ONCE UPON A TIME, two explorers came to a clearing in the jungle. It was a beautiful place -- thousands and thousands of flowers were blossoming. One of the explorers said, "There must be a gardener tending these flowers, looking after this plot." He was a believer.
The other disagreed and said, "I don't see any gardener here. I don't even see anybody's footprints. And there seems to be no point in making such a beautiful garden in such a dense and deep forest. Who will come to look? Who will enjoy these flowers? Nobody ever passes by. No, there is no gardener. The whole garden is just an accident."
They argued. The second was a nonbeliever, a skeptic. But there was no way to decide who was right, so they pitched their tent and waited for seven days. No gardener ever appeared.
The skeptic was very happy. He said, "Look, there is no gardener. It has been proven now."
But the believer said, "The gardener is invisible. He comes, but we cannot see him; he comes, but we cannot hear his footsteps. This garden is impossible without a gardener."
So they set a barbed wire fence up around the garden. They electrified the wires, they brought bloodhounds, and they patrolled day and night. But nobody ever entered. No shriek was ever heard from the shock of the electricity flowing in the wires. The bloodhounds never gave a cry.
After seven days, the skeptic said. "Finished! Now it is proven beyond doubt that there is no gardener -- visible or invisible."
But the believer was not convinced. He said, "The gardener is not only invisible, he is intangible. He has no scent. He is eternally elusive: you cannot catch him by electrified wires, you cannot catch him by bloodhounds, and our eyes cannot see him. But he is -- for certain he is."
Now the skeptical friend, in great despair, said, "What happened to your original statement? What is the difference between an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive God, or gardener, and one which is just imaginary, or one which does not exist at all? What is the difference between the two?"
I was reading this parable. I liked it, because this is how the argument has been going on, on earth. Believers go on talking about an invisible God, skeptical minds go on disproving any possibility of it, and they both seem to be right. Or, they both are wrong. The argument never comes to a conclusion.
From the very beginning, the whole line of inquiry has taken the wrong route. Once you separate the gardener from the garden -- God from the creation -- the problem arises. Then it can never be settled.
The garden is enough proof of the gardener. But the gardener is not separate. He does not come to tend the garden: He is in the garden; He IS the garden. He does not look after the flowers: He is IN the flowers; He IS the flowers. Not that HE is invisible -- He is visible, but visible as flowers.
If you have an idea of God, you will never find Him. The very idea will become the barrier. Only those who have no idea of God come upon Him, or allow God to come upon themselves. If you have a certain idea, the very idea is going to be the wall, the brick wall, between you and the truth.
The believer was not wrong, but he took a wrong line of argument: he divided the gardener from the garden. The gardener cannot be proved because the gardener doesn't exist. A gardener separate from the garden is nonexistential.
That's why the skeptical friend could argue. And his argument is valid -- valid not against God or the gardener; valid against the believer. The believer has taken the wrong argument.
To me, God is herenow. All that you see is God. God is not something beyond; God is something within. Or, if you like paradoxes, you can call God the within beyond or the beyond within. But God is intrinsic, God is the innermost core of existence.
Unless you start in the right direction, you will go on missing. Never believe in a God who is separate from His creatures and the creation. He is not, He cannot be. He is one with it: He is in it, He is it. Once this is understood, you start flowing; your whole life becomes a prayer.
That is the basic message of Jesus. That's why he goes on saying that "God is my father." It is a way of saying what I am saying to you.
Between the father and the son, or between the mother and the child, there is a continuity. The father goes on living in the son; the mother continues in the child. The son is nothing but an extension of the existence of the father -- an extended hand: as if the old body has become incapable of existing and is going to disappear, and the father has created a new body to live within.
When Jesus says, "God is my father," he simply means that "I am continuous with Him; there has never been a separation. He is flowing in me: in my every cell He is flowing. Nowhere has there been a discontinuity." That is the whole meaning of it, but he uses the word 'father' because he is talking to very simple, unsophisticated people. He is talking to real people, not to plastic people; he is not talking in a university. He is talking to real people -- people who are alive.
He uses the word 'father'. And it is beautiful in a way, because unless religion becomes personal, it remains a philosophy. When religion becomes personal, it becomes life. Religion is something to be lived, not something to brood about. It is something that should become a milieu around you; it is something that should become a continuous breathing, continuous beating of the heart.
Religion is a way of life, a way of being. It has nothing to do with thinking. When Jesus says, "God is father," he means this existence is not alien, this existence is a home. You can rest in it, you can rely on it; you need not be afraid.
This is one of the most significant things to be understood, because modern man is so much afraid. Never before has that been so. Never before in the history of humankind has man been as afraid as he is now.
Every day I go on talking to people about their problems, and almost always, deeply hidden somewhere, is fear. Whenever they come deeper to their being, other problems finally disappear. Only one problem remains: fear. Why is modern man so afraid? It has never been so before.
Something has happened, something that is like a catastrophe. Once God is not there in your consciousness, you will be afraid -- because without God, existence becomes alien. Then you are not at home, then it is as if everybody is against you.
If God is not there, then existence becomes inimical. Not that it really becomes inimical, but it looks that way to you. It appears to you that it is inimical. Life looks just like a competition, a struggle to survive. Great jealousy surrounds you. Love disappears if there is no God; at-homeness disappears if there is no God. 'God' is just a symbolic word. It simply denotes an attitude: an attitude that "I am at home." If God is the father, then the whole existence is your home. You can be at ease, there is nothing to fear -- everything is in the hands of your father.
Religion is personal. The whole effort is to look at life as if it is a family. The tree, howsoever far away, is related to you; it is a relative. And the rock also... and the oceans also... and the moon and the stars also. Everything is related to everything else; you exist in a related family.
You are a part of it -- as if existence is trying to reach somewhere through you, reach to a higher peak of consciousness. Through you, God is trying to reach to a new existence, to a new peak of ecstasy, to a new peak of awareness, to a new way. It is as if God is trying to achieve a breakthrough, through you. Suddenly, you are accepted.
Not only accepted: God is trying to do something through you. History is being created through you, existence is being created through you. You are significant; you have a tremendous significance. Without you, God will lack something.
Just think: without the son, the father will no longer be a father. Without the son, not only will the father lack something -- he will no longer be a father. He will be barren, a desert. The son is a fulfillment.
YOU are the fulfillment. But once you forget God, or you drop the idea of God -- as modern man has done -- suddenly you are alien. Suddenly you are never at ease. Wherever you move, you move like a stranger -- amongst enemies, not amongst friends.
One friend of mine stayed with me. He was a vice-chancellor in a university -- a very atheistic man. I always liked trees, and I always liked trees to be so close to the house that they almost touch it and cover it. People don't like that because there is a danger that the tree may destroy the wall, may destroy the foundation. But to me it is worth it. Even if the building disappears, it is beautiful.
In the morning the friend looked around and he said, "What have you done? You are creating a jungle. Don't you know that trees are enemies of man? "
He is right in a way, because trees have been constantly fighting with man, and man has been constantly fighting with trees. All the cities that you know were once forests. Man has destroyed the trees, cleared the ground, claimed it. But now if you don't do anything about the trees for even twenty years, they will spread and take over the land again. They will destroy the buildings and the roads and everything.
So he said, "What are you doing? Trees are enemies."
For the first time, I heard the idea. It is historically true, but existentially false; scientifically true, but religiously false.
Scientifically, all of life is a struggle. Everybody else is fighting you, and you are fighting everybody else.'Survival of the fittest' -- it is murderous competition, c.ut-throat competition. Nobody is friendly. Even those who you think are friends are not friends, cannot be -- scientifically.
A new child is born. Now he is a new competitor in the world; one more enemy will be there. He will breathe, and he will destroy much oxygen which you could have used. Now he will be using it. He will need space, he will need food; he will need water and this and that. Now there is one more enemy.
Whenever a man dies, one enemy is dead. You can celebrate the fact. Now that much oxygen is free, that much food will be available -- one competitor is gone. It is scientifically true. Ask Malthus.
Yes, it is true. But religiously... religiously the world is a unity. Existence is a family; we exist together. Life is togetherness, and that togetherness is God. If you cannot feel that togetherness, you will feel alien and you will always be afraid. To a religious man, fearlessness happens spontaneously. To a non-religious man, fear is the only way to be. 'God, the father' can be translated. It means: existence is one; it is a togetherness. It is a harmony, not a conflict.
We are members of each other. Whenever somebody dies, something in me also dies. Whenever a new child is born, something is born into me also. Whenever a new child is there, life becomes more alive through him -- life smiles. Whenever somebody dies, there are tears.
It has to be so, because I come out of life; I go back into life. Life was trying to do something through me.
Everybody is a messenger; everybody is a messiah; everybody has a destiny to fulfill. And until you fulfill that destiny, you will never feel fulfilled. You can have much money, but fulfillment will not come through it. You can have much sex; fulfillment will not come through it. You can have much power; fulfillment will not come through it.
Fulfillment comes only when you have fulfilled a certain destiny that you were carrying, that was coded within you, that was deep in your blueprint. Unless you have become that for which you were made -- unless you have attained to being -- you will never be fulfilled.
Fulfillment is peace, fulfillment is bliss, fulfillment is contentment. And only a fulfilled heart can pray, because only a fulfilled heart can be grateful and can feel the grace descending: the spirit of God, like a dove.
Now the sutras:
AFTER THESE THINGS THE LORD APPOINTED OTHER SEVENTY ALSO, AND SENT THEM TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE INTO EVERY CITY AND PLACE, WHITHER HE HIMSELF WOULD COME.
The gospels are telegraphic because they were meant to be remembered, memorized. Not even a single word is used which is superfluous; they are very economic. So whatsoever is said has to be understood with deep trust and reverence, because that is the only way to understand things like these. A deep reverence is a basic climate and a basic requirement. Only in that deep reverence something enters in you and hits the heart, stirs your soul.
If you just listen with a skeptical mind -- closed, doubting -- you will miss, because these are not principles, these are poetries. They indicate, and the indication is very subtle. They intimate... and only in deep intimacy can these things be understood.
AFTER THESE THINGS THE LORD APPOINTED OTHER SEVENTY ALSO, AND SENT THEM TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE INTO EVERY CITY AND PLACE, WHITHER HE HIMSELF WOULD COME.
Why TWO AND TWO? Why not three? Why not one? Why TWO AND TWO?
Jesus shows a deep understanding of the human mind. More than two is a crowd, and a crowd is never united. It falls apart with more than two. There is every possibility they will start arguing within themselves, there is every possibility there will be a conflict of leadership.
More than two is a crowd. Less than two, one is lonely. In loneliness, doubts arise. In loneliness one loses confidence, in loneliness one becomes afraid, suspicious. Jesus says two and two. It should not be a crowd, and one should not be alone. "Go two together."
Two persons -- intimate, close to each other -- bring out in each other whatsoever is great. That's why love is so meaningful, because only in love you touch the optimum. Alone, you exist at the minimum. In love, you touch the maximum.
Have you watched it? Have you seen a single person when he falls in love? Have you observed the change that comes to him? Suddenly he walks in a different way. He walks less and dances more. His movement suddenly takes on a new grace. The eyes sparkle, the face becomes more beautiful. Something deep inside relaxes and rejoices. He is more vibrant, radiant. You can see that the energy is flowing. Just a few days before, he was low, shrunken. Now, in love, he has opened, bloomed. He is overflowing. What has happened?
The other has given a deep call. That call has touched his soul, it has awakened him. His energies, which were lying dormant, have become dynamic. Now he has meaning in his life, a purpose. Now his life is no longer like a desert. It starts blooming. It gains tremendously. And the beauty is this: that the other is not losing; the other is also gaining the same. Two persons in love both gain tremendously and nobody loses.,Both come to their peaks because each stirs the depth of the other and each brings out the most beautiful in the other. Each provokes the divine in the other.
Lovers become gods to each other. And when somebody believes that you are a god, you have to fulfill it. What can you do? When somebody believes that you are a god, unknowingly you start fulfilling it. Unknowingly you attain to your destiny -- you become a god.
If nobody has ever believed in you, you will miss much. If nobody has ever loved you, you will remain barren. If nobody has ever loved you so deeply that at least for him you have become divine, then the divine in you will go on Lying dormant; it will not become dynamic.
When Jesus says TWO AND TWO, he says: "Go not alone" -- alone you will be at your minimum -- "and not more than two" -- because otherwise conflict will arise. Go two and two: in deep friendship, in deep love, in deep trust, so that you can help each other and provoke each other to the greatest height it is possible to obtain. Potentially, whatsoever the one can attain he will attain through the other. "Go two and two".
THEREFORE SAID HE UNTO THEM, THE HARVEST TRULY IS GREAT...
He speaks in the language of the farmers, the fishers, the carpenters.
THE HARVEST TRULY IS GREAT, BUT THE LABORERS ARE FEW: PRAY YE THEREFORE THE LORD OF THE HARVEST, THAT HE WOULD SEND FORTH LABORERS INTO HIS HARVEST.
It has always been so. When a Buddha is there, it is so. When a Zarathustra is there, it is so. When a Mahavir is there, it is so. The harvest is truly great, but there are not enough laborers. The treasure is vast, but there are not enough sharers. A tremendous energy is released, but nobody is open to receive it. The flower has opened but nobody passes by to be filled by its scent. The fragrance is wasted. It could have been used and people would have attained to their highest peak. But the fragrance goes on spreading into the emptiness of the sky. Yes: THE HARVEST TRULY IS GREAT, BUT THE LABORERS ARE FEW.
PRAY YE THEREFORE, JESUS SAYS TO HIS DISCIPLES,PRAY TO THE LORD OF THE HARVEST, THAT HE WOULD SEND FORTH LABORERS INTO HIS HARVEST.
The crop is ready to be cut, and if it is not cut in time it will be wasted. There is a time to sow and there is a time to reap. Jesus is ready, the crop is ready -- there is nobody to share it.
Why does it happen? Why are people so blind? Why do people want to remain in their unhappiness and when the door opens to be happy they don't look at it?
They have certain investments in their unhappiness; they have become attuned to their unhappiness. This is my experience also. You come to me and you say to me that you would like to be happy. But at that very moment I can see that somewhere within you a part, a greater part of you, is against it. That part doesn't want to be happy because that part has invested much in being unhappy. Now the whole investment will be gone.
You want to be happy, but you don't want to lose the investment that you have made in unhappiness. In many, many lives you have tried to use unhappiness for certain ends. For example, people talk too much about their miseries. They exaggerate. Why do they exaggerate about their miseries? What is the point in telling everybody about your misery?
A certain happiness is attained through this. Whenever you talk about your misery, people show sympathy. This is a way to gain sympathy. Of course you must have missed love, otherwise who bothers about sympathy? Sympathy is a poor substitute for love; it is a counterfeit. If you have ever been loved by somebody, and if you have ever loved somebody, you will not ask for sympathy, no. Sympathy is an insult; love is totally different. But sympathy looks like love. It is a counterfeit. It appears like love; it is not.
When somebody loves you, you are the end; when somebody sympathizes with you, you are not the end. When somebody loves you, you are the emperor; when somebody sympathizes with you, you are the beggar. Sympathy is given to you because you are in such a misery; love is given to you because you are so happy. When you are happy, people love you. When you are unhappy, people sympathize with you.
But sympathy gives a false appearance of love, and you have invested much in sympathy. Now how can you drop your unhappiness? You cannot. Whenever somebody like Jesus comes and opens the doors of paradise, you don't listen to him. You say, "There must be some deception. Paradise? -- it is not possible. We are not fools; we have also been struggling. Paradise is not possible. Only unhappiness is possible."
In the last years of his life, Sigmund Freud became very pessimistic. For fifty years he had been working with the human mind. Nobody had worked so hard, so persistently, so scientifically. He had watched thousands and thousands of human minds: their functioning, their mechanism. In the last years he started feeling that man, as he is, cannot be happy. "There seems to be no possibility that man can be happy. Something seems to be basically wrong."
Nothing is basically wrong. It is only because man has invested too much in unhappiness.
A child is born. Whenever the child is happy, nobody cares about him. But when he is ill, everybody sympathizes, cares, loves. The child learns the trick. If you want sympathy, if you want attention, be ill. Don't be happy because when you are happy you create jealousy in others. Jealousy means enmity. When you are unhappy you create compassion in others. Compassion means friendship.
That's why you cannot respect Jesus. He is so happy; he is a bridegroom. He is always feasting, never fasting.
You go to saints who are fasting, unhappy, because they don't create jealousy in you. They are so unhappy that they create sympathy in you. And when you sympathize with them you make their unhappiness even more valuable than it was before.
This is a vicious circle. In India it is happening all over. Go and see your saints: the more unhappy they are -- the more they fast, the more they commit suicide, the more they poison their being and body, the more pale and dying they are, the more they look unhealthy -- the more they are respected, the more a crowd gathers around them. People say they are great ascetics. Their unhappiness creates sympathy.
How can Jesus get that sympathy? It is impossible. When you go to see him, he is sitting at the dining table with his friends. He enjoys eating and drinking. He must have enjoyed singing and dancing -- I cannot conceive otherwise. He is a man who enjoys eating and makes eating a sacrament. He says that it is holy, that it is a way of prayer. It is God who is hungry within you, and when God is satisfied, you have prayed.
Not only that. Jesus even drinks and allows his disciples to drink because he says, "Life should be lived in its abundance." Not only needs should be fulfilled because if only needs are fulfilled life is just okay; it is not ecstatic. The wine is simply a symbol for ecstasy: that life should not only be lived for the fulfillment of needs. It should be overflowing, it should be a dance. Wine is not a need, nobody needs it. It is a celebration. Bread is a need, everybody needs it, but wine is not a need, it is a celebration.
If you see Jesus, he will not create sympathy in you. Rather, he will create jealousy. That's why he was crucified. He created so much jealousy around him. Everybody became somehow inimical to him: "This is not the way to be a saint."
You always like pessimists, dead people, people who are almost in the grave. Why? And there is little wonder that you also become like them by and by -- because whomsoever you respect, you will become like.
Respect people who are happy, don't respect people who live in misery and create their misery. They are ill, morbid. Don't bow down to anybody who is in any way masochistic, creating his own suffering. In that way you will be helping him also.
Just think: if nobody goes to your masochistic saints, do you think they will remain there? They will escape from their temples. They will come to the marketplace, they will say, "What is the point? We go on fasting and nobody comes. No procession is arranged, nobody respects us -- what is the point? We go on fasting, dying, and nobody respects us." Then the whole point is lost.
It will be a great help to them also; it will be real compassion towards them. If you don't come to them, they will come back to life. But you go on respecting them, you go on fulfilling their egos. Now unhappiness becomes a great investment.
That's also how you are working in your own life. People cling to their miseries because that is all they have. That's why it happens: THE HARVEST TRULY IS GREAT, BUT THE LABORERS ARE FEW.
Only people who are really understanding, and who are really aware that life exists to be celebrated, will be able to enter from the door Jesus has opened for them. The others will not come. Not only will they not come -- they will deny that the door exists. If they accept that the door exists, then it will be a constant uneasiness in their hearts, a restlessness, that the door exists and they have not gone there. No, they will simply deny that the door exists. Not only that, they will say that this Jesus is a deceiver, he is not a true prophet. "True prophets are always miserable, they live in unhappiness" -- and you can understand their language, because you live in unhappiness also.
The language of happiness is absolutely foreign to you; you cannot understand it. You can understand pain and suffering, but ecstasy? "The man must have gone mad!" -- ecstasy looks mad. Pain you can understand, but pleasure? That you cannot understand.
This is the trouble. I also say to you: THE HARVEST TRULY IS GREAT, BUT THE LABORERS ARE FEW: PRAY YE THEREFORE THE LORD OF THE HARVEST, THAT HE WOULD SEND FORTH LABORERS INTO HIS HARVEST.
GO YOUR WAYS: BEHOLD I SEND YOU FORTH AS LAMBS AMONG THE WOLVES.
It is very dangerous to send ecstatic people amongst miserable people -- very dangerous. If you dance on the street, sooner or later you will find yourself in the police station. If you are miserable and crying and weeping, even the constable will sympathize with you; but if you are laughing and dancing, something seems to have gone wrong. It doesn't happen. Ecstasy? -- "The man is mad! " You cannot be allowed to move in the world. You are dangerous.
Look at the absurdity. A happy person seems dangerous, an unhappy person seems to be okay. The unhappy fits with you; the happy does not fit.
GO YOUR WAYS: BEHOLD, I SEND YOU FORTH AS LAMBS AMONG THE WOLVES. Jesus knows that he is sending his disciples into a dangerous world. First, people will not understand what they say. People will misunderstand. But even in their misunderstanding there will be a doubt lurking in the minds of the people: "These people may be right."
That creates more danger. Whenever you feel that something may be right, an uneasiness arises. Either you have to cope with it or destroy it -- so the proof is destroyed.
Jesus was crucified just so that the proof was destroyed that a man can be so happy and so ecstatic. A man can really be a son of God -- the proof has to be destroyed. You go on asking about proofs: what Proof is there of God? And whenever there is proof, you destroy it.
Jesus was the proof. If you could have understood him, you could have understood that God exists. There is no other way to know about God: you can know the tree only by the fruits. Jesus is the fruit, the crop, the harvest. He was a living proof. But he had to be destroyed because if God exists. how can you go on living in your miserable holes? You will have to come out into the light.
It is better to deny God than to come out of your darkness, because you have lived in that darkness so long. You are attuned to it. Yes, it is miserable, but it is your own misery. Yes, it is miserable, but you have lived with it so long that a sort of attachment has arisen. You are attached to it.
Doctors fear that whenever somebody has lived with an illness for long, he clings to it and deep down does not wish to be well again. Then no medicine can help because he is struggling against the medicine. He WANTS the illness to continue.
I know one person: I have watched him; he has been in bed for almost seven years. He was a politician until he fell ill.
I have been watching him all these years. He fell ill because he was defeated in one election. His illness was psychological: he could not accept the fact that he could be defeated. His ego was shattered; he fell ill. The body was simply reflecting something deep that was happening in the ego.
Then it continued. One illness would disappear; another would come. Another would go; then something else would happen. It continued. After one year, everybody in the family became aware that he was not going to be well again.
Lying down on his bed, for the first time he became relaxed. You can understand the whole misery of a politician's life: the conflict, the tension, the anxiety. For one year he rested. Now, somewhere in the unconscious, a deep desire arose that this is better. Now he knows that if he gets up again he will again be the same way. That is the only way he knows how to be in the world; he cannot do anything other than be a politician. That is his profession, the only business he knows. Now he is afraid.
Seven years have passed and things are going well. When he was working and was in the world, his son was not at all worried about the family affairs. Now the son is doing well. His wife has taken many things in her own hands. Even his old father has started to go to the shop again. Everything is going well, perfectly well -- better than ever. So why bother to get up? Now illness is an excuse.
I went to see him and I talked to him. I told him the truth. He became very angry. He said, "What do you mean? Do you mean that I am prolonging my illness? I hoped that at least you would understand. You don't understand me. Why should I be Lying down here? "
But at the very same time I knew he had understood. I said, "You be true -- there is nobody here. I will keep it between us and I will not tell anybody."
He relaxed and he said, "Maybe. I will think about it."
The next day I went again and he confessed. He said, "You are right. I thought about it again and again; the whole night I couldn't sleep. It seems to be the case. But I don't want to get well. Life has never been so good. And now, to go back into politics after seven years will be almost impossible."
Once you are out of politics even for seven days, you are finished. Seven years -- people have completely forgotten about him. Just seven days is enough. A politician has to be constantly in the eyes of the public. He has to go on doing something or other, some mischief or other -- some strike or hunger strike or anything. Whatsoever it is, he has to be in the public eyes, in the newspapers. If he is not in the newspapers for even seven days, he is finished. The public's memory is very short -- who bothers to remember? People will not even recognize now that once he was a great leader. And now there are other great leaders who have replaced him. They won't allow him to re-enter.
So he said, "It is going to be very difficult. It was difficult in the very beginning; now it is going to be almost impossible. And everything is going good."
This is the situation. Then even unhappiness becomes an attachment, even illness becomes an attachment. Illness can become an excuse for many things. Remember this, otherwise you will never be able to be happy. Don't play games with yourself.
Jesus says, I SEND YOU FORTH AS LAMBS AMONG THE WOLVES. Why? Why lambs among the wolves? Because he knows that truth is going to be attacked; he knows that love is going to be attacked; he knows that ecstasy is going to be attacked.
CARRY NEITHER PURSE, NOR SCRIP, NOR SHOES; AND SALUTE NO MAN BY THE WAY.
Why does Jesus say this? CARRY NEITHER PURSE, NOR SCRIP, NOR SHOES; AND SALUTE NO MAN BY THE WAY. He is saying that now you are so happy and ecstatic, you are so blissful, you have tasted something of the divine -- that is enough to create trouble for you. "Now don't carry a purse -- go like beggars, so that at least they can sympathize with you. You are emperors, but go like beggars. Don't even wear shoes, so you look like a beggar. Only the poorest beggar has no shoes. Go barefoot so that they can at least sympathize with you."
That seems to be the reason why Buddha called his sannyasins BHIKKUS, beggars; why Mahavir insisted that you move like beggars. "Because you have the quality of an emperor, that is enough to create trouble for you. Now if your appearance is also like an emperor, you will be immediately attacked. At least let your appearance be that of a beggar. There is no guarantee that you will be saved because you will still be like lambs among wolves. Sooner or later they are going to find that you are an emperor. Your appearance is just a protection." This Jesus says to protect his disciples.
CARRY NEITHER PURSE, NOR SCRIP, NOR SHOES. Why does he say NOR SCRIP? He means: "Don't go as knowers."
These are the two riches: the riches of the outside and the riches of the inside. Don't go as rich people and don't go as rich in knowledge. Let them think that you don't know anything. They will sympathize. Don't carry scriptures with you, otherwise you will be unnecessarily attacked. They will argue and you will be dragged into arguments.
That, too, has to be remembered. Don't carry scriptures, don't carry knowledge. Go like innocent children. That will be a protection. Talk out of your experience, but don't bring the scriptures in. People are very clever about scriptures. Once you bring the scriptures in, you will be defeated. They can argue better than you can.
This is something to be remembered. A man of experience always hesitates because he knows that whatsoever he has experienced cannot be expressed. He hesitates. But a man who has not known anything except the scripture is absolutely certain. Only fools are certain. Wise people are always hesitant.
So don't go with scriptures, otherwise you will be caught in the net of the pundits, the rabbis, and you will be unnecessarily distracted. Then the whole point will be lost.
Jesus says: I SEND YOU LIKE LAMBS -- pure beings with no corruption; not corrupted by knowledge, not corrupted by outward things. "I send you like virgins -- uncorrupted. It is dangerous, but that is the only way you can carry my message," he says.
... AND SALUTE NO MAN BY THE WAY. Why does he say this: SALUTE NO MAN BY THE WAY? He's saying that on the way there are a thousand and one distractions -- "so keep the goal where I am sending you. Just keep in mind the goal where I'm sending you. Even an ordinary salute to a person, a stranger on the road, can become a distraction."
I will tell you one story. It happened in Tibet. A lama who, was working in a faraway valley wrote a letter to the chief monastery, to his master, to send one more lama: "We need him here."
The chief of the monastery called all his disciples, read the letter, and then said, "I would like to send five of you."
One lama asked, "But only one has been asked for. Why five? "
The old chief said, "You will know later. I will send five and then, too, it is not certain that one will reach because the way is long, and distractions a thousand and one."
They laughed. They said, "The old man has gone out of his mind. Why send five when one is needed?" But the old man was insistent, so five started on the journey.
The next morning when they were passing a village, a messenger came running to them from the chief of the village. "Our priest has died and we need a priest. The salary is good." The village looked rich, prosperous, so one of the five said, "I would like to stay because that, too, is Buddha's work. Why go to the valley? There, too, I am going to do the same work. You four will be enough -- only one is needed -- so I will stay here." One dropped.
The next day they were passing by the outskirts of a town. The king of the town passed by them on his horse. He looked at them. One young monk was very beautiful and healthy and radiant. The king said, "Wait. I am looking for a young man because my daughter is ready to be married. I have been watching and looking, but you seem to be exactly right. Are you ready? I have only one daughter. My whole kingdom will be yours."
Of course, the young man said to his friends: "Goodbye!" He left; the second disappeared.
Now the other three became aware that the old man was not mad. The way was really long and distractions a thousand and one!
Now the three decided, "But we will not do such a thing" -- although deep down they were feeling jealous that one man had become a king and another had become a great priest. And who knows about what is going to happen in that valley?
The third night they lost the way. From far away on a hilltop only one lamp was seen, only one house. Somehow they reached there. There was only one young woman there and she said, "It is good that you have come. You are a godsend because my mother and my father were to come back this evening and they have not come back. I was very afraid to be alone in this house so far away from the town. It is good that you are here. You are a godsend, you are sent by Buddha himself. Please stay with me and don't leave me until my parents come."
The next morning they had to leave. But one of them -- who, deep down, had fallen in love with the woman -- said, "I cannot go until her parents are back. That would not be compassion." Compassion was not the thing, PASSION was the thing! But when there is passion, people talk about compassion.
The other two said, "This is not good. We have to reach and you are dropping out. And we had decided that now we would not do that."
The man said, "I have been taught my whole life to be compassionate. The woman is alone, the parents have not returned. To leave won't be good, it won't be virtuous. Buddha will never forgive me. You can go" -- in fact, he wanted them to go -- "but I will stay here." The third dropped.
In a village the next morning they were surrounded by a crowd, because the village was atheistic; they didn't believe in Buddha. The two were challenged: "You have to prove that what Buddha says is true." They had a great atheistic scholar in the village and the scholar challenged them.
One of the two accepted the challenge. The second said, "What are you doing? Who knows how long it will go on?"
He said, "Even if my whole life is wasted.... I am devoted to Buddha, and this man has challenged Buddha and his philosophy." It was not a challenge to Buddha; it was a challenge to his ego. "I cannot leave this village, I will convert this village. You can go. In fact, only one is needed."
And that's how it happened. The man remained there to argue and only one reached!
Jesus says: AND SALUTE NO MAN BY THE WAY. This is just a way of saying, "Please, remember the goal."
AND INTO WHATSOEVER HOUSE YE ENTER, FIRST SAY, PEACE BE TO THIS HOUSE.
This is a mantra, a blessing. It changes the whole atmosphere. Jesus says, "Before you enter a house, say: PEACE BE TO THIS HOUSE. It is not only a saying. Feel it, be it. Be peace. Bring peace to the house because only in that peaceful milieu can my message be delivered. Create a spiritual vibration of peace, spread the feeling of peace."
And if you are really feeling it, it will spread. You try it. When somebody comes to see you or meet you, just settle within yourself. Become silent. When the man enters, deep down feel peace for him. Feel: "Peace be to this man." Don't just say it, feel it. Suddenly you will see a change in the man, as if something unknown has entered into his being. He will be totally different.
Try it. It is experimental. It is absolutely scientific -- no need to believe in it. There is a thought transference continuously happening.
Sometimes you destroy yourself by your own thoughts. Somebody comes and you become suspicious: this man seems to be dangerous. You are giving this thought to the man. Now he MAY be dangerous! If he is dangerous you will say, "I was right! " but in fact YOU created the vibe; in fact YOU started it.
A husband coming home starts thinking in his mind that his wife is going to be nasty and he starts planning how to answer her, how to find an excuse for why he is late. He may be creating doubts in the wife's mind. Women are very intuitive. You may not be able to transfer a thought to a man, but with a woman it is almost impossible NOT to transfer it. They are more intuitive. They are less in their heads and more in their hearts. Now the wife is getting ready to be angry. And the husband is preparing her. Then when she becomes nasty he thinks, "I was right." The next time he will be more afraid, and his fear will create the circumstance.
Try just the opposite. While coming back home, think that your wife is going to be perfectly beautiful. Feel it! Just saying it, and feeling the opposite, won't help. Feel it, and one day, suddenly, you will see that it works.
We are joined together by our hearts; we exist as parts of one feeling heart. That heart is God. He beats in our hearts: the beat is His. He lives: the life is His.
If you can create a great, strong thought or feeling around you, the ripples go and spread. You live in the world you create and you get the world you deserve.
AND INTO WHATSOEVER HOUSE YOU ENTER, FIRST SAY, PEACE BE TO THIS HOUSE.
AND IF THE SON OF PEACE BE THERE, YOUR PEACE SHALL REST UPON IT: IF NOT, IT SHALL TURN TO YOU AGAIN.
If whatsoever you give is accepted, it will be good, because in that deep peace you will be welcomed. If it is not accepted, if the people (or the person) are hard, very closed, not open at all, and your message, your deep love and peace, is rejected, don't be worried. That peace will fall upon you, you will be showered by it. It will still be good, nothing will be lost.
HE THAT HEARETH YOU, HEARETH ME; AND HE THAT DESPISETH YOU DESPISETH ME; AND HE THAT DESPISETH ME DESPISETH HIM THAT SENT ME.
Jesus says, "If people love you" -- his disciples -- "they love me, because I am coming to them through you. And if they love me, they love He who has sent me because He has come through me. If they hate you, they hate me. If they hate me, they hate the source of all life."
Remember: whatsoever you do, finally you do it to God. Meanwhile you may be doing it to somebody else, but finally it turns out that you have done it to God. If you hate a man, ultimately you hate God; if you love, ultimately you love God. All others are just mediums. Whatsoever you do to them is not to them. It is finally to the source, to the very seed.
AND THE SEVENTY RETURNED AGAIN WITH JOY, SAYING, LORD, EVEN THE DEVILS ARE SUBJECT UNTO US THROUGH THY NAME.
AND HE SAID UNTO THEM...
NOTWITHSTANDING IN THIS REJOICE NOT, THAT THE SPIRITS ARE SUBJECT UNTO YOU; BUT RATHER REJOICE, BECAUSE YOUR NAMES ARE WRITTEN IN HEAVEN.
The disciples are disciples; they are not yet awakened. They have come in deep contact with an awakened man. That awakened man has become infectious to them, they are impressed deeply, the impact has gone to their roots, but they are still disciples; they are not awakened themselves.
When they came back were very happy. They had completely forgotten God in their happiness. Wherever they went, people listened to them with tremendous attention; wherever they went, they were received with love. They could not believe what had happened. They came back rejoicing and saying, LORD, EVEN THE DEVILS ARE SUBJECT UNTO US THROUGH THY NAME.
Their reach is only up to Jesus. They have not yet seen God through him. Jesus is not yet transparent to them; they cannot see God. At the most they see God reflected, at the most they feel something of the unknown, but it has not become a settled, centered feeling in them.
They have completely forgotten God. They say: EVEN THE DEVILS ARE SUBJECT UNTO US. Now their egos are inflated. But they remember one thing: THROUGH THY NAME. "It is your name that has done miracles. Even devils are in our power."
Jesus immediately says: "NOTWITHSTANDING IN THIS REJOICE NOT. Don't rejoice that the spirits are subject unto you. If you really want to rejoice, rejoice about something else that you are not aware of: BUT RATHER REJOICE, BECAUSE YOUR NAMES ARE WRITTEN IN HEAVEN. Rather rejoice that God has heard your prayers. Don't think about yourself and don't think about my name. Rather feel happy that God has heard you and helped you. YOUR NAMES ARE WRITTEN IN HEAVEN."
IN THAT HOUR JESUS REJOICED IN SPIRIT, AND SAID, I THANK THEE, O FATHER...
The disciples were aware that they had done miracles. They had become very important. They remember Jesus. But Jesus REJOICED IN SPIRIT, AND SAID, I THANK THEE, O FATHER -- he remembers God. Jesus' name is of no use. If his name is so powerful it is because of God. He is just a medium, a flute on which God has decided, in his mercy, to play a tune or sing a song.
I THANK THEE, O FATHER, LORD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, THAT THOU HAST HID THESE THINGS FROM THE WISE AND PRUDENT, AND HAST REVEALED THEM UNTO BABES:
These disciples are just babes. They are neither wise nor prudent. They don't know the scriptures, they don't know the tradition. They are not priests or scholars, they are just babes: simple, innocent.... THAT THOU HAST HID THESE THINGS FROM THE WISE AND PRUDENT, AND HAST REVEALED THEM UNTO BABES: EVEN SO, FATHER; FOR SO IT SEEMED GOOD IN THY SIGHT.
ALL THINGS ARE DELIVERED TO ME OF MY FATHER; AND NO MAN KNOWETH WHO THE SON IS, BUT THE FATHER; AND WHO THE FATHER IS, BUT THE SON, AND HE TO WHOM THE SON WILL REVEAL HIM.
ALL THINGS ARE DELIVERED TO ME OF MY FATHER.... He simply says that "I am no more than a medium. If you pay respect to me, don't pay respect to me. At the most you can pay the respect THROUGH me, but the respect should go to God." ALL THINGS ARE DELIVERED TO ME OF MY FATHER....
... AND NO MAN KNOWETH WHO THE SON IS, because once you know who the son is, you have already known the father. If you recognize Jesus, you have recognized God; if you crucify Jesus, you have crucified God -- because whatsoever you do with Jesus, you do with God.
Not only Jesus was crucified on Golgotha; God was crucified that day. You could not believe in God who was expressing himself through Jesus; you could not recognize the son. You could not see from where the song was coming, you destroyed the flute. But in destroying the flute, the song also disappeared.
ALL THINGS ARE DELIVERED TO ME OF MY FATHER; AND NO MAN KNOWETH WHO THE SON IS, BUT THE FATHER -- "Only he knows me," Jesus says -- AND WHO THE FATHER IS, BUT THE SON -- "and only I know who he is," because that revelation is possible only when you become part of God and God becomes part of you. When you are so deeply related to the whole existence that you are no longer separate, then you know who God is.
... AND WHO THE FATHER IS, BUT THE SON, AND HE TO WHOM THE SON WILL REVEAL HIM. And for ordinary humanity there is no other way than to look through the son, to accept the revelation, to see God through him who has become one with Him. Once you see it, you have already become a son. Then others can see through you, and the thing can go on spreading.
Every person who has recognized Jesus has become a Jesus immediately. Every person who has recognized Buddha has become a Buddha immediately. In your recognition you have attained. Then anybody who recognizes you is linked, is bridged, with God. One man can transform the whole world: it becomes a chain of openings.
If you recognize me, you have become me. Then somebody recognizes you; he has become you. And this can go on and on. Just a small pebble thrown in the sea, and ripples arise and go on spreading.
Jesus is just the pebble. You can become Jesus if you recognize him. That is the real meaning of being a Christian: that you recognize Jesus as the son of God and you say, "My eyes are not yet able to look at the sun, the light is too much. I look at the lamp... but I recognize that the light is the same."
To look at God directly will be blinding. To look at Jesus will be beautiful -- he's not blinding. But through him you can recognize, and by and by your eyes can become attuned. Once you have become attuned to Jesus, you can look directly at God. By and by, Jesus will disappear -- will become transparent, transparent, and will be gone -- and only God will be left there. That's why Jesus goes on saying again and again that "I and my father are one."
Recognition is one of the turning points in life. The search for a master is the search for a man in whom you can recognize that God is, in whom you can recognize that now there is no need for any proof, in whom you can recognize -- not intellectually, but existentially -- that yes, God is. That man becomes your master. he becomes the door. That's why jesus goes on saying: "I am the door, I am the opening through whom you can come."
Otherwise you can go on arguing. Your arguments are all futile. Whether you prove that God is, or you prove that God is not, does not matter much. They are all intellectual gymnastics; nothing is proven. No atheist ever becomes capable of converting a theist and no theist is ever capable of converting an atheist. For centuries the argument has continued. Nobody seems to win, the whole thing seems to be futile and meaningless. You cannot convince anybody about anything unless he opens his eyes and recognizes something which is of the beyond.
Once it happened: Mulla Nasruddin woke up one morning and started crying and weeping. His wife was worried. She said, "What has happened? Have you had a nightmare?"
He said, "No, it is not a nightmare. I have died. I am dead."
Now, how to convince him that he is not dead? The wife tried, the neighbors tried, but there was no way to prove it to him. He insisted that he was dead.
He was taken to a psychoanalyst. The psychoanalyst watched him, talked to him -- a very rational man, argumentative, and he argues that he is dead! And says, "Give me some proof that I am alive"!
The psychoanalyst thought it over and said, "Yes" -- an idea struck him. He said, "Come with me."
He took Nasruddin to the hospital, to the post-mortem department, and told the situation to the doctors. The dead bodies were cut and the psychoanalyst said, "Look, is there any blood flowing?"
No blood was flowing. The psychoanalyst had the idea that if Nasruddin could be convinced that dead bodies don't bleed then something might be possible. At least if he could prove that dead bodies don't bleed and live bodies bleed....
For seven days he took Mulla to see the autopsies. He was intellectually convinced. "Are you convinced? " the psychoanalyst asked.
Mulla Nasruddin said, "Now there is no need to continue. I am convinced that dead bodies don't bleed. But that makes no change in my attitude."
The psychoanalyst said, "Wait." He took Mulla's hand, took a sharp knife and made a small cut on the finger. Blood started flowing. The psychoanalyst was thinking that this would be absolute proof that he was not dead.
But Mulla Nasruddin looked at the blood and said, "My God! So dead men bleed after all!"
No proof can be a proof. If you are convinced that God is not, all proofs will prove that He is not. If you are convinced He is, then all proofs will prove that He is. No conviction can be changed, so whether you believe in God or you don't believe in God, both are bogus, both are headtrips. Unless you recognize.... It is not a question of argument. Unless you open your eyes and see something which suddenly fills you, your total being, and a certainty arises in you which is not intellectual but existential....
To seek a master is to seek somebody in whom you can recognize, somebody who becomes the proof -- in whose being you can taste something of the divine; in whose eyes you can glimpse and see something of the divine; in whose love you can feel something being showered; in whose song you can feel, you can know beyond doubt, that the infinite is flowing. The master is nothing but a reed, a flute -- an empty flute, an emptiness. God flows through him. If you can recognize it, already you yourself have become one with it. Now others can recognize it in you and it can spread.
One man, attaining to God, can become a total transformation of the whole humanity. It has not happened because people insist on being miserable, they insist on being blind, they insist on being howsoever they are. They protect their hell, they defend their misery: they are armored against God.
That is why it has not happened. Otherwise one Buddha would have been enough; one Jesus would have been enough. But thousands of Buddhas and Jesuses and Mahavirs have been, and you go on living in your darkness. It is simply unbelievable, but it has been so.
Don't wait for the whole humanity. Nobody can say when the whole humanity will listen. But if you can listen, if you can recognize. you also become a door.
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