when the disciple comes he has to choose, he has to select, and then he forces his own pattern on it.

Ramakrishna was succeeded by Vivekanand. Ramakrishna is one of the greatest flowerings that has ever happened; Vivekanand is the prophet. Ramakrishna is the messiah, but Vivekanand set the whole trend. Vivekanand's own inclinations were extrovert, not introvert. His own inclinations were more towards social reformation, political change. He was more interested in bringing riches to the people, destroying poverty and hunger and starvation. He turned the whole trend around.

The Ramakrishna Mission is not true to Ramakrishna; the Ramakrishna Mission is true to Vivekanand. Now the Ramakrishna Mission functions as a social service. Wherever there is famine, they are there to serve people. Whenever there is an earthquake, they are there to serve people. Whenever there is flood -- and there is no lack of these things in India -- they are there. They are good servants, but Ramakrishna's inward revolution has completely disappeared into the desert land of Vivekanand.

Ramakrishna functioned more freely than Jesus because there was no pattern for him. He lived more spontaneously than Jesus. There was no confinement anywhere; all the directions were open to him. He could fly just like a bird in the sky, no limitations existed. But then comes the disciple. He organizes it. He organizes, of course, in his own way.

Both ways have their benefits, both have their defects. Then there is a third possibility which has never been used before. Krishnamurti is the first in the world to have used the third possibility. The third possibility is to deny both: the predecessors and the successors both. It is negative.

Krishnamurti's method is VIA NEGATIVA. So first he denied those who prepared the ground for him, That was the only way to get out of the limitations.

He denied the whole Theosophical Movement: Annie Besant, Leadbetter -- they were the people who prepared the whole ground and they worked hard for Krishnamurti. They were the John the Baptists for him. They created a vast

opportunity in the world for him, but then he looked, when he was ready, and he saw the defects and the limitations: that the same would be the case as happened with Jesus. He simply denied. He denied that they created a ground or that there was any need to create the ground.

While denying them he was aware that he had to deny his messiahship also --

because if he said that he is the messiah then he could deny the predecessors, but the successors would follow. Then the same trouble would be there as it had been with Ramakrishna. So he denied: "There is nobody who has preceded me and there is nobody who is going to succeed me." He denied Leadbetter, Annie Besant and the Theosophical Movement, and for his whole life he has been denying that anybody is going to become his heir or successor.

This has its own beauty, but its problems also. You may be free, very free, absolutely free -- because there is no limitation on either side, before or after --

but your freedom is in negativity. You don't create. Your freedom comes to no fulfillment, it is futile -- you don't help. It is as if somebody is so conscious about not falling ill -- he continuously works and remains aware not to fall ill -- that he forgets that sometimes you have to enjoy the health also. Otherwise you may not fall ill but the very awareness that "one should not fall ill and must remain aware" becomes an illness of a sort.

Krishnamurti is so much alert about it -- that no bondage should be created anywhere, no fetters should be created anywhere -- that he worked hard, but couldn't help anybody. It was beautiful for himself, but it has not been beneficial for humanity. He is a free man, but his freedom is his alone. That freedom could not become a taste in thousands and thousands of throats; it could not create an urge. He has remained a pinnacle of freedom, but no bridge exists. You can look at him -- he is like a beautiful painting or beautiful poetry -- but nothing can be done about it, it doesn't change you. He has broken all the bridges. This is the third possibility -- never tried before. He is the first to try it.

I have tried the fourth. That has also never been tried. The fourth is that half of my life I have worked myself as John the Baptist, and now half of my life I will function as a Christ. That is the fourth possibility: to prepare the ground and to sow it also, to sow the seeds.

There are problems about it also; it is impossible to find a way which has no

problems. It has its own benefits, it has its own defects. The benefit is that I am both, so I am, in a way, totally free. Whatsoever I have done in my first step I have done knowing perfectly well what the second step is going to be. John the Baptist in me was perfectly aware of the Christ who was going to follow, they were in a deep harmony. They are one person; there is no problem about it. So John the Baptist in me could not create any limitations for the Jesus to follow -- a total freedom.

And no Vivekanand is going to follow me. I am my own Vivekanand and I am my own John the Baptist, so nobody can put a limitation on me when I am gone.

And I am positive: if Krishnamurti is VIA NEGATIVA, I am VIA POSITIVA. I have accepted both the roles and I have a certain freedom even Krishnamurti cannot have. He has to always deny, and denial in itself becomes a worry, a deep anxiety. I have nothing to deny; I just have to say yes to the total.

But there are problems, and the greatest problem is that I will always be contradictory. Whatsoever John the Baptist has said, the Christ in me has to contradict it. I will always be contradictory.

For many years I was moving around, reaching to every person, whomsoever had any capacity to grow. Nobody ever thought that someday the wanderer in me would simply sit in his closed room and would not even come out of the room -- contradictory! For years I was talking in terms of revolution: of course, John the Baptist has to talk that way. Then suddenly I stopped talking about revolution, the society, the welfare of humanity; I forgot all about it. Now only the individual exists.

Contradictory. If you look you can find two currents parallel, and the first current has been continuously contradicted by the other current. For those many years the Acharya, the John the Baptist, was doing one thing. Now the Bhagwan, something totally different, is doing a very contradictory thing.

It will be impossible later on to decide whether this man was one or two. And I suspect that somebody is going to suspect someday that this man was two, because the contradictions are so naked and there is no way to resolve them. This is the trouble with me -- but somebody had to try the fourth and I am happy that I tried it. On this earth everything has its own problem, so you cannot escape from the problem. From somewhere or other the problem will enter, so it is only

a question of choice -- whatsoever fits you.

This fits me perfectly. To be free to contradict is a great phenomenon because then I am not worried at all about what I say. I don't keep any accounts, I need not be worried about what I said yesterday. I can contradict: this is a great freedom.

And if you love me I know that you will find somewhere deep within me that the contradictions are already resolved. But that will happen only to those who trust, that will happen only to those who come closer and closer to me. All the contradiction is on the surface: deep down within me they are already resolved because I am one.

I functioned as John the Baptist; now I will function as Christ. So nobody has preceded me, nobody is going to succeed me. I am a perfect circle.

Question 2

WHY DO I FEEL HESITATION IN ENJOYING ANYTHING?

Joy is not allowed; you are preconditioned against joy. From the very childhood you have been taught that if you are happy then something is wrong -- unhappy, everything is good. If you are miserable nobody is worried about it, but if you are too happy, everybody is worried about you. You must have done something wrong.

Whenever a child is happy the parents start looking for the cause: he must have done some mischief or something. Why is he so happy? -- the parents are not happy. They have a deep jealousy towards the child because he is happy. They may not be aware of it, but they are jealous. It is easy to tolerate somebody else's misery, but it is almost impossible to tolerate anybody else's happiness.

I was reading an anecdote. A very religious father was bringing up his son as perfectly as possible. One day when they were going to church he gave the boy two coins: one, a one rupee coin; another, a one paise coin. He also gave him the choice that whatsoever he thought was right he could put in the donation plate in the church. He could choose the rupee or the paise.

Of course the father believed and hoped that he would put the rupee in the church plate. He had been brought up in such a way -- he could be expected to,

relied upon.

The father waited. After church he was very curious to know what happened. He asked the boy, "What did you do?"

The boy admitted that he had donated the one paise coin and kept the rupee for himself.

The father couldn't believe it. He said, "Why? Why did you do this? -- we have always been inculcating great principles in you."

The boy said, "You ask why. I will tell you the reason. The priest in church talked right before. In his sermon he said, 'God loveth a cheerful donator.' I could donate the one paise coin cheerfully -- not the one rupee!"

God loveth the cheerful giver. I am absolutely in agreement with the boy: what you do is not the question; you are religious if you can do it cheerfully. It may be a one paise coin -- it doesn't matter. It is immaterial because the real coin that you are giving is your cheerfulness.

But from the very beginning every child is taught not to be so cheerful. To be cheerful is to be childish. To be cheerful is to be natural, but not civilized; to be cheerful is somehow primitive, not cultured. So you have been brought up not to be cheerful and whatsoever you have ever enjoyed was condemned again and again. If you enjoyed just running and shouting around the house, somebody was bound to be there saying,"Stop that nonsense! I am reading the newspaper!"-

as if the newspaper is something very valuable.

A child shouting and running is a more beautiful sight than any newspaper. And the child cannot understand: "Why do I have to stop? Why can't you stop your newspaper reading?" The child cannot understand: "What is wrong in my being happy and running?"

"Stop!" -- the whole cheerfulness is suppressed, the child becomes serious. Now he sits in a corner unhappy. The energy needs movement: the child is energy, he delights in energy. He wants to move shout and scream. He is full of energy he wants to overflow, but whatsoever he does is wrong. Either the mother is saying,

"Keep quiet," or the father, or the servant, or the brother, or the neighbors.

Everybody seems to be against his flowing energy.

One day it happened: Mulla Nasrudin's wife was very angry. Her small boy was making too much of a nuisance, creating too much nuisance. Finally she was exhausted and she ran after him -- she wanted to thrash him well -- but he escaped, escaped upstairs, and hid himself under a bed. She tried hard, but she couldn't get him out. And she was a very fat woman, she couldn't get underneath, so she said, "Wait, let your father come."

When Mulla Nasrudin came, she told the whole story. He said, "Don't be worried; leave to me. I will go and put him right."

So he went upstairs, walked very quietly, looked under the bed and he was surprised -- surprised the way the boy greeted him. The boy said, "Hello, Dad --

is she after you also?!"

Everybody is after him. The overflowing energy is looked at as a nuisance. And that is DELIGHT for the child. He doesn't ask much; he simply asks a little freedom to be happy and to be himself. But that is not allowed.

"It is time to go to sleep!" When he doesn't feel like going to sleep, it is time. He has to force himself. And how can you force sleep -- have you ever thought about it? Sleep is nothing voluntary, how can you force it? He turns in his bed --

unhappy, miserable -- and cannot think how to bring on sleep. But it is time; it has to be brought or it is against the rules.

And then in the morning when he wants to sleep a little longer -- then he has to get up. When he wants to eat something, it is not allowed; when he doesn't want to eat something, it is forced. This goes on and on. By and by the child comes to understand one thing: that whatsoever is cheerful for him has something wrong about it. Whatsoever makes him happy is wrong, and whatsoever makes him sad and serious is right and good and accepted.

That's the problem. You ask, "Why do I feel hesitation in enjoying anything? " Because your parents, your society, are still after you.

If you are really with me, drop all that nonsense that has been forced on you.

There is only one religion in the world and that religion is to be happy.

Everything else is immaterial and irrelevant. If you are happy, you are right; if you are unhappy, you are wrong.

Every day it happens, people come to me -- the wife comes or the husband comes and the wife says she is very unhappy because the husband is doing something wrong. I always tell such people that if the husband is doing something wrong, let him be unhappy. "Why are you unhappy? The wrong itself will lead him towards unhappiness -- why are you worried?"

But the wife says, "But he is not unhappy. He goes to the pub and he enjoys. He is not unhappy at all."

Then I say, "Something is wrong with you, not with him. Unhappiness is the indicator. You change yourself; forget about him. If he is happy, he is right."

I tell you, if you can go happily to a pub, that is better than going unhappily to a temple -- because finally one comes to discover that happiness is the temple. So what you do is not the question -- -what quality do you bring to it while doing it?

Be happy and you are virtuous; be unhappy and you are committing what religious people have called sin. You must have heard them say that the sinner will suffer some day in the future, in some future life, and the saint will be happy somewhere in the future, in a future life. I say that is absolutely wrong. The saint is happy here and now, and the sinner is unhappy. Life does not wait for so long; it is immediate.

So if you feel yourself unhappy, you have been doing something wrong with yourself. If you cannot enjoy -- if some hesitation comes in, if you feel afraid, guilty -- it means somewhere by the corner the shadows of your parents are still lurking.

You may be enjoying, or trying to enjoy, ice cream, but deep in the unconscious the shadow of the mother or the father is lurking. "This is wrong. Don't eat too much, this is going to harm you." So you are eating, but the hesitation is there.

The hesitation means that the contradiction is there.

Try to understand your hesitation and drop it. And this is one of the most

unbelievable phenomena: that if you drop the hesitation it may come to pass that you stop eating too much ice cream automatically (because eating too much may be part of it). Because they have denied it, they have created a certain attraction in it. Every denial brings attraction. They have said, "Don't eat it," and that has created a hypnotic, a magnetic, attraction to eat it.

If you stop having any hesitations, you drop all the parental voices, all the upbringing that you have been forced to go through. You may suddenly see the ice cream as just an ordinary thing. Sometimes one can enjoy it, but it is not a food. It has no nutritious value -- it may even be harmful. But then you understand. If it is harmful you understand it, you don't eat it. And you can always eat it sometimes, sometimes even harmful things are not so harmful.

Once in a while you can enjoy it, but there is no obsession to eat it too much. That obsession is part of the repression.

Drop hesitations. People come to me and they say they want to love, they hesitate; they want to meditate, but they hesitate; they would like to dance, but they hesitate. If this hesitation is there and you go on feeding it, you will miss your whole life. It is time: drop it! And nothing else is to be done: just become aware that this is just the way you have been brought up, that's all.

Consciously it can be dropped; it is not your being. It is just in your brain, it is just an idea which has been forced upon you. It has become a long habit -- and a very dangerous habit at that because if you can't enjoy, then what is this life for?

And these people who cannot enjoy anything (love, life, food, a beautiful scene, a sunset, a morning, beautiful clothes, a good bath -- small things, ordinary things), if you cannot enjoy this things, and there are people who cannot enjoy anything: they become interested in God. They are the most impossible people; they can never reach to God. God enjoys these trees, otherwise why does He go on creating them? He is not fed up at all, not at all. For millennia He has been working on trees and flowers and birds, and He goes on listening.He goes on replacing: new beings, new earths, new planets. He is really very, very colorful!

Look at life, watch it, and you will see the heart of God -- how it is.

People who are very up-tight, unable to enjoy anything, unable to relax, incapable even of enjoying a good sleep, they are the very few people who become interested in God. And they become interested for the wrong reasons.

They think that because life is useless, futile, they have to seek and search God. Their God is against life remember.

Gurdjieff used to say, :I have searched into every religion, into every church, mosque and temple, and I have found that the God of the religious people is against life." And how can God be against life? If He is against, then there is no reason why life should exist or should be allowed to exist. So if your God is against life, in fact, deep down, you are against the real God. You are following a Godot, not a God.

God is the very fulfillment of life, God is the very fragrance of life, God is the total organic unity of life. God is not some thing that exists like a dead rock, God is not static. God is a dynamic phenomenon. God does not exist, It happens When you are ready, It happens. Don't think that God exists somewhere and you will find a way to reach Him. No, there is nowhere, and there is no God existing somewhere waiting for you.

God is something that happens to you when you are ready. When you are ready, when the sadness has disappeared and you can dance, when the heaviness has disappeared and you can sing, when the heavy weight of conditioning is no more on your heart and you can flow -- God happens. God is not a thing that exists; It is something that happens. It is a dynamic, organic unity.

And when God happens, everything happens: the trees, the stars, the rivers. And to me, to be capable of enjoying is the door. Serious people have never been known to have reached Him. Seriousness is the barrier -- the wrong attitude.

Anything that makes you serious is irreligious. Don't go to a church that makes you serious.

It happened once:A woman purchased a parrot, but by the time she reached home she was very much puzzled, worried. She had paid a good price for it; the parrot was beautiful. Everything was good, only one thing was very dangerous --

once in a while the parrot would say loudly, "I am a very wicked woman." This was something!

The woman lived alone. And she was a very religious woman -- otherwise why live alone? She was a very serious woman, and this parrot would say again and

again -- and even passers-by would hear and listen -- and the parrot would say, "I am a very, very wicked woman."

She went to the vicar because he was the only source of her wisdom and knowledge and information. She said, "This is very bad, and I am puzzled about what to do. The parrot is beautiful and everything is good except this."

The vicar said, "Don`t be worried. I have two very religious parrots. Look!" -- one was in his cage tolling the bell and another was praying in his cage. Very religious people -- "You bring your parrot. Good company always helps. Leave your parrot for a few days here with these religious people, and later on you can take your parrot back."

The woman liked the idea. She agreed brought the parrot, and the vicar introduced the parrot to his parrots. But before he could say anything, the parrot said, "I am a very, very wicked woman."

The vicar was also nonplussed -- what to do? In that moment the parrot who was praying stopped praying and said to the other parrot, "You fool! Stop tolling the bell, our prayers are fulfilled." They were praying for a woman! "Stop tolling the bell; the prayer is answered!".

In fact whenever you see somebody praying, suspect something has gone wrong.

They are praying for a woman, praying for money; praying for something, praying for happiness. A really happy person does not pray. Happiness is his prayer, and there cannot be a higher or a greater prayer than just to be happy.

A happy person does not know anything about god, does not know anything about prayer. His happiness is his God, his happiness is his prayer-he is fulfilled.

Be happy and you will be religious: happiness is the goal.

I am a hedonist, and as far as I see it, all those who have known have always been hedonists, whatsoever they say. A Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna -- all hedonists. God is the ultimate in hedonism, He is the peakest peak of being happy.

Drop all the conditioning that you carry with you. And don't try to condemn your

parents because that won't help. You are a victim of there conditioning, but what could they have done? They where victims of there on conditionings of their parents, so it is a long succession. Nobody is responsible, so don't feel angry that your parents destroyed you. They couldn't help it. If you understand, you will feel pity for them. They were destroyed by their parents, and their parents were destroyed by somebody else, and it has always been going on. It is a succession, a chain.

You simply get out of it. There is no point in condemning anybody and there is no point in being angry -- an angry young man and this and that. There is no point. That is again a foolishness. Once you are sad, then you become angry.

That is as bad as sadness. Just look at the whole thing and get out of it. Simply slip out of it without making any noise. That's what I call rebellion.

The revolutionary gets angry. He says the education has to be changed, he says the society has to be changed, he says a new type of parent is needed in the world. Then only will everybody be happy. But who will do this? The doers are always in the same mess, so who will be the help? "Create a new education" --

but who will create it? The teachers have to be taught first. And the revolutionaries are just as much a part of this nonsense as the reactionaries, so who will bring the revolution? The hope is futile.

There is only one hope: you can bring light to your being. And it is available immediately, there is nothing to it. Have you ever seen a snake slipping out of his old skin? -- it is just like that. You simply slip out of it: forgive and forget.

Don't be angry against your parents; they themselves were victims. Feel pity for them.

Don't be angry against the society, it could not have been otherwise. But one thing is possible: you can slip out right now. Start being happy from this very moment. Everything is available -- only a deep attitudinal change is needed: that from now on you will look at happiness as the good and misery as the sin.

Question 3

WILL I BE ABLE TO TAKE ALL THAT I FEEL HERE WITH YOU WHEN I LEAVE OR WILL ALL THAT HAS HAPPENED JUST BE A MEMORY?

When you leave, if you don't leave yourself here, if you take your 'I' with you, then whatsoever has happened will become a memory. Then whatsoever has happened will be left behind. If you want to carry it with you, then you cannot carry yourself within. The choice is open: either leave yourself here, then whatsoever has happened will be carried within you; or take yourself back home, then whatsoever has happened will be left here. The choice is yours.

If you can drop the ego, then whatsoever is happening is real. But if you cannot drop the ego, then it is going to become a memory, and it will create more trouble for you because the memory will become a haunting. You have had a glimpse, and now it is lost. You will be more miserable than ever. You know that it exists, but now you have lost the track. You know it is somewhere: now you cannot simply say that it doesn't exist; that argument won't help. Now you cannot easily become an atheist and say there is no God and there is no meditation and there is no inner core to human beings -- you cannot say that.

You have tasted it. Now the taste will surround you, haunt you, will call you.

The choice is yours. You can drop your 'I' with me, and the vision that has happened will become part of your reality. It will be integrated in your organic unity, it will be crystallized. But you cannot have both, you can have only one, so before you leave, please make certain that you are leaving your 'I' with me. Make certain that your surrender is real and total, make certain that you are really surrendered. Then wherever you are, you are close to me.

It is because of your surrender that you are close to me, it is not a question of physical space. Surrendered, you are close to me -- you may be on another planet. Not surrendered, you may be just sitting close to me -- you are far away.

Question 4

YESTERDAY YOU MENTIONED THAT LAW IS ANTI-LOVE, BUT THAT WITHOUT IT LOVE CANNOT EXIST AND GROW. PLEASE EXPLAIN IN WHICH WAY LAW IS NEEDED FOR LOVE TO GROW.

For every growth the opposite is needed because the opposite creates the tension. Without the opposite, things relax into death. This is one of the most

fundamental things in life.

Love cannot exist without the law; the law is the opposite. The law is the non- spontaneous, the mechanical; love is the spontaneous, the non-mechanical. Love is uncaused; law is within cause and effect. Love is individual; law is social. Can you exist without the society? Without the society you will not be born. You need a mother, a father, you need a family to grow in, you need a society to thrive in.

Without a society you cannot exist.

But remember, if you just become a part of society, you have already moved into non-existence again. Without the society you cannot exist, and you cannot exist just as a member of the society either. Jesus says, "Man cannot live by bread alone." Do you think it means you can live without bread? Man cannot live by bread alone -- true, absolutely true -- but can man live without bread? No, that too is not possible. Man needs bread. It is necessary, but not enough. It simply gives you a base, but it doesn't give you a jump, a flight. It is a jumping board.

Don't get stuck at that.

Jesus says: "The Sabbath is created for man, not man for the Sabbath." The law is needed because the society is needed. The law is the bread. But if there is only law -- if you exist as a member of the society, a law-abiding member of the society, and nothing else exists in you which is beyond law -- then you exist in vain; then you exist "just by bread alone". Then you eat well, you sleep well, and nothing else happens.

It is good to eat well, but not enough -- something of the unknown is needed.

Something from the invisible is needed to penetrate you; the romance of the unknown is needed. Without it you will be a syllogism of logic but you will not be a poetry. Without it you may be quite right, but just 'quite right' -- no romance, no poetry, no dance.

Love is the mysterious, the law is the non-mysterious. The law helps you to be in the world; love gives you the reason to be. The law gives you the cause to be, and love gives you the reason to be. The law gives you the base; love becomes the home, the house.

And remember one thing: that the base can exist without the house, but the house cannot exist without the base. The lower can exist without the higher, the higher cannot exist without the lower. A man can exist with just bread -- he will not have anything worth having, he will not have any reason to exist -- but he can exist; he can just vegetate. But even a great lover cannot exist without bread: even Jesus or Buddha cannot exist without bread. They have found the celestial home of love, but they cannot exist without bread.

The lower is, in a way, independent of the higher. The higher is dependent, in a way, on the lower. But this is so. And it seems simple, it is easy. You make a temple.… What we call in India the kalash, the golden cap of the temple, cannot exist without the whole temple there. If you remove the temple, the kalash -- the golden cap -- will fall down. It cannot exist without the temple. Of course, the temple can exist without the cap; there is no problem about it.

Just think: a man is hungry -- can he dance? Dance is impossible. The man is starving, he cannot even think. He cannot imagine what dance means. He may have known it in the past, but he will not even be able to believe that he has known it. It seems impossible, it seems almost nonexistential. It cannot exist in a starved body -- how can you think of a dance descending? But think of another man who is well fed and without any dance. There is no trouble -- you can vegetate.

The higher is not a must, it is a freedom. If you want, you grow in it; if you don't want, there is nobody forcing you to grow in it. The lower is a need, it is not your choice. It has to be fulfilled.

Law is anti-love. If you are too lawful, you will not be able to love anybody --

because the very quality of love is spontaneity. It comes from the blue, it can disappear in the blue. It has no reason, no cause here. It happens like a miracle, it is magical. Why it happens, how it happens, nobody knows. It cannot be manipulated: it is anti-law, it is anti-gravitation, it is anti-science, it is anti-logic.

It is against all logic and against all law.

Love cannot be proved in any lab, and love cannot be proved by any logic. If you try to prove it by logic, you will come to know that there is nothing like love, love is impossible. It cannot exist -- but it exists! Even great scientists fall in love.

They cannot prove it in their labs, they cannot argue for it, but they also fall in love. Even an Einstein falls in love.

Love makes everybody humble. Even Einstein -- so proud of his logic, argument, science -- suddenly falls in love one day: an ordinary woman -- Frau Einstein.

Suddenly his whole science disappeared and he started believing in the impossible. Even in his later life he used to shrug his shoulders: "It happens, but if you ask me as a scientist I cannot vouch for it. But it happens -- if you ask me as a man."

In his last days he said, "If love exists, then God must also exist. If one impossible is possible, then why not the other?" He died as a deeply humble and religious man.

Somebody asked him, "If you are born again, what would you like to be?" He said, "Not a scientist again. I would rather be a plumber."

What is he saying? He is saying that he has seen the falsity of all logic and he has seen the futility of all scientific argument.What he is saying that he has seen through and through that cause and effect maybe the base, but they are not the pinnacles. The real temple the real mystery of life, moves through love, prayer, happiness -- all impossibles. If you think of them you cannot believe, but if you allow them to happen then a great trust and a great grace arises in you.

Moses is the law. The society cannot exist without Moses, he is a must. The society cannot afford to lose him; the society would be a chaos without a Moses.

He is absolutely needed, he is the very foundation. BUT JESUS IS LOVE. Moses is needed, is necessary, but not enough. If Moses alone rules the world, the world will be not worth living.

Jesus. A breeze from the unknown -nobody knows from where it comes, nobody knows where it goes. A penetration of eternity into time -the entry of the mysterious into the known.

Jesus cannot come without Moses, remember. Moses will be needed. He is the bread, but the bread has nothing of romance in it. The wine -that is the romance,

the poetry, the dance, the celebration, the joy, the ecstasy.

Yes, Moses cannot exist without Jesus... Jesus cannot exist without Moses. That's why Jesus says again and again, "I have come to fulfil, not to destroy." Moses was just a foundation. Jesus raises the temple of God in it.

Moses is the absolutely right citizen, the good man. Jesus is not so good.

Sometimes one suspects whether he is good or bad; he confuses. He moves with drunkards, he stays with a prostitute. No, never... you cannot conceive of Moses doing that. Moses is an absolutely right man, but thats where he misses something: the beauty, the freedom. He always moves on the right track, he is a railway line. Jesus is like a river. He changes -sometimes left, sometimes right, sometimes he changes the path completely.

Moses is absolutely believable; Jesus not so. Sometimes one suspects whether this man is right or wrong. That was the problem for the Jews. They had lived on the bread of Moses, they had followed Moses and his Ten Commandments, and now this man comes and says, "I am the fulfillment of all that has preceded me," and,

"I have come not to destroy, but to fulfill." But what type of fulfillment is this? He does not look like Moses at all.

He has no condemnation of the bad. He says, "Judge ye not! " Moses is a great judge, and Jesus says, "Judge ye not, so that ye may not be judged." Moses says,

"Don't do evil," and Jesus says, "Resist not the evil" -- very confusing. He must have created great chaos. Wherever he moved he must have brought confusion and conflict to people's minds, he must have created anxiety. That's why they took revenge and killed him; it is absolutely logical.

Buddha was not killed in India, Mahavir was not killed -- sometimes a few stones were thrown or things like that, but they were not killed, crucified. They never confused the mind so much as Jesus. They had something of the Moses in them, and Jesus has nothing of the Moses in him. Mahavir has much of the Moses in him. He has something of the law and something of love, both.

Jesus is pure love. That's why he was crucified. He had to be crucified -- such pure love cannot be tolerated, such pure grace is impossible to bear; the very

presence is intolerable because it hurts. The very presence of Jesus throws you in confusion, and the only way to protect yourself and defend yourself is to kill this man, destroy this man.

By destroying Jesus the people tried to live with Moses and law alone, and not be bothered by love. The day Jesus was crucified, it was nothing but an indication that the ordinary mind would like to live without love. Love was crucified, not Jesus. He is just symbolic.

There are many complications. Jews have always been puzzled about why this man Jesus influenced the whole world so much and he could not influence the Jews at all. Jews are great scholars, their rabbis are great pundits, and they have been trying to prove that Jesus did not say a single new word, that all that he said is written in Jewish scriptures. Then why has this man become the very axis of humanity? What happened? -- it seems unbelievable.

They are right in a way: Jesus has not said a single word that cannot be found in the sayings of old rabbis. No, he has not said a single new word. But that is not where he is unique, he is unique in the way he has said it -- not the word, but the way he has asserted it. In the Old Testament you come again and again across the expression: "The Lord hath said " But that is not characteristic of Jesus.

Whenever he says this, he says, "I say unto you..." -- not, "The Lord " He is the

Lord. The Old Testament says: "The Lord says this"; Jesus says, "I say unto you."

The old rabbis stammer, Jesus speaks; the old rabbis have a borrowed glory, Jesus has his own. The old rabbis speak FROM authority; Jesus with authority --

and that is a great difference.

It is said that once the enemies of Jesus sent a man to catch hold of him and bring him to the temple. He was teaching near the temple and a crowd had gathered.

The man went there to catch hold of him, to imprison him, but the crowd was big and he had to enter the crowd to reach the man -- it took time. While he was penetrating the crowd, he had to hear what this man was saying. Then he stopped, he forgot that for which he had come. Then it became impossible to imprison this man. He came back.

The enemies asked, "Why have you come back? Why have you not caught hold of him?"

He said, "I was going to, but his words fell in my ear. And I tell you, no man has ever spoken like this man! The very quality, the authority, the power that he speaks with, overpowered me. I was hypnotized: it became impossible to catch hold of this man."

Jesus is love. Love has authority of its own, it is not borrowed. The old rabbis and the Old Testament people are like the moon -- the borrowed light. Jesus is the sun; he has his own light. Love has its own authority; law never has its own authority. The authority is from Moses, Manu, Marx; the authority is from the scripture, the tradition, the convention. The authority is always of the old, it is never fresh and new.

Love is anti-law. But if you have love, you can be lawful also; there is no problem in it. But then you are more than the law; you have something of love within you.

You live in the society, you have to follow the rules. They are just like: 'keep to the left' or 'keep to the right' -- nothing ultimate about them; just rules to keep the traffic in control, otherwise it will be almost impossible to move. Good as far as it goes, but don't think of yourself that because you always keep to the left you have attained something. Of course it is good as far as it goes, but nothing much

-- what have you attained? The traffic will be convenient, that's all -- but what have you attained?

All morality, all law, is good as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Love is needed. Love is a sort of madness: illogical, irrational.

Question 5

WITNESSING, AWARENESS, MEDITATION, SUDDENLY SEEM DISTANT

AND STERILE ADULT IDEAS IN THE FACE OF THE FLOOD OF WILD AND

CHILDISH ADORATION WHICH FILLS ME WHILE I AM LISTENING TO

YOU TALK ABOUT JESUS. MY ADULT SELF SAYS, "BEWARE; DON'T INDULGE IN SLOPPY, SLEEPY SENTIMENTALITY -- THIS IS JUST THE

MIND, CHILDHOOD CHRISTIAN CONDITIONING." BUT THE IMPULSIVE, YEARNING SEVEN-YEAR-OLD FEELS LIKE STICKING OUT HER TONGUE

AT THE TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD SERIOUSLY SPIRITUAL SEEKER. WHICH IS THE REAL ME?

Neither -- but the one who is watching both, the one who has asked the question.

You are neither a seven-year-old nor a seventy-year-old. Oldness is irrelevant to you, age does not belong to you. You are eternal -- neither the child, nor the young man, nor the old man.

Always fall back to the witness, go deeper and deeper into witnessing. Never allow any other identification to settle: of the child or the adult -- no. All identifications are bondages.

Total freedom is not in identification; total freedom is in non-identification with each and every thing. Someday, when all identifications are broken and they fall down -- like clothes drop -- and you are absolutely nude in your freedom, then you will know who you are.

You are gods in exile. Only by witnessing will you remember who you are. Then all misery disappears, all poverty disappears. You are the very kingdom of God.

Question 6

WHY DO YOU GIVE SANNYAS TO SO MANY CREEPS?

It is from Anand Bodhisattva. If not, then, Bodhisattva, how could you be a sannyasin?

I love creeps. They are good people. Everybody is accepted, I make no conditions, because I don't look at how you look. I am not bothered by your appearance. I look at you, and you are gods in exile -- maybe sometimes with

dirty clothes, sometimes with an unwashed face, but still a god.

Sometimes you look like a creep, but you are not. Because I can see you deep within your reality, I accept you totally. Whatsoever you pretend to be, you cannot deceive me. These are all pretensions. You may be deceived by your own pretension; I am not deceived. I look direct and immediate; I look into you. And I always find the fresh, the eternal, the beautiful: truth and grace -- divinity. You are sovereigns.…

Come Follow To You, Vol 1 Chapter #3

Chapter title: And, Lo, The heavens Opened 23 October 1975 am in Buddha Hall MATTHEW 3

1 IN THOSE DAYS CAME JOHN THE BAPTIST, PREACHING IN THE WILDERNESS OF JUDAEA,

2 AND SAYING, REPENT YE: FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND.

11 I INDEED BAPTIZE YOU WITH WATER UNTO REPENTANCE: BUT HE THAT COMETH AFTER ME IS MIGHTIER THAN I, WHOSE SHOES I AM NOT WORTHY TO BEAR: HE SHALL BAPTIZE YOU WITH THE HOLY GHOST, AND WITH FIRE:

13 THEN COMETH JESUS FROM GALILEE TO JORDAN UNTO JOHN, TO BE

BAPTIZED OF HIM.

14 BUT JOHN FORBAD HIM, SAYING, I HAVE NEED TO BE BAPTIZED

OF

THEE, AND COMEST THOU TO ME?

15 AND JESUS ANSWERING SAID UNTO HIM, SUFFER IT TO BE SO NOW: FOR THUS IT BECOMETH US TO FULFILL ALL. RIGHTEOUSNESS. THEN HE

SUFFERED HIM.

16 AND JESUS, WHEN HE WAS BAPTIZED, WENT UP STRAIGHTWAY OUT

OF THE WATER: AND, LO, THE HEAVENS WERE OPENED UNTO HIM, AND HE SAW THE SPIRIT OF GOD DESCENDING LIKE A DOVE, AND

LIGHTING UPON HIM:

17 AND LO A VOICE FROM HEAVEN, SAYING, THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED.

I HAVE HEARD A STORY -- it happened in the days of knights and castles. A young Englishman was searching for his fortune, wandering all over the land.

Tired, he paused under a tree near a castle to rest. The duke of the castle was passing by. He stopped and inquired why the young man was waiting there, for what he was looking. The young man said, "I am an architect and I am in search of employment."

The duke was very pleased because he needed an architect. He said, "You come with me. You be my architect, and whatsoever your needs are, they will be fulfilled from my castle and the land. You can live like a really rich man. But be faithful, and remember one thing: if you leave, you will have to leave as empty- handed as you are coming in."

The young man agreed. Weeks passed and then months and he worked faithfully, and the duke was very pleased with him. All his needs were fulfilled, he was looked after -- he really lived like a rich man in the castle.

But by and by he started feeling uneasy. In the beginning it was not clear what

the cause of it was because, in fact, there was no cause to be uneasy. Every need was taken care of. It was like a cloud surrounding him, a heaviness, the feeling of something being missed. But not knowing exactly what it was, he was confused.

Then one day it flashed like lightning before him -- he understood the cause. He went to the duke and said that he was leaving.

The duke could not believe it. He said, "Why are you leaving? If there is any difficulty you simply tell me and it will be done. I have been very much pleased with your work. and I would like you to be here for your whole life."

The young man said, "No, I am leaving. Please allow me to leave." The duke asked, "But why?"

The young man said, "Because nothing belongs to me here. Empty-handed I have come; empty-handed I will have to leave. This is a dream: nothing belongs to me here."

This is the point where a person starts becoming religious. If something belongs to you in this world, you are not yet ready to be religious. Empty-handed you come; empty-handed you go. Once you realize this, like a flash of lightning everything becomes clear. This world cannot be your home -- at the most an overnight stay. 'In the morning we go.'

Once you have the feeling that you are here only momentarily -- you cannot possess anything, you cannot have anything here -- it becomes a dream, what Hindus call MAYA. It becomes illusory. That is the definition of MAYA: something which appears to be yours and is not; something which appears to be real and is not; something which seems to be eternal and is only momentary --

something which is made of the stuff that dreams are made of.

Unless one understands it, one goes on doing things which are eventually found to be meaningless. The day death comes, your whole life proves to be meaningless. Confronting death you will see that your hands are empty -- and you worked hard! You were in so much anguish and anxiety for things which cannot be possessed.

It is not in the nature of things that they can be possessed. Possession is impossible because you are here only for a few moments. Things were here before you; things will be here after you. You come and go, the world remains.

Be a guest, and don't start feeling and believing that you are the owner here.

Then your life changes immediately; then your life takes on a new hue, a new color, a new dimension. That dimension is religion.

Once you understand it, you need initiation -- initiation into the other world. It is available, just by the corner. Once this world is understood to be just a dream, the other becomes available.

This was the whole message of John the Baptist:

REPENT: FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND.

It has been tremendously, terribly misunderstood by Christians. From the very beginning the message was misunderstood. People thought that the world was going to end and John the Baptist was forecasting, was predicting, the end of the world.

FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND. People thought that this world was going to end -- this was the misunderstanding -- so they waited. John the Baptist died, and there was no sign of the kingdom coming. This kingdom continued, and that kingdom never came. Then Jesus was again saying the same thing: REPENT YE: FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND. Then

they waited... then he was crucified... and the kingdom never came. And Christians have been waiting for twenty centuries since then.

Now much doubt has arisen in the mind. The priest in the pulpit goes on repeating these words, but they are no longer meaningful. He knows himself they are not meaningful. He goes on saying, "Repent ye: for the kingdom of God is at hand," but he knows that for twenty centuries it has not happened and the world has continued.

But this was not the meaning at all. The world is not going to end: you are going to end. When John the Baptist said, "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," he never meant that this world is going to end. He simply meant that you are going to end, and before you die, make contact with the other world. Repent

for all that you have done to possess this world, repent for the way you have lived in this dream as if it was reality, repent for all that you have been doing and thinking, because all that is baseless.

Unless you repent, you will not be able to see that the kingdom of God is just by the corner. Your eyes will remain filled with this world; you will not be able to see the other. Before the other can be seen, your eyes have to be completely cleaned of this world -- the world af things; the world of matter; the world of lust, possession; the world of greed and anger; the world of jealousy, envy; the world of hatred; the world of the ego. Your eyes have to be completely cleaned, washed, before you can see the kingdom of God. In fact the moment your eyes attain to clarity, this world disappears -- just like in the morning when you become awake, the world of dreams disappears; another world opens its door.

The kingdom of God is a reality and THIS world is only a production of your mind.

John the Baptist -- and later on, Christ -- were saying that you are going to end, but that is difficult for the mind to understand. The mind can think and believe that everything else is going to end but not that it is going to end. The mind goes on saving itself, defending itself.

Somebody dies. You see the dead body, but it never occurs to you that you are going to die. You sympathize with the family of the dead man. You say, "Poor man. He could have lived a little longer. He was not yet old enough. His family was so dependent on him -- now what will happen?"

The wife is crying and weeping, the children are mad. What will happen? You think about the dead man, you think about the dead man's family, you think about the future of the orphaned children, you think of the widowed wife, but you never think that this death is your death also. You always hide yourself, you always go on defending yourself. Deep down everybody thinks that he is not going to die. Death always happens to others.

The mind interprets in such ways that it misses the whole point. The world is to continue: it has always been there and it will always be there. Only you will not be there; death will take you away. As empty-handed as you entered, you will have to leave. If that understanding penetrates your being, then repentance becomes possible. Repentance is nothing but attaining to this clarity of vision.

This word 'repentance' is very, very significant. There is no other word that is more significant in Jesus' terminology because repentance will open the door of the divine. What is this repentance?

You have been angry and you repent. You feel sorry: you have behaved badly with someone. You repent and you ask to be pardoned. Is Jesus' and John the Baptist's repentance the same? Then it cannot go very far, because you have repented many times and you have not changed. How many times have you repented? How many times have you been angry, greedy, violent, aggressive, and you have repented? But your repentance has not transformed you, it has not brought you near the kingdom of God. It has not opened any new doors, new dimensions; you remain the same. Your repentance and Jesus' repentance are not the same. In fact they are almost diametrically opposite.

So whatsoever you have been understanding about repentance is absolutely false. Try to understand. When you repent, you don't in fact repent. When you repent you are in fact trying to repair the image. It is not repentance; it is repairing the broken image that you had of yourself.

For example, you have been angry and you have said many things. Later on when the rage is gone, the madness gone, you cool down and you look back.

Now there is trouble. The trouble is that you have always been thinking that you are a very peaceful, peace-loving man; you have always been imagining that you never become angry. Now that image is broken. Your ego is shattered: now you know that whatsoever you have been believing has proved wrong. You have been angry, you have been very angry, and you have said and done things which are against your ego. You have shattered your own self-image. Now you have to repair it.

The only way to repair it is to repent. You go and repent, you say good things.

You say, "It happened in spite of me. I never wanted it to be so. I was mad; I was not in my senses. The anger so much possessed me that I was almost unconscious, so whatsoever I have said, forgive me, I never meant it. I may have uttered it, but I never meant it."

What are you doing -- repenting? You are simply repairing. The other man relaxes: when somebody asks to be forgiven. he has to be forgiven. If he cannot forgive, then he is not a good man. He was angry about your anger, he was

planning to take revenge, but now you have come to be forgiven. If he does not forgive, then he will not be able to forgive himself. Then his image will be broken.

And that is the trick you are playing. Now if he does not forgive you, you are the good guy and he is the bad guy. Now the whole thing has been thrown upon him. This is a trick, a very cunning trick. If he does not forgive you, he is a bad man. Now you are at ease, your image repaired: you have thrown the whole guilt on him. Now he will feel guilty that he cannot forgive and a good man has to forgive. If he forgives, it is good; if he does not forgive, then too it is good for you. Now it is a question for him to decide.

This is not repentance. When John the Baptist and Jesus say, "Repent!" they mean an absolutely, totally different thing. What do they mean?

They mean: try to see, try to understand, what you have been doing. Look through and through, go to the very roots of your existence, being, behavior, and see what you have been doing, what you have been BEING. It is not a question of any particular act that you have to repent for, it is your whole quality of being.

Not any anger, not any greed, not any hatred -- no. Not any enmity -- nothing. It is nothing about any particular act. It is something about your very being: the way, the style, of your existence. It has no concern with any particular fragmentary act.

When you repent, you repent about a certain act. Your repentance is always in reference to certain acts. Jesus' repentance is not about certain acts, it is about your being. The way you have been has been absolutely wrong. You may not have been angry -- still you have been wrong. You may not have been full of hatred -- still you have been wrong. You may not have possessed much wealth --

still you have been wrong. It is not a question of what you have done; it is a question of how you have been. You have been asleep, you have been unconscious. You have not lived with an inner light; you have lived in darkness.

When they say, "Repent!" they mean repent for the whole way you have lived up to now, the way you are. It is not a question of asking forgiveness from somebody -- no, not at all. It is just a returning. The word 'repent' originally meant 'return'. In Aramaic, which Jesus and John used as their language, 'repent'

means 'return, return to your source; come back to your original being'.

What Zen Masters say -- "Search for your original face" -- is the meaning of REPENT YE. Drop all your masks. It is not a question between you and others, it is a question between you and your God. REPENT YE means drop all the masks and stand before God in your original face -- the way he has made you. Let that be your only face: the way he wanted you to be. Let that be your only being.

Return to the original source, come back to your deepest core of being. Repentance is returning back; it is one of the greatest spiritual turnings.

This is what Jesus means by conversion. A Hindu can become a Mohammedan, a Mohammedan can become a Christian, a Christian can become a Hindu -- that is not conversion. That is again changing masks. When a Christian becomes religious, a Hindu becomes religious, a Mohammedan becomes religious, then it is conversion. It does not mean to move from one religion to another because there are not two religions in the world. There cannot be two. Religion is one.

Religiousness is a quality; it has nothing to do with sects and doctrines and dogmas, churches and temples and mosques. If you are in a mosque and you become religious, you will no longer be a Mohammedan; you will simply become a pure being who has no adjective attached to him. If you are praying in a temple, the temple disappears: you are no longer a Hindu; you have become religious. This is conversion.

I was reading the life of a very famous bishop. He went to St. Mary's Church in Cambridge to deliver a university sermon. Thirty, forty years before, when he was a young man, he was an undergraduate there. He was full of reminiscences, memories of his young age. He looked around -- could he recognize anybody who was there when he was an undergraduate?

He recognized an old verger. After the sermon he went to him and said, "Do you recognize me? I was a student here forty years before. Everybody else has gone, I can only recognize your face. Thank God you have good health. You served Him well."

The verger said, "Yes, I thank God, I thank Him very much, because after listening -- and I have been listening to each and every sermon that has been

delivered in this church for fifty years! -- thank God after listening to all sorts of nonsense for fifty years, I am still a Christian."

It is difficult to be a Christian if you listen to all sorts of nonsense that has been preached in the name of Christianity. It is difficult to be a Hindu if you know all the nonsense that has been written in the name of Hinduism. It is difficult to be a Mohammedan if you know what it means to be a Mohammedan. Because you don't know, it is easy. You remain a Hindu because you don't know what it means: you don't know the hatred implied in it, you don't know the politics intrinsic to it.

It is easy to be a Christian, not knowing what Christianity has done in the past. It has been murderous: Christianity has killed more people than Communism. But it is easy if you don't know. The more you know, the more it will become difficult to be a Christian, to be a Mohammedan, to be a Hindu. In fact, you will understand that these are the ways of not being religious, these are the ways which prevent you from being religious, these are the ways which are the barriers. They deceive you that you are religious, they give you a false coin; they are fakers, counterfeits. To be religious is not to be a Mohammedan, not to be a Christian, not to be a Hindu: to be religious is just to be religious, nothing else is needed. That is conversion.

If you repent, conversion happens. Conversion is the by-product of repentance.

One does not have to repent for his acts, because that is not real repentance. One has to repent for his whole being. Only then transformation is possible.

Now, listen to these words of the gospel:

IN THOSE DAYS CAME JOHN THE BAPTIST, PREACHING IN THE WILDERNESS OF JUDAEA.

John's name has become JOHN THE BAPTIST. Nobody else's name in the whole history of the world has become so connected with baptism. He initiated hundreds of seekers, and his way of initiation was something unique. He initiated them in the River Jordan. First they would meditate with him for a few days, a few months, or sometimes for a few years. When they would be ready, then he would take them into the river. They would stand in the river and he would pour water on their heads -- and something would transpire, something

would happen in their hidden-most being, and they would no longer be the same people as they were before. It was a secret rite, a secret ceremony.

Something was being transferred from the Master to the disciple. The water was used as a medium.

There have been two types of initiation in the world. In one type of initiation water has always been used, and in the other type of initiation fire has been used.

In India, fire has been used as a medium of initiation for centuries. Zarathustra used fire as a medium of initiation.

John the Baptist used water. Both can be used, and both have to be understood.

Water and fire have different qualities, and yet they are very deeply joined together. They are opposites, but complementary. If you put a pot of water on a fire, the water disappears, evaporates. If you throw water on a fire, the fire disappears.

They are opposite, but in a deep unity. Water flows downwards, fire flows upwards. Naturally water will never go upward; naturally fire will never go downward. They move in different dimensions, different directions. If something has to descend in you, water has to be used as a medium, as a vehicle. If something has to go upwards in you, fire has to be used as a medium and vehicle.

John the Baptist would pour water, and with the falling water.… After a long preparation and meditation, your whole being would concentrate on the falling water and the coolness of it, which would cool you within also. And through the water, the magnetism of this man, John the Baptist, would flow in you. Water is a very, very vulnerable vehicle. If a man who has healing power in his hands just touches water, the water becomes a healing medicine. And water is deeply related to your body: eighty percent or more of your body is nothing but water.

And have you watched what your breathing is doing to you? The breathing brings fire, it is oxidation. Your body is water, your breathing is fire: you exist with these two. When the breathing stops, the fire disappears: then the body loses warmth; then it is dead. If water is gone from the body, the body becomes too hot, feverish -- you will die soon. A deep communion between water and fire, a deep balance, is continuously needed.

You eat food -- through food, fire from the sun reaches your body. You breathe --

through breathing, oxygen reaches in the body. You drink water, continuously water is being rep].:-ed in the body. Between fire and water you exist.

John the Baptist used water to bring something within you from the above. That is one way of initiation. There is a higher way: to bring something within you upwards. Then it becomes initiation by fire.

IN THOSE DAYS CAME JOHN THE BAPTIST, PREACHING IN THE

WILDERNESS OF JUDAEA, AND SAYING, REPENT YE: FOR THE KINGDOM

OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND.

Every moment the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This very moment the kingdom of heaven is at hand, so it is absolutely urgent to repent. That was his meaning. Don't waste a single moment! -- because if you waste it, it can never be recaptured, regained. All time gone is gone. It could have been a deep celebration of God. You wasted it -- for nothings, for dreams. REPENT YE: FOR

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND.

I INDEED BAPTIZE YOU WITH WATER UNTO REPENTANCE: BUT HE THAT COMETH AFTER ME IS MIGHTIER THAN I, WHOSE SHOES I AM NOT WORTHY TO BEAR: HE SHALL BAPTIZE YOU WITH THE HOLY GHOST, AND WITH FIRE.

John the Baptist prepared people so that God could descend in them. Then Jesus prepared people so that God could ascend in them. Both are the possibilities: either you ascend into God or God descends in you. Descendence is easier because you simply wait -- receptive, like a womb.

You must have observed: Lao Tzu never talks about fire, he always talks about water. His method of initiation was just like John the Baptist's. That's why he

talks about the feminine mind: one has to become feminine to receive. Just like water descends from the clouds, God descends.

"Jesus," John the Baptist says, "will baptize you with fire. He will take you to God; he will help you to go upwards." It is difficult -- an uphill task. Before anybody can go uphill, he has to learn how to go downhill. Before one is ready to be baptized by fire, one has to be ready and baptized by water. If you cannot go downwards, you cannot go upwards. To go downwards is very easy, to just wait and receive is easy, but if even that is difficult, then what to say about going uphill? It is going to be very difficult.

So first let God descend in you. The moment God descends in you, you will become very powerful because you will no longer be yourself. Then going uphill becomes very easy: then you can fly, then you can become fire.

John the Baptist prepared people, prepared the ground for the seed to descend.

Look -- when you throw a seed in the soil, it descends into the soil. When it breaks, it starts rising upwards. The first act is baptism by water: you throw the seed into the soil, it descends deep and rests there. The seed has nothing to do; it just has to rest and everything happens. Then an upward energy -- the seed starts moving, sprouts; becomes a big tree, goes to the sky.

The tree needs to be watered every day so that the roots can go deeper and deeper into the earth, and the tree needs sun, the fire, so that the branches can go higher and higher. In the deep forests of Africa, trees go very high because The forests are so dense that if they don't go high they will not reach the fire. They have to rise higher and higher so that they can open their being to the sun and the fire can be received. If you give only water to the tree, the tree will die; if you give only fire to the tree, the tree will die. The tree cannot exist with only water, it cannot exist in a desert only fire. It needs a deep combination.

So a baptism of water is needed in the beginning: that is the first initiation. Then a baptism in fire is needed: that is the second initiation. And between the two, when the balance is achieved, is transcendence. Between the two -- when the balance is totally achieved and neither is too much and neither is too little: just the right proportion -- suddenly the transcendence. In balance is transcendence.

I INDEED BAPTIZE YOU WITH WATER UNTO REPENTANCE: BUT HE

THAT COMETH AFTER ME IS MIGHTIER THAN I, WHOSE SHOES I AM NOT WORTHY TO BEAR: HE SHALL BAPTIZE YOU WITH THE HOLY GHOST, AND WITH FIRE.

HOLY GHOST is just symbolic of balance. In Christianity the concept of three exists as the Trinity. God, the father; Christ, the son -- but these are two poles: father and son. Something has to balance these two and that is the Holy Ghost. It is neither son nor father, just pure spirit which is in between the two -- the balance. Between fire and water, the Holy Ghost happens.

These are symbolic terms: the Holy Ghost is not a being somewhere. The Holy Ghost is the music, the harmony, between duality. The Holy Ghost is the river between two banks. If you go on looking for him you will not find him. The Holy Ghost is there when any duality ceases within you. Love/hate ceases within you

-- a sudden balance. You cannot say whether it is love, you cannot say whether it is hate -- it is neither. It is something absolutely unknown, you have never known it before... the Holy Ghost has happened.

THEN COMETH JESUS FROM GALILEE TO JORDAN UNTO JOHN, TO BE

BAPTIZED OF HIM.

This must have been one of the rarest moments in the history of human consciousness: the Master was to be initiated by the disciple.

BUT JOHN FORBAD HIM, SAYING, I HAVE NEED TO BE BAPTIZED OF THEE, AND COMEST THOU TO ME?

A few things before we can understand it.

Up to now Jesus had lived a very ordinary life. He was just the son of the carpenter Joseph -- helping his father in the workshop, doing ordinary things which were needed. Nobody knew anything about him, not even his family was aware of what he was. A shroud surrounded him, a cloud which had to be

broken.

He was waiting for the right moment. When John's work was ready, the ground prepared, he could go to him. Then he would break down the shroud, and the cloud would disappear. He needed to be related to John because that was the only way to be related to John's disciples; otherwise there would be no link.

John recognized immediately that "This is the man for whom I have been waiting, this is the man for whom I have been working. He has come."

JOHN FORBAD HIM, SAYING, I HAVE NEED TO BE BAPTIZED OF THEE, AND COMEST THOU TO ME? -- AND YOU HAVE COME TO BE BAPTIZED

BY ME; THAT SEEMS ABSURD.

Jesus is on a higher plane, the plane of fire; John is on a lower plane, the plane of water. John is not yet an absolutely realized soul. He has attained his first satori, otherwise he would not have been able to work for Jesus; he has attained the first glimpse, otherwise he would not have been able to recognize Jesus -- but he has not attained to absolute Buddhahood, he is not yet a Christ.

I HAVE NEED TO BE BAPTIZED OF THEE, AND COMEST THOU TO ME?

No, he forbad it: don't ask for this.

AND JESUS ANSWERING SAID UNTO HIM, SUFFER IT TO BE SO NOW: FOR

THUS IT BECOMETH US TO FULFILL ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS. THEN HE SUFFERED HIM.

Jesus said, "Let it be so, because it is written in the scriptures that it will be so."

Jesus lived a Jew and died a Jew -- he was never a Christian -- and he tried hard to become part of the Jewish milieu. These were the ways he tried: It was written in the old scriptures that the messiah who is to come will be baptized by a man named John who will be baptizing people near the River Jordan. It was a long- standing prophecy. Jesus said: "Let it be so -- as it is written in the scriptures." He tried in every way to become part of the tradition so that the innermost

revolution that he was trying to bring did not become lost in the desert of politics.

But still it happened, still it became lost in the desert of politics, because to bring that inner revolution is almost to ask the impossible from the human mind. The human mind clings to the old. That's why Jesus is saying, "Let it be so. Please baptize me so I don't look like a stranger and an intruder, so I become part of the tradition and from within I can work outwardly, from within I can create a great revolution. I would like to work from within."

But that was not going to be so. Jesus tried, it was impossible; Buddha tried, it was impossible. Buddha remained a Hindu all his life -- he just wanted to create a revolution in the Hindu mind from within -- but the moment he started saying things, the traditional mind became alert.

I have heard a story: There was a very old church -- very ancient, very beautiful, hallowed by tradition, but almost in ruins. It was in danger of falling any day.

The worshippers had stopped coming in; any moment it might fall. Even the trustees of the church wouldn't meet in the church, they would meet somewhere else to decide things about the church.

But they were reluctant to destroy it. They asked great architects, but they all suggested that the building was too dangerous, it was beyond repair. It had to be destroyed and a new church had to be built. Reluctantly -- they never wanted it to be destroyed: it was very ancient, it had a long tradition, if had become part of their being; to destroy it looked as if they were going to destroy themselves --

reluctantly they called a meeting of the trustees, and they passed three resolutions. They are beautiful.

The first resolution -- that the church, the old church, had to be destroyed and a new church had to be built -- passed unanimously. The second resolution -- that until the new church was ready they would continue to worship in the old church

-- passed unanimously. And the third resolution -- that the new church had to be built on exactly the same spot where the old church stood... and with the stones of the old church! -- passed unanimously.

This is how the traditional mind functions. It goes on clinging and clinging --

even if it becomes contradictory, it goes on clinging. It avoids seeing the contradiction. It avoids seeing the death that has already entered, it avoids seeing that the body is no longer alive -- it is a corpse: stinking, deteriorating.

Jesus tried to relate himself to the old mind. He says to John: "You baptize me. Let it be so. SUFFER IT TO BE SO NOW: FOR THUS IT BECOMETH US TO FULFILL ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS. THEN HE SUFFERED HIM."

John understood his point: otherwise Jesus would have been a foreigner from the very beginning and things would become almost impossible.

Things were still impossible -- but nobody can say that Jesus has not tried; nobody can say that Buddha has not tried. On their part they did everything that could be done to become a continuous flow with the ancient, with the old, with the traditional. They wanted revolution not against tradition but in it. But it never happened; the old mind is really very, very obstinate, stubborn.

AND JESUS, WHEN HE WAS BAPTIZED, WENT UP STRAIGHTWAY OUT OF

THE WATER: AND, LO, THE HEAVENS WERE OPENED UNTO HIM. AND

HE SAW THE SPIRIT OF GOD DESCENDING LIKE A DOVE, AND LIGHTING

UPON HIM:

The initiation by water, the baptism by water. Jesus saw God descending: AND, LO, THE HEAVENS WERE OPENED UNTO HIM, AND HE SAW THE SPIRIT

OF GOD DESCENDING LIKE A DOVE, AND LIGHTING UPON HIM: AND LO A VOICE FROM HEAVEN, SAYING, THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, IN

WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED.

Immediately after the baptism by John. Jesus went out of the river and this vision happened on the river bank. This vision was not a dream because John

was also a witness to it -- and not only John, a few other disciples who were present on the bank. It was an objective reality: everybody saw something descending like a dove -- very peaceful. pure... a white bird of heaven descending and lighting on Jesus as if heaven opened. It happens that way: when you become open to heaven, heaven becomes open to you. In fact heaven has always been open to you; only you were not open.

"Up to now Jesus has lived a closed life. It was good; he needed it, otherwise he would have been in danger from the very beginning. Christians have no story about Jesus' youth, about what happened in his youth. He must have lived absolutely unknown. Nobody knew about him -- he was just an ordinary young man, like any other. His ministry lasted for only three years: when John baptized him he was thirty, and when he was crucified he was thirty-three. The ancient, the old, the traditional mind could not tolerate him for more than three years, within three years he was crucified. That's the reason he lived absolutely unknown, not revealing his identity -- an ordinary man amongst other ordinary mortals.

But when he was baptized he immediately revealed who he was for the first time. John was a witness, a few other disciples on the bank were witnesses.

The quality of John's being and of Jesus' being was very different. John was a fiery prophet and Jesus was a messenger of peace. Soon afterwards John was arrested and thrown into jail and Jesus started preaching. News started coming to John: he couldn't believe it because Jesus was saying something that he never meant for him to say. By and by the differences became so great that even John, who had initiated Jesus and who had seen with his own eyes the opening of heaven and the descending of the dove -- even he became suspicious.

In the last days of his life, before he was beheaded, he sent a note to Jesus, just a small note asking: "Are you really the one for whom we were waiting? " He became suspicious because this man was saying something else, something absolutely different. "Be humble," this man was saying. "Blessed are the humble because they shall inherit the earth." John was not a humble man, he was really very proud -- a very strong man, believing that he could bring revolution to the whole world, almost mad with his strength -- and Jesus was saying, "Blessed are the poor " John must have thought: what nonsense is this man talking about?

Jesus was saying, "If somebody slaps you on one side of the face, give him the

other side also" -- absolutely unlike John. And Jesus was saying: "If somebody snatches your coat, give him your shirt also." How is this man going to bring revolution? These are not revolutionary teachings.

These are the ONLY revolutionary teachings. But John could not understand them; he had his own idea of a revolution. He could have understood Lenin, he could have understood Trotsky, he could have understood Marx, but he could not understand Jesus, his own disciple. The problem was of a totally different kind of revolution. One revolution is social: it is brought by violence, aggression; it is, in a way, forced. Another revolution is of the heart: it is not brought by force, not even by discipline. It comes by spontaneity, it comes by understanding.

Jesus was bringing a totally new kind of revolution to the world. Nobody had talked about that revolution before. That's why I say that Jesus is the turning point in the history of human consciousness -- even more than Buddha. There had been many others like Buddha, talking along the same lines; he was not new.

He may have been the end of a long procession of Buddhas, but he was not the first.

Jesus brought something totally new to the earth; he was the beginning of a new line, of a new search, of a new inquiry. John could not understand. Lao Tzu, if he had been there, would have understood -- but not John. John was a totally different type of man. In his last days he was very worried that something had gone wrong: "Has this disciple betrayed me or what? " He sent a note: "Are you the one we were waiting for? " When you have a fixed idea of a certain thing, that becomes a barrier to understanding. What to say of the others? -- even John could not understand Jesus perfectly.

I have heard one story: There was a very rich merchant who used to go all around the world to collect silk, spices, perfume. In these three things he was one of the most perfect merchants: he knew where to get them at a low price, from what markets of the world, and where to sell them and profit much. And he had profited much. That was his only interest: to find out more and more about perfumes and spices.

One day, passing through a town. somebody told him that a very wise man lived there. "Whatsoever your inquiry, he is always helpful."

The merchant thought. "Maybe he knows something about silk, spices, perfume.

Maybe he can be helpful in showing me some market where I can get even more low-priced commodities."

He went to the wise man. Before he had even asked, the wise man said, "Yes, I know. You go to the north, in the Himalayas," and he gave him a particular peak to go to. "Go to that peak and sit on that peak for three days. In those three days you will see something which you have never seen before. Then come back."

The man rushed away. He had the fastest horse in the country and he rushed to the mountains and found the peak. Fasting, praying, for three days he sat there looking around and dreaming about silk, perfume, spices. He was waiting for some unknown door to open so that he would become the master of all the silk in the world, all the spices, all the perfumes. Within these three days, the key was going to be handed to him. He waited and waited; he fantasized, he dreamed. He could not even see the beautiful valley that was around or the beautiful, silent river that passed by, not making even a slight noise. He could not hear the birds singing in the morning, he could not see the beautiful sunset. He could see nothing because he was so full of dreams and so tense, waiting for something.

Three days passed and nothing happened. He was very annoyed and angry. He rushed back to the wise man and he said, "Nothing happened. I could not see anything that I had not seen before. What went wrong?"

The wise man laughed and said, "Your idea of riches." Then he said, "Don't go to that valley again, you will never find it, but all around on the bank of the river there were diamonds. Those were not stones, they were diamonds. But you missed them."

Then the man remembered, as if through his dream: he HAD seen something --

dim, vague, cloudy, but he had seen something. Yes, in the morning in the sunrays many times he had a glimpse of many stones that were shining. But he had his own idea of riches.

Even John had his own idea of revolution, of what religion is. He became suspicious. But that day, when Jesus was baptized, he was a witness. He had seen the opening of heaven.

AND JESUS, WHEN HE WAS BAPTIZED, WENT UP STRAIGHTWAY OUT OF

THE WATER: AND, LO, THE HEAVENS WERE OPENED UNTO HIM, AND

HE SAW THE SPIRIT OF GOD DESCENDING LIKE A DOVE, AND LIGHTING

UPON HIM:

The dove is one of the oldest symbols of silence, of peace, of purity, of harmony.

Have you ever seen a dove descending? Watch a dove descending.… In the very coming down you will feel a silence surrounding the dove. That's why it has become a symbol.

Jesus is peace, silence. He is not war, he is not revolution in the ordinary sense of the word, he is not violence. He is the humblest man and the purest who has ever lived on earth.

Baptism by water always brings descendence of the purest spirit. It is surrounding you always: the moment you are ready it descends in you. It is raining all the time, only your pot is upside down. You cannot collect it because your pot is upside down. Once your pot is right-side up you are immediately fulfilled. In deep initiation the Master tries to put your pot right-side up.

In the West the science of initiation is completely lost. In the East it is also almost lost. In the West it is lost because it never existed there in its totality. Only fragments from the East travelled and reached the West. In the East it is lost because it has become almost a dead thing: everybody knows about it... and nobody knows about it. It has become a businesslike thing: you can go and be initiated by anybody.

Initiation is not so easy. You can be initiated only by one who has attained at least the first satori, the first samadhi.

There are three satoris. The first satori means that you have had a glimpse from far away: you have seen the Himalayas from far away, shining in the sun. That is the first satori. The second satori is when you have reached the peak. You have arrived. And the third satori is when you and the peak have become one. That is the last, the ultimate, SAMADHI.

One who initiates you must have attained at least the first. If he has not attained

the first, initiation is just bogus. This is on the part of the Master: that he should have attained at least the first satori.

And much is needed on the part of the disciple, because unless the disciple is ready -- through deep meditation and purification, through deep catharsis and cleansing -- even if the Master is there, you will not allow him to put your pot right-side up. You will resist, you will not surrender, you will not be in a let-go.

The disciple needs to be in deep, trust; only then can the Master do something in the innermost being of the disciple. It is a great turning, a conversion, so much is needed on the part of the disciple. Only then, is initiation possible.

I was just reading a story about a seeker who went to see Bayazid, a great Master. The seeker asked, "Please allow me to be a part of your family."

Bayazid said, "But there are requirements to be fulfilled. If you really want to be a disciple, there are many duties you will have to do."

The seeker asked, "What are the duties? "

The Master said, "First, winter is coming. You will have to go to the forest and collect and chop wood for the winter. Then you start working in the kitchen. And after that, I will show you what to do."

The seeker said, "But I am in search of truth. How is it going to help to work in the forest and chop wood? What connection is there between chopping wood and attaining to truth? And working in the kitchen? What do you mean? I am a seeker."

The Master said, "Then you seek somewhere else, because you will have to listen to me. Howsoever absurd the demand, you will have to fulfill it. That's how you will become ready to let go. I know chopping wood has nothing to do with truth, but to be ready to chop it -- because the Master has said it -- has something to do with truth. I know working in the kitchen has nothing to do with truth: so many people are working, every housewife is working -- if that was the way to attain, then everybody would attain. It has nothing to do with truth, but when I say that you have to do it, you have to do it in deep love and trust. That will prepare you, that has something to do with truth. But I cannot reveal that to you right now; you will have to wait."

Reluctantly the seeker said, "Okay, but I would also like to know: what are the duties of a Master? "

The Master said, "The duty of the Master is to sit around and order."

The disciple said, "Then please help me to become a Master, train me to become a Master. I am ready."

The ego is always seeking its own enhancement. The ego is the barrier: because of the ego, your pot is upside down. The rain goes on falling, and you remain empty.

On the part of the disciple, initiation means allowing the Master to do WHATSOEVER -- unconditionally. And on the part of the Master, it is possible only when he has attained at least the first satori. Otherwise you can be initiated by a thousand and one Masters and you will not attain anything. When these two things are fulfilled, these two requirements fulfilled, then a communion happens between the Master and the disciple.

This communion happened that day. Jesus was opened, as they say in Subud.

Jesus was opened by John the Baptist and the spirit of God descended on him like a dove:

AND LO A VOICE FROM HEAVEN, SAYING, THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, IN

WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED.

This happens always. Whenever someone opens up to heaven, it is always heard.

Deep down in the heart it resounds: THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED.

This has been taken wrongly in Christianity. They think Jesus is the only son of God -- foolish. The whole existence comes from God, the whole existence is related to God as son to father.

A few things to be understood. It would have been better if we had thought of God as mother because the son is more deeply related to the mother. He lives in

the womb, he is part of the mother -- blood and bones and flesh and everything.

But there is a very significant meaning in thinking of God as father. It is not baseless.

Father is indirect, mother is direct. You know who your mother is; you simply believe who your father is. The mother knows for certain that you are her son, but the father believes. Father is indirect, mother is very direct. And God is not so direct, God is very indirect. He fathered you. That means you are related to Him, but the relationship is one of trust: a belief, a deep faith. You will come to know your father only when you trust.

Mother is more of a scientific fact, empirical; father is more a poetical fact, not so empirical. Mother is very close, in fact too close; father is very far away, somewhere up in the sky. To feel for the mother is instinctive; to feel for the father-one has to learn it. Mother is already there. God has to be discovered.

So the symbol of father is also very meaningful, it carries some hidden meanings in it. And whenever it happens to anybody that the heart opens up and the dove descends, this is always heard: THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I AM

WELL PLEASED.

Why is God well-pleased? You have come back home. You went astray, you did all sorts of things irrelevant to your being. You have repented, you have come back home.

The whole existence is pleased. The whole existence is pleased whenever somebody becomes a Christ or a Buddha, the whole existence celebrates, because if even one person becomes a Buddha or a Christ the whole existence becomes, in a way, more aware and alert.

Certainly the world was different before Jesus than after Jesus. The trees were more alert after Jesus and the rocks were more alive after Jesus because his consciousness, the attainment of his consciousness, spread all over the existence.

It has to be so. Flowers flower more. They may not be aware, but the very quality of the whole has changed. If even one drop of consciousness attains to God, the whole ocean cannot be the same. That one drop has raised the being of the whole, the quality is different.

You cannot conceive of yourself if there was no Buddha and no Christ, no Krishna. Just remove twelve names from history and the whole of history will disappear. Then humanity will not be there. In fact the existence that you know around you will not be there. You will be far more asleep and unconscious, you will have gone far more astray. You will be far more violent, aggressive: the glimmer of love that beats in your heart will not be there, the grace that sometimes appears in your eyes will not be there. Your eyes will be more like animals' -- ferocious, violent.

But when a Jesus has happened, his eyes become part of your eyes -- a very minute part, but still. Sometimes it happens that that part spreads all over your eyes and you look at existence in a totally different way. The world remains the same but your eye changes and, with your eye, the whole changes.

In your heart a very minute part has become Buddha with Buddha, Christ with Christ, Krishna with Krishna. I know it is a very minute part, but the possibility to grow exists with it. Look deep down within yourself to the part that has been contributed by Christ or Buddha. Protect it, help it to grow, sacrifice all that you have for it to grow, and you will be on the right track. Let that part win, let that part be victorious, let the Galilean win within you, and immediately -- whenever that part is victorious -- you are also going to hear: AND LO A VOICE FROM

HEAVEN, SAYING, THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED.

Come Follow To You, Vol 1 Chapter #4

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