Meditation Jesus and The Conditioned Mind

We talk about the sufi meditation tradition but we also have a few other web pages, the Sufi Meditation master and Sufis People are Sleeping or Are You Angry, Mr Sufi? explained by Osho. Or perhaps you like Zen Meditation Stories or Zen and the Stars or Stories of the Tao by Ko Hsuan and other Taoist Meditations. Or The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali One or The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Two or Tantra and Tantric Meditations or even the Meditations of the Peace of the Guida Spiritual

SINCE I HAVE BEEN WITH YOU I HAVE COME TO KNOW JESUS IN A NEW LIGHT. AS A JEW I COULD NEVER ACCEPT HIS TEACHINGS. NEVER BEFORE DID I THINK OF HIM AS AN ENLIGHTENED BEING, AS I THINK ABOUT THE BUDDHA. WHEN I FIRST CAME IN CONTACT WITH BUDDHIST TEACHING IN NEPAL. I FELT AN IMMEDIATE AFFINITY TOWARDS IT. HERE NOW IN POONA, JESUS' SAYINGS ARE BECOMING COMPREHENSIBLE AND ACCEPTABLE. YET STILL DOUBTS PERSIST. WHY DID HE SAY IT ALL IN SUCH A ROUNDABOUT WAY, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THAT HE WAS TALKING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE? AND LOOK AT ALL THE CONFUSION THAT HAS NOW BEEN CAUSED BY THE MANNER IN WHICH HE SPOKE. IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE TO ME, AND I WON'T FEEL COMPLETELY AT EASE WITH JESUS AS I DO WITH THE BUDDHA UNTIL THIS QUESTION IS RESOLVED. I HAVE THE FEELING THAT IF I NEED TO READ THE NEW TESTAMENT I WOULD STILL REJECT IT.

The question is from Swami Anand Akam. First, it is very easy to accept something that is absolutely strange to you. To a Jew Jesus is not a stranger, a Buddha is a stranger. It is very easy to accept Buddha, it is very difficult to accept Jesus.

First, with Jesus you are acquainted, and acquainted through a certain conditioning -- the Jewish conditioning. Jesus is a rebel for the Jew. The same is the case with Buddha for a Hindu: the Hindu finds it very difficult to accept Buddha. It is easier to accept Jesus, because for the Hindu and the Hindu mind nothing is involved with Jesus, no attitudes are involved; the relationship is a new one. But with the Buddha much is involved. Buddha was a rebel who spoke against Hindu orthodoxy, who tried to destroy the Hindu organisation. Although he was the highest flowering of Hindu consciousness, still he was against the Hindu past. He was the future, but he was against the past. And the future has to be against the past.

So was the case with Jesus: he was the crescendo of Jewish consciousness, he was the ultimate flower of the whole Jewish history. But because he was the ultimate flower, he had to reject many things. He had to rebel against Jewish lethargy, the Jewish past, Jewish prophets. And the Jew feels very hurt.

It is like... I was born in a Jain family. Now the most difficult thing for the Jain is to accept me. It is not so difficult for a Christian, for a Jew, for a Hindu. The most difficult thing is for the Jain to accept me, because he has involvements with me. He was hoping that I would confirm his past. He was expecting that I would go to the world and spread the message of Mahavir. Then he would have been happy.

But now I have my own message, his expectations are destroyed. And not only my own message, I have a thousand and one things to say against the Jain tradition -- that hurts.

So here it is very rare to find a Jain. You can see it. You will not find many Indians here, because to them also I am close, and it hurts. But for the non-Indian it is not a problem. In the first place the Jew has no expectations of me, so there is no involvement. He is not expecting anything from me. He comes to me with an open heart, without any prejudice. He wants to understand me, he does not want to manipulate me. The Jain wants to manipulate me, then there is difficulty. Because of the expectation... the frustration.

The Jews were waiting for the Messiah for thousands of years. They were hoping the Messiah would come and would fulfil all their desires. And the Messiah would come and would prove that they were the chosen people of God. 'The Messiah will come, and that will bring a Jewish era in the world...'

And then comes Jesus... and all the hopes are destroyed forever. After Jesus, the possibility of the world turning into a Jewish world has become impossible. After Jesus, the chosen people are no more chosen. After Jesus, Christians have become the chosen people of God. The Jews were hoping that Jesus would give them more consolidation, and he started to uproot them. And he had to uproot -- that is the only way to bring the future in. The past has to be destroyed, the old has to be destroyed to give birth to the new. The known has to be thrown -- that is the only way to invite the unknown.

Naturally, Jews were very much offended. They were very much offended by Jesus. And then these two thousand years after Jesus... Because of Jesus, Jews have been in misery for these two thousand years: Christians have been torturing them, killing them, murdering them. and all that the Christians have done in these two thousand years provokes again and again a great enmity towards Jesus.

So the first thing to be understood: it is very easy to accept a stranger. Jesus says two things again and again. One: Love your neighbour, and another: Love your enemy. And my feeling is that both are the same -- the neighbour is the enemy. It is the most difficult thing in life to love your neighbour. It is very easy to love a stranger. You meet a certain man or a woman on the train. You don't know anything about him, he does not know anything about you. And how open you become! Within minutes of being introduced, you are saying things to each other that you have not even said to your beloved. Nothing is involved -- the next station will come and he will get down and disappear forever -- you will never see him again. You can be open to him, you can be true with him. Have you not observed this? With strangers you start confessing things that you cannot dare confess to anybody you are related with, because then there is danger. No danger with a stranger...

So when a Jew comes across Buddha, it is very easy to understand, because there is no prejudice, no presupposition. Your being a Jew does not become a hindrance with Buddha. He is so far away, so unrelated. He was not against Moses, he was not against Abraham, he was not against David; he is not related to Jewish history at all -- alien, a foreigner. You can accept him as a guest.

But Jesus? Jesus is not alien to you. He was born into your family, and then he started destroying the very house. Then he started to destroy the very temple that you and your ancients had worshipped in always, although he says 'I have come not to destroy, but to fulfil.' But to fulfil he has to destroy. The old has to be dismantled, the old has to be completely effaced from the earth; only then can the new temple be built.

So the name of Jesus HURTS. YOU cannot forgive Jesus yet; it is impossible to forgive UNLESS you drop your Jewish conditioning. Then there will be no problem, then Jesus will be as comprehensible as Buddha or Krishna. The problem is coming from your Jewish conditioning, the problem is not coming from Jesus. The problem is in you, not in the New Testament.

You say: SINCE I HAVE BEEN WITH YOU I HAVE COME TO KNOW JESUS IN A NEW LIGHT.

Yes, through me it will be easier, because I am not a Jew. Through me, Jesus becomes non-Jewish. The way I interpret him is the way I would like to interpret Buddha, Patanjali, Shankara. The way I interpret Jesus has nothing to do with the Jewish mind. Then you can start looking at Jesus in a new light because I am throwing a new light on him. In my light, he starts changing; he is no more Jewish. I don't put him in the context of the Jewish mind -- I CANNOT, because I am not a Jew. You will find it easier, far easier, to approach Jesus through me, because through me Jesus is no more a Jew.

SINCE I HAVE BEEN WITH YOU I HAVE COME TO KNOW JESUS IN A NEW LIGHT. AS A JEW I COULD NEVER ACCEPT HIS TEACHINGS.

It is not that you could not accept his teaching, it is the JEW within you. The Jew has to be dropped. And when I say the Jew has to be dropped, I am saying the Hindu has to be dropped, the Buddhist has to be dropped, the Mohammedan has to be dropped. Then your eyes will be open, then you will have a clarity, a transparency to your vision. You will be able to see through and through, and things will come into a totally new context. And then Jesus will look beautiful. He was one of the most beautiful persons who have walked on the earth.

But, it is unfortunate, Jews missed him just the way Buddha was missed by the Hindus. It has always been the tragedy. It is very difficult for a Hindu to understand Buddha. The very name... and antagonism arises, because he said things which are against the Vedas. He said things which are against the BRAHMINS, he said things which are against the code of Manu. He said things -- not only said, but he started creating a new society; a non-Hindu world he created. He created a world where there would be no distinction between the SHUDRA, the untouchable, and the BRAHMIN, the high priest. He created a world which would be classless, with nobody inferior, nobody superior. He started putting down foundations for an utterly new society. The Hindus were angry: they destroyed Buddhism .

Do you know that Buddhism no more exists in India? Buddha is almost a foreigner. He is loved in China, in Tibet, in Japan, in Ceylon, in Thailand. The whole of Asia is Buddhist except for India; and he was born in India, and he is no more here. What happened? The Hindus took revenge: they destroyed... And remember, their destruction was far more clever than the Jewish destruction of Jesus -- because the Jews killed Jesus, and that is where they committed a great mistake. The Hindus didn't kill Buddha, they are a far more clever people... they didn't kill Buddha, but they killed Buddhism.

The Jews killed Jesus, but because they killed Jesus, they made Jesus so important, so significant -- the very centre of human history -- because of the crucifixion. If they had neglected Jesus there would have been no Christianity. You cannot conceive of Christianity without the crucifixion, or can you? If Jesus was not killed, was ignored, and people were not worried what he was saying, he would have disappeared without leaving a mark; not even a trace would have been there. But because he was killed, because he was raised on a cross, he became very very significant. The death became the seal. And when he was killed, that proved that he had something very significant to say, otherwise, why kill him?

The Hindus are more clever. They didn't kill Buddha; on the contrary, they accepted Buddha as one of the incarnations of God. I would like you to know the story of how they manipulated the whole thing...

They were against Buddha, they were against his ideas, against his revolution, but they accepted Buddha as an incarnation of God. Just as Rama is an incarnation, Krishna is an incarnation, Buddha is also an incarnation. But they played a trick in it.

The story is that God made the world, he made heaven and hell. Then millions of years passed, and nobody went to hell, because nobody was committing sin. People were pious, simple, innocent. Everybody would die and would go directly to heaven. And what about the management which was looking after hell -- the devil, and the devil's disciples, the mini-devils, and the whole government? They became very tired, bored. Not a single entry! And they were sitting there in their offices, at their doors with their registers and files, and nobody was coming.

The Hindu story is: they went to God, and they prayed: 'What is the point? Close this thing completely! Nobody has ever come for millions of years. We are tired, we are bored! Either send people, give us work and occupation or close this thing!'

Their problem was real, and God pondered over it. And he said 'Don't be worried. Soon I will be born as Gautam Buddha, and I will corrupt people's. minds, and they will start going to hell.'

You see the point? 'I will corrupt people's minds. I will manage to confuse them, and once they are confused, hell will be overflowing.' And that's exactly what it has been. Hindus say that since Buddha, hell is overcrowded. God has to come in the form of Buddha just to help the hell management.

Now they have done two things. One: they have accepted Buddha as God's incarnation, and they have rejected his teaching, because the teaching is a corruption; it is to corrupt. 'To be a Buddhist is to be corrupted. To be a Buddhist is a guarantee for going to hell. So pay respect to the Buddha because he is an incarnation of God, but never listen to what he says. Never follow him. Be watchful. Be alert.'

The same they did with Mahavir: they ignored Mahavir. Not even the name of Mahavir is mentioned in any Hindu scripture. Such a potential being, such a powerful being, such a magnetic personality -- and not even the name is mentioned? They ignored him; they played another trick: just to ignore.

The Jews crucified Jesus and committed a grave mistake. They made Jesus very important. I am not saying that he was not an important man, he was: he was absolutely important. But if they had ignored him, there would have been no Christianity. Because they killed Jesus? Christianity took revenge -- with vengeance! And down the ages, for two thousand years, Christians have been killing Jews in one way or another.

And the wound remains open. You cannot forgive Jesus. In fact, you cannot forgive YOURSELF that you crucified this man. It has been the gravest error. Now there is no way to undo it. It is the Jew within you that will not allow you to understand Jesus.

You say: As A JEW I COULD NEVER ACCEPT HIS TEACHINGS.

And his teachings are nothing but the flowering of the Jewish tradition. The Jewish tradition has come of age in Jesus. It is the fulfilment of all the Jewish desires, ambitions and longings. It is the fulfilment of Moses.

But certainly the root of a tree looks different from the flower of the tree. They don't look alike.

The root is ugly, the root is not beautiful. To be beautiful is not its function. Its function is something totally different: to nourish the tree, to nourish the leaves, the foliage, the fruits, the flower. And it hides underneath the ground, it doesn't come up, it doesn't show up. It remains there hidden underneath the ground and goes on working there. If you have seen a rose flower, and then you dig for the roots and put the roots by the side of the flower, you will be surprised. There seems to be no relationship. And yet, I say to you, the flower is the fulfilment of the root. And the root has existed for the flower, and without the flower the root was meaningless. Its existence would have been sheer wastage.

And so is the case with Moses and Jesus. Moses functions like the root. Of course his statements are not so beautiful as Jesus' -- they cannot be, his function is different: he is the lawgiver. He gives a pattern, a discipline, a code to the society. He makes the primitive society into a civilised society. He changes the primitive mind, the crude mind, into a more sophisticated, cultured mind, because only in that cultured mind, the egoist mind, can Jesus be possible. The third mind arises out of Moses. Jews have become very very egoistic -- the chosen people of the world, God's special people. A special covenant has happened between God and the Jews; they are not ordinary people. They have God's book, and they are his representatives on the earth.

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This ego was given by Moses. Only through this ego can the mind evolve. Yes, one day the ego has to be dropped, but you can drop it only when you have it. If you don't have it, it cannot be dropped. The dropping is utterly beautiful, but the dropping is possible only when you have it. And you have to have it so much that it becomes anguish and you have to drop it. Moses gives the ego, the definition, the identity to the people. And then comes Jesus as a fulfilment and he wants you to surrender, he wants you to drop the ego. He gives you love. Moses gives you law. And they are different, they are really different.

In many ways they are opposite. Love is beyond law, and when love is there, no law is needed. So whenever Jesus says: It has been told to you of old that you take an eye for an eye; and if somebody throws a brick at you, you have to throw a rock at him -- this is justice. But I say unto you: Love your enemy. Love those who hate you and persecute you. And if somebody hits you on your face, give him the other side too. And if somebody takes your coat, give him the other side too. And if somebody takes your coat, give him the shirt too. And if somebody forces you to carry his load and burden for one mile, go for two miles with him.

Now, this is different -- utterly different, a new vision. But this new vision is possible only because Moses has cleared the ground. Moses has gone underneath as the root, and now Jesus comes as a rose flower. He looks different, he looks opposite. Do you know? Roots go downwards and the flowers go upwards. They are opposites. Their dimension is different, their direction is different. Roots go downwards, deeper into the earth in search of more water. And the flower goes upwards in search of light, more sun, more air. They go diametrically opposite.

To understand that they are one needs GREAT clarity. To understand that Moses and Jesus are one needs meditation. To understand that the Vedas and Buddhas are one needs insight, great insight -- a radical change in your mind.

You say: AS A JEW I COULD NEVER ACCEPT HIS TEACHINGS.

It is your JEW, not YOU. You can understand, but the Jew cannot understand. The Jew is the one who has killed Jesus -- how can he understand? And if the Jew understands Jesus. then there will be great repentance. and he will never be able to forgive himself, because he has killed! So the Jew has something like an investment in NOT understanding Jesus. If the Jew understands Jesus, then... then how will you be able to forgive yourself? Then you will not be able to forgive yourself and your forefathers. Then your whole tradition will be condemned, then your whole heritage will be criminal! This is too much.

Just for one man, this fragile-looking Jesus... just for one man you cannot condemn your whole race and five thousand years of existence. It is better to condemn this man and accept your heritage -- five-thousand-year-old race, rich history, meaningful incidents. That's how it goes on in the mind. You cannot understand Jesus because there is great investment in not understanding him.

And the conditioning goes very deep. The conditioning becomes your blood, your bone, your marrow.

The other day I was reading an anecdote.

Schwartz and Pincus, complete strangers, were sitting across from each other, nude, in the steam room.

'I never met you before' said Schwartz 'and yet I'll bet you were born in Brooklyn.'

'That's right!' said Pincus.

'In fact' said Schwartz, to his naked companion 'you're from my old neighbourhood, Bensonhurst, and you went to the Seventy-Ninth Street Synagogue, and your rabbi was Nathan Nussbaum.'

'Amazing!' said Pincus. 'You can tell all that just by looking at me?'

'Of course' said Schwartz 'Rabbi Nussbaum always did cut on the bias.'

It goes deep. It goes into the blood, into the bones, into the marrow.

You are not brought up as a man. You are brought up as a Jew, as a Hindu, as a Christian. You don't know who you are. You know only your conditioning, you know only the mind that has been put inside you from the outside. And that mind won't allow you to understand Jesus. That mind will have to be dropped.

NEVER BEFORE DID I THINK OF HIM AS AN ENLIGHTENED BEING, AS I THINK ABOUT THE BUDDHA.

It is easier. For Buddha you can open yourself. He has not uttered a single word against Jews, so you can open yourself towards him. He does not hurt your ego in any way. In fact, you can enjoy him very much because he is so much against the Hindu scriptures.

WHEN I FIRST CAME IN CONTACT WITH BUDDHIST TEACHING IN NEPAL,

And they are the same. Jesus had come to India and had lived in a Buddhist monastery, Nalanda. In fact, Jesus' whole teaching is more Buddhist than anything else. The language is different, he talks like a Jew, but the message is the same.

But for that you will have to be really unprejudiced. Good, at least you can understand Buddha and love Buddha. Love Buddha, go deep into Buddha, and soon you will be surprised that from that understanding you will be able to learn much about Jesus too.

If you can love ONE enlightened person, sooner or later you will understand ALL the enlightened persons of the world, because their taste is the same! Languages differ, their words are different. Buddha speaks a totally different language; naturally, he was talking to a different kind of people. And Jesus was talking to a different kind of people: Jesus had to speak the language of those people. Wherever Buddha says 'truth', Jesus says 'kingdom of God'. But they mean the same. Wherever Buddha says: Be a nobody. Drop the ego. ANATTA: be a no-self -- Jesus cannot say that because nobody will understand. He says: Drop your will, surrender your will to God's will.

Buddha never speaks about God. Jesus brings God in -- but the strategy is the same. Whether you drop your will just by looking into it and into the misery of it, or you surrender it to a certain God who is there -- 'My Father in heaven' as Jesus says, that Father in heaven is just an excuse -- the whole point is to drop the ego, to drop your will. Once the will is dropped you become one with the whole. Whether God exists or not does not matter!

But Jesus had to speak in a Jewish world, in the Jewish way, in the Jewish language, and he had to use the metaphors, the parables of the Jews, otherwise he is a Buddha.

HERE NOW IN POONA, JESUS' SAYINGS ARE BECOMING COMPREHENSIBLE AND ACCEPTABLE. YET STILL DOUBTS PERSIST.

They will persist while the Jew persists in you.

Just as the Jew cannot understand Jesus, so the Christian cannot understand Moses. Only a man who has no ideas, who is simply like a mirror, can understand everybody and can become very much enriched by it. If you can understand Buddha, and Jesus and Moses and Mohammed and Mahavir and Zarathustra and Lao Tzu, your richness is growing. Because Lao Tzu will bring a new breeze in your being which only he can bring, because he opens a door which nobody else can open. He is a Master, a master technician. He knows how to open a certain door, and at that door, nobody else is more skillful than him. Zarathustra opens another door into your being. And your being is BIG, enormous! It is not finished with one door! You can have millions of doors in your being, and from each door, when you come in, you have a new taste, a new vision; a new treasure becomes available to you.

Now people are unnecessarily poor. When I see a Christian, I see a poor man. When I see a Hindu, I see a poor man. When I see a Jew, I feel great compassion. Why be so poor? Why not claim the whole history of man? Why not claim ALL the enlightened people as yours? That's my work here. That's why one day I speak on Buddha, another day on Jesus, another day on Lao Tzu -- I go on changing. My effort here is to make you enriched, to make you available to all the joys possible in the spiritual world, to make you capable of all kinds of ecstasies. Yes, Buddha brings one kind of ecstasy: the ecstasy that comes through intelligence. And Jesus brings another kind of ecstasy: the ecstasy that comes through love. Krishna brings another kind of ecstasy: the ecstasy that comes through action. And Lao Tzu brings another kind of ecstasy: the ecstasy that comes through inaction. These are very very different paths, but they all come into you, and they all meet you in your innermost core.

Be simply a man, a human being, with no Jewish, Christian, Hindu ideologies hanging around you. Drop all that dust and let your mirror be clear, and you will be in continuous celebration, because then the whole existence is yours. Why go on worshipping one flower when all the flowers can be yours? And why go on putting only one flower in your garden, when all the flowers of the world can flower there? Why not be rich? Why have you decided to be poor?

YET STILL DOUBTS PERSIST. WHY DID HE SAY IT ALL IN SUCH A ROUNDABOUT WAY...?

No, he has not said anything in a roundabout way -- just the languages have changed in two thousand years. Now, one thing has to be understood: Buddha's language is still modern for a certain reason, because Buddha was so logical, so rational. His approach is of intelligence. The world can still understand him; the world is still becoming intelligent, still becoming rational. In fact, science and the explosion of science have made people more capable of understanding Buddha than ever. That's why Buddha has a certain appeal for the modern mind. Buddha is very contemporary. His logic, his rationality, his utter intelligence -- he talks the way intelligence can understand. And the world has become more intelligent. And Buddha has a certain affinity.

But Jesus has fallen very far back for a certain reason: the world has grown into logic, but the world has not grown into love, that is the trouble. That's why Jesus looks roundabout -- because the language of love has disappeared from the world.

Love? -- yes, it creates a sound in the ear, but no meaning.

I have heard...

Two hippies were sitting in front of a church, just outside in the garden. And then the ambulance came and the priest was brought out on a stretcher. And those two hippies were sitting there for hours, just sitting there, doing nothing. They suddenly became alive, and the one hippy asked the other. 'What's the matter? What happened to this priest?'

And the other hippy said 'They say he slipped in his bath-tub and had broken his leg.'

The first one brooded for a while and then said 'What's a bath-tub?'

The second hippie said 'How am I supposed to know? I am not a Catholic.'

Now, a hippy is a hippy. He may never have been in a bath-tub. That word is meaningless. He says 'How am I supposed to know? I am not a Catholic.' As if a bath-tub has something to do with Catholicism.

It depends.

Jesus' language is no more relevant, because man has fallen very far away from his heart. He is more in the head, and Buddha is the Master there. Buddha is the supreme Master there, the incomparable Master there. If you want to argue, then Buddha is the right person to convince you. He will never say a single thing which cannot be proved logically. Not that he remains confined to logic -- he goes beyond it, but he goes through it. He takes you to the very end of logic and then helps you to jump out of it. But he is never against logic. He goes beyond logic, but he is never against logic. You can walk with him with perfect ease, he will not create any trouble for you. He will not talk about the 'Father who is in heaven'. You cannot say to Buddha that this is father-fixation -- he never talks about the Father. Freud can walk with him perfectly at ease, so can walk Marx; there is no trouble. Einstein can have a good conversation with him, and there will be no conflict.

But with Jesus, it is difficult. He bypasses logic. He is illogical. Love IS illogical. Only lovers can understand his language, otherwise it will look very roundabout. Have you listened to lovers talking to each other? It looks very roundabout what they are saying. To a rational person it looks absurd. And they go roundabout and roundabout. And one who is not in love will simply be bored. 'What are they doing? Why do they go on, 'gaga' -- why not be pertinent, to the point? If you want to go to bed with the woman why not simply say "I want to go to bed with you"? Why talk about the stars and the moons and the flowers, and poetry, and all that nonsense -- and finally you go to the bed? So why not jump directly? This looks very roundabout -- that "I love you" and looking into each other's eyes. For what? Come to the point! Be direct!' To the logical person that will be the right thing.

Yes, Jesus is roundabout, but he is roundabout because you have forgotten the language of love. He speaks in parables, he speaks in stories, he speaks in metaphors. He is metaphoric because he is poetic. In fact, no comparison exists.

Jesus' words are so potent, so full of love, so full of poetry, that no comparison exists. I have not come across such potent words. Buddha's words are very balanced, direct, mathematical; he never exaggerates. Jesus' words are overflowing; exaggeration is not the exception there but the rule. Love exaggerates because love has enthusiasm, because love has zest, gusto, and love speaks in metaphors because love is a poetic approach towards reality.

WHY DID HE SAY IT ALL IN SUCH A ROUNDABOUT WAY, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THAT HE WAS TALKING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE?

Yes, that's why, precisely that's why -- because he was talking to the common people. And common people are the people who can understand love more easily than logic. And he knew how to communicate with the common people.

The common people have always known the language of love. The common people can understand Shakespeare very easily. They cannot understand Shakespeare very easily. They cannot understand Albert Einstein that easily. It is said that while Albert einstein was alive, only one dozen people in the whole world were capable of understanding him rightly. Of course, he speaks very mathematically, he is very particular, he never goes round about. But only a dozen people capable of under-standing him? What is the matter?

But down the ages love poetry has been understood by everybody; even the primitive person understands love poetry, understands the song, the music. Absolutely unsophisticated, not knowing anything of philosophy, but he can understand tears and laughter, and can understand a dance, a song, can understand the whispering of two lovers.

Jesus speaks to the common people. He is not a philosopher. That's why he speaks in metaphors, in parables. A parable is a beautiful way of saying tremendous truths, because a parable can be understood on many levels. A parable can be understood by a child; he will understand it on his level. The parable can be understood by an ordinary man; he will understand it on his level. The parable can be understood by a philosopher, by a logician, by a poet, by a very very cultured person, by a wise man. They will all understand on their own levels. The parable can easily have as many meanings as there are people trying to understand it.

Mathematics has one meaning: 'two plus two is four'. There are not other levels in it. It is simple, direct. The meta-phoric language has many levels, and that is the beauty of Jesus' sayings. You read those sayings today and mark which sayings are very appealing to you. Then meditate for a few months, then again read. And you will be surprised... now the meaning has changed. Now you don't mark and under-line the same lines, now you choose something else to mark. Something else has become important. Meditate for a few months more, and then go to the Bible. And you will be surprised again and again. And that is co with the Gita, and that is so with the Koran, because all those are metaphorical treatises. One can go on reading them again and again -- they are never exhausted!

You cannot read a logical treatise again and again. Once understood it is finished, then there is nothing else in it. If you have understood Albert Einstein's treatise on the theory of relativity, once understood it is finished. Now you cannot go on reading into it, there is nothing else.

But Jesus' sayings you can go on reading every day -- morning, evening -- and always there is something new coming up, something new surfacing, because you are changing and your insight is growing deeper. Your life experience is becoming more mature, you will be able to see more every day. Because you grow, the scripture will grow with you: it can go as deep as you can go. And for lives together one can go on and on. It has an eternal quality to it, endlessness, and a depth which knows no bottom. It is abysmal.

IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE TO ME, AND I WON'T FEEL COMPLETELY AT EASE WITH JESUS AS I DO WITH THE BUDDHA, UNTIL THIS QUESTION IS RESOLVED.

It is not only a question to be resolved, it is an insight to be evolved. You have to see the point that it is the Jew that is disturbing you. Drop the Jew and then look again, and you will find great harmony arising between you and Jesus.

And I am not saying become a Christian. If you become a Christian -- you drop being a Jew and become a Christian -- then you simply change your disease. Then you have fallen from one disease into another: from one prison you have moved into another prison. Maybe while you are changing from one prison to another, for a few moments or a few hours in between you will be under the open sky, that's all. Sooner or later you will be in another prison, and again the same misery will start.

Never be a prisoner to any mind. And all minds are prisons. Beware of the mind and remain always above the mind. Remain always unprejudiced, remain without an ideology, and then the whole world and the whole world's treasures are yours.

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