Yes, that is true. Man alone is impotent. God also cannot work alone. God alone is potent but has no instrument. Man alone is a hollow bamboo—nobody to create a song on it, nobody to fill it with music, harmony, melody. God alone has the capacity to create a melody but has no hollow bamboo to create a flute.

Christ is the flute on God's lips. So whatsoever has come from Christ is godspel, is gospel.

Fourteen generations...

'So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.'

That too is very symbolic. Books like the Bible are not written by ordinary people, they are what George Gurdjieff used to call 'objective art'. The Bible is one of the representative objective works of art in the world. It is not like a book written by a Shakespeare or a Kalidas. These people create subjective art. They write something, they write beautifully, they have the aesthetic sense, but they are as unconscious as any other human being. They have a nose for beauty, but they are as sleepy as anybody else. Their works of art are subjective: they express themselves.

But books like the Vedas, the Koran, the Bible, the Upanishads—they are not written by people who are asleep, they are not written as beautiful poetry or prose; they are written by people who know what truth is, who have awakened themselves to truth. Then whatsoever they write is almost like a map. You have to decipher it, you have to decode it, otherwise you will go on missing it.

Why fourteen generations? No scholar has asked it, no biblical scholar has asked it. Why only fourteen? Why not fifteen? Why not thirteen?

This I am giving you as an example of objective art. It is fourteen for a certain reason. It has to be decoded.

The spirit matures just like the body matures. The body matures in fourteen years—it becomes sexually mature, it can reproduce sexually. At fourteen years the body is ripe as far as sexual reproduction is concerned: the boy can become a father, the girl can become a mother; they can reproduce replicas of themselves.

In exactly the same way the spirit also matures. Just as it takes fourteen years for the body to mature sexually, it takes fourteen generations for the spirit to mature spiritually. That is the meaning of fourteen generations: from Abraham to David, from David to the exile in Babylon, and from the exile in Babylon to Jesus. And when the spirit has come to its maturity, when the fruit is ripe, it falls from the tree. Unripe, it clings to the tree. Unripe, it has to cling—if unripe it falls, then it will never become sweet; it will remain bitter, sour. It will be useless. To ripen, it needs to cling. Clinging simply shows that 'I am not yet ready to leave you'. Whenever somebody is ripe, that very ripeness becomes freedom, then clinging disappears.

Jesus disappears into God, Jesus disappears from this tree of life: the fruit is ripe. That's what we in the East say that whenever a man has become perfect—perfect in the sense that he has grown all that he could grow on this earth, in this situation—then he will not return again. Then he crosses to the beyond: he passes beyond the point of no return. Then he never comes back. We call him a Buddha, or a Jain.

Jews used to call that state 'Christ': one who has gone beyond and will be here only for a time. The fruit is ripe and waiting to drop any moment—any small breeze and the fruit will be gone forever, and it will disappear into existence. Hence, the tree stops at Jesus: he remains unmarried, he does not reproduce. That celibacy has nothing to do with ordinary, repressed celibacy. He is not against love, he is not against sex, he is not a puritan, he is not a moralist.

I was reading the other night what Dostoevsky has said: that moralists are always very miserable people. That seems to be an absolutely true observation. Moralists are miserable people. In fact, only miserable people become moralists. They are so miserable that they would like to make everybody else miserable also. And the best way to make people feel miserable is to make them feel guilty.

Jesus is not a moralist. His brahmacharya, his celibacy has a totally different quality to it. It simply says that he is no more interested in reproducing on the physical plane, he is interested in reproducing on the spiritual plane. He does not give birth to children, he gives birth to disciples. He creates more abodes in the world for God to descend into. He does not create bodies, he creates souls. And he is a miracle Master: he created many enlightened people on the earth—he had that magic touch. And he created them Out of nobodies.

Buddha created many enlightened people, but those were very very grown-up souls. A Sariputta was already a very grown-up soul; the fruit was ripe. My own feeling is that even if Buddha had not come into the life of Sariputta, he would have become enlightened sooner or later; Buddha was not very essential. He helped, he speeded up things, but was not very essential. If Sariputta had not met him, maybe in one life or two lives he would have come around the corner by himself; he was already coming, he was just on the verge. So was Mahakashyap, so was Moggalyayan, and so were Buddha's other disciples.

But Jesus really did miracles. He touched ordinary stones and transformed them into diamonds. He moved among very ordinary people. A fisherman throwing his net... and Jesus comes, stands behind him, puts his hand on his shoulder and says 'Look in my eyes. How long are you going to catch fish? I can make you a catcher of men. Look into my eyes.' And the poor, ordinary fisherman—uneducated, unsophisticated, uncultured; has never heard about anything, may not have ever been interested in spiritual growth; was contented with catching fish and selling them, and was happy in his day-to-day life—looks into the eyes of Jesus, throws his net and follows him. And that fisherman becomes an enlightened person. Or a farmer, or a tax—collector, or even a prostitute, Mary Magdalene...

Jesus transforms ordinary metal into gold. He is really the philosopher's stone. His touch is magical: wherever he touches, suddenly the spirit arises.

Buddha enlightened many people, but those people were already on the path. Buddha moved with sophisticated people: learned, virtuous, special. Jesus moved with very ordinary people: down-trodden, oppressed, poor. This was one of the crimes against him put by the priests: that he moves with gamblers, with drunkards, with prostitutes. He stays with prostitutes, he stays with anybody, he eats with anybody. He is a fallen man. And on the surface, to all appearances; he looked like a fallen man. But he was falling only with those people to help them rise; he was going to the lowest to turn them into the highest. And there is a reason.

The lowest may be unsophisticated, uncultured, but he has a purity of heart; he has more love in him. Now you will be able to understand the difference. Buddha's path is of intelligence. He cannot go to a fisherman and say 'Come to me and I will make you enlightened.' That is not possible for him. His path is that of awareness, intelligence, understanding. The fisherman will not even understand his language; it is too much above him, it is beyond his grasp.

The path of Jesus is the path of love, and the poor people have more love than the rich. Maybe that is why they are poor, because when you have much love you cannot accumulate much money—they don't go together. When you have much love you share. A rich man cannot be a loving man because love will always be dangerous to his riches. If he loves people then he will have to share.

I used to live in a family for seven years. The man was very rich, and he was interested in my ideas—that's why he invited me to stay with him. He had made all the arrangements for me in a beautiful way. He had provided a big bungalow and a big garden. And just to be with me he came to live with me with his family. But I was surprised: I had never seen him talking to his wife or to his children. When we had become more and more accustomed to each other, one day I asked him 'I never see you sitting with your wife or with your children. I never see you talking to anybody in your family. What is the matter?'

He said 'If I talk to my wife, immediately she starts demanding. "There is a beautiful ornament in the shop", or "Better sarees have come", or this and that. Immediately she jumps on my pocket. If I talk to my children, their hands start groping into my pocket. I have learnt that it is better to keep quiet, and remain stiff and have a hard face. It protects you. Then nobody asks for anything.'

And I understood his idea. That is the idea of all the rich people in the world. The person who becomes too obsessed with money is really obsessed with the money because he cannot love. Money becomes a substitute love. He starts hoarding money because he thinks there is no other thing to be happy about. 'Hoard money, then at least you have the money and you can purchase everything.' He even believes that he can purchase love with his money.

He can purchase sex but not love. But then many people think that sex is love. He can purchase bodies, but he cannot have any intimacy with a person. Many people think that to have the body of the other, to possess the body of the other is enough. 'What more is needed? Why bother about any thing more?' Many people are interested only in casual sex, not in intimacy, not in going into depth, not moving into a deep dialogue. They are afraid of the deep dialogue because then there is commitment, and commitment brings responsibility. Then they have to be very sensitive, alive. 'Who bothers? Just casual sex is good, and casual sex can be purchased, it is available in the market—place.' The man who is after money thinks that all can be purchased through the money. 'So why bother about anything else? You can have the most beautiful woman, you can have the most beautiful house, you can have this and that...' He thinks that this is going to satisfy him. This never satisfies. Only love satisfies, no substitute can ever satisfy. A substitute is a substitute; it is pseudo.

Poor people have more love, because poor people have not grown their head so their whole energy revolves around the heart. These are the two centres: either the energy moves into the heart or the energy moves into the head. It is very rare to find a balanced being whose energy moves into both or who is capable of moving energy wherever it is needed— diverting it. When he wants to have intelligence, he moves, channelises his energy into the head. When he wants to love, he channelises his energy—his whole energy—into his heart. This is the perfect man.

But ordinarily people are not so perfect. Either they are hung-up in the head or they are available to the heart.

Jesus' path is of love, hence he worked miracles in poor people, in ordinary people whose intelligence was not yet very developed. But that opportunity could be used: their energy was raw and yet in the heart. They were more like children.

Just as the body matures in fourteen years, so the spirit matures in fourteen generations; that is the minimum limit. It depends on you. It may not grow even in one hundred and forty generations—you can be very lazy or you can remain unaware. Then you can go on and on for millions of lives and it may not grow. But fourteen generations is a natural time limit; that much is needed.

The spirit is not a seasonal flower: it is like a great cedar of Lebanon. It takes time—fourteen generations for the tree to grow, to reach to the sky. It is not a seasonal flower that comes within weeks but is gone within weeks too. The spirit means the eternal; the eternal needs time, patience. These fourteen generations are just a symbolic number.

Jesus cannot be born before fourteen generations. That state is possible only after a time—after a few steps have been crossed. And that is so in other dimensions too.

For example, the caveman could not have given us the Platonic Dialogues or the symphonies of Beethoven or the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci or the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore. It was not possible for the caveman to give these things. The caveman could not have given us an Albert Einstein either, or a Dostoevsky or a Picasso. The caveman could not have given us a Buddha or a Lao Tzu or a Jesus. It needs time, and it needs preparation, and it needs a certain milieu in which to grow, only then is Jesus possible.

For Jesus to exist many things are needed; he can only exist in those circumstances. ForJesus to say what he wants to say a certain kind of person is needed who can understand it.

What I am saying to you can only be said now. It can only be said now, not before; it was not possible before. And what I will be saying to you tomorrow will only be possible tomorrow, not today. You have to become receptive, you have to grow. If you are not in a certain state to receive it, it cannot be uttered.

Jesus is the culmination of the whole Jewish consciousness, and the strange thing is that the Jews rejected him. And that has always been happening. Buddha was the culmination of Hindu consciousness, and the Hindus rejected him. And Socrates was the culmination of the Greek consciousness, and the Greeks killed him. This is very strange, but this has always been happening. Why can we not accept our own culmination? What goes wrong? Why could the Jews not accept Jesus? They had been waiting for Jesus, they had been waiting for the Messiah, for Christ to come. They are still waiting, and the Messiah has already come and gone too. They helped him to go, and they are still waiting for him.

What went wrong? What always goes wrong? Jesus is the culmination of the Jewish consciousness. All the prophets of the Jews that had preceded Jesus were preparing the ground for him to come. That's what John the Baptist was saying to the people. 'I am nothing compared to the person for whom I am preparing the way. I am just a sweeper. I am simply cleaning the path for him to come. The one higher than me is going to come.'John the Baptist and the other prophets were simply preparing the way for this ultimate culmination, for this peak, this Everest. And then the Everest comes, and something goes wrong. What goes wrong? The other peaks start feeling small.

They have all helped. Just think: Everest cannot stand alone if the other peaks of the Himalayas disappear; Everest cannot stand alone. It needs the whole Himalaya to support it, to be there. It cannot rise so high alone—no peak can rise so high alone. It will need the support of thousands of other peaks—smaller, bigger, and all kinds. But once the peak has come up, the other peaks start feeling hurt. Their egos ache; it is very painful. And they have supported it—this is the paradox—they have supported the happening of this peak! It could not have happened without them, and now that it has happened, they are feeling very low, depressed. If all the peaks of the Himalayas were to conspire against Everest, it would be very logical. If they crucified Everest, it would be very logical.

That's what happened to Jesus. Once he was there, the Jews, the rabbis, the religious leaders, the priests started feeling very offended. His very presence was offensive; not that he offended anybody, not that he hurt anybody. How could he hurt ?—but his very presence, that Everest-like height, that plenitude, that height—and everybody looked low and small.

Now Everest cannot do anything about it. It is not arrogant, it is not egoistic, but it is high—that is certainly so. And every other peak is hurt, feels pained, wants to take revenge. Hence Jesus was crucified. So was Buddha rejected— thrown out of this country completely. He has become a foreigner in his own land.

And this has been so down the ages, this is so still. And it seems this is going to remain so forever because man is, after all, man. In his sleep, in his egoistic attitudes, this is how he functions.

Jesus' Beatitudes are God's songs through him. Remember, he is just a medium. He is not the author of these Gospels, he is just a messenger. He is simply giving you that which he is receiving.

Now, let us go into these Beatitudes.

And seeing the multitudes,

he went up into a mountain:

and when he was set, his disciples came unto him...

I would like you to go into each word very silently, very sympathetically.

the crowd, the mass

These are ways of saying certain psychological things. The multitude is the lowest state of consciousness—the mass, the crowd. It is dense darkness. It is very dark there, and very deep sleep. When you move in the multitude, if you want to connect and relate with the multitude, you have to come to their level. That is why whenever you go into a crowd, you feel a little bit lost. You start feeling a little bit suffocated. That feeling of suffocation is not only physical—it is not just that people are around you, no. The suffocation is more psychological, because when you are with people who are very low in their consciousness, you cannot remain an Everest; they pull you down. Whenever you go to the masses you lose something. Hence the need arises for aloneness, for meditation. And in Jesus' life you will find that many times he moves in the multitude—his work was there, that was his field—but again and again, after a few months, he gocs to the mountains; he goes away from the multitude, and the crowd, and the crowd-mind, to be with God.

When you are alone you are with God. You can be with God only when you are absolutely alone. And when you are with God you start flying in the sky. The very presence of God takes you up and up. And the presence of the crowds takes you down and down. Only with God can you fly into the sky, can you have wings. With the crowds, your wings are cut. What to say about wings? Even your hands, your legs are cut. You become a cripple, because they are all cripples. You become paralysed, because they are all paralysed. And they will never forgive you if you don't live according to them when you are with them.

If you want to work with them, if you want to help them, you will have to move in their world, according to them. And this is tiring, and this is very exhausting.

He was staying in a village doing his magical work of transforming people—blind people were given eyes, and deaf people were given ears; and those who could not walk, who could not grow were made whole, and those who had become dead and dull, they were again rejuvenated, revitalised. But this whole work... and many more people were coming, and a great crowd was surrounding him... he became exhausted, he became tired. Hence the need to go up into a mountain.

Going out is going down, going in is going up. In the inner world, up and in mean the same; out and down mean the same. When you have to relate with people you have to go out, and when you have to relate with people who are very low in consciousness you have to bend low. That is very tiring.

Jesus, Buddha or Mahavir, all move to the mountains. They go into a lonely place just to regain their height, just to regain their purity, just to regain their own state, just to spread their limbs again, just to be themselves and just to be with God. With God, they start soaring high. With God, you become a seagull, you start soaring high. There is no limit to it. Again you are vital, again you are full of God, again you are like a cloud full of rainwater and you would like to shower. You come back to the multitude where people are thirsty.

People ask me what I go on doing in my room alone. That is my mountain. That is where I can soar high. I need not think about you, I need not commune with you. I need not function through the body and through the mind. I can forget the body, I can forget the mind. I can forget you, I can forget all.

In that moment of utter forgetfulness of all, one is. And that is—ness is immense. That is—ness has a splendour to it. Freshness it is, vitality it is, because it is the very source of life.

But once you are full of that life, you have to share. So every morning I am back with you, every evening I am back with you. I go on from my mountain to the multitude continuously.

Going to a mountain does not mean really going to a mountain, it simply means going to inner height. Whether Jesus went to a real mountain or not is irrelevant; it has nothing to do with the Gospel. He may have gone to the mountain, because it was almost impossible in those days to live the way I live. It was impossible.

For fifteen years I also lived like Jesus, moving in the multitude, and it was impossible to get even a single moment alone. I had to go back again and again to my place where I used to live in Jabalpur and I kept myself absolutely alone. Jabalpur was very unfortunate. I would go around the country and everywhere I would meet people—but not in Jabalpur. That was my mountain. And when I would come to Bombay, or to Delhi, or to Poona, people would ask me why I unnecessarily travelled so much back to Jabalpur again and again. Fifteen, twenty days... and I would have to go back to Jabalpur for three or four days, and then I would again start... It was unnecessary. I could have gone from Poona to Bombay, from Bombay to Delhi, from Delhi to Amritsar, from Amritsar to Srinagar. Why should I first go to Jabalpur and then again after a few days?

Jabalpur was my mountain. There I kept myself absolutely alone. When it became impossible to be alone even there and the multitude started coming there, then I had to leave that place. Alone in my room I am doing exactly what Jesus did.

To talk to disciples is a different matter. To talk to the multitude is a different matter. That's why I had to stop talking to the crowds. I had to create a special class of my own sannyasins with whom I could have a communion of the heart.

When you are talking to the multitudes, first, they are very indifferent to what you are saying—you have to shout unnecessarily. Second: if they are not indifferent, then they are against—antagonistic, always afraid and protecting their ideas, always resisting, arguing. That is unnecessary work. And these things that I am talking about or Jesus was talking about are not things that can be argued. No proofs are possible—only trust. If you can trust me, these things can be explained to you. But trust has to be a very very basic thing toit. If you don't trust me, there is no way to prove anything. Then it is simply a waste of my time and your time.

To talk to disciples is a different thing. To talk to disciples means that the other side is receptive—not only receptive but immensely welcoming. You are welcome, the other side wants you to come in, the other side wants to become a host to whatsoever you are saying. The doors are open, the windows are open for you to become a breeze, or sunlight, and enter into their beings. They are not afraid, they are not defending, they are not arguing; they are ready to go with you wholeheartedly to any unknown dimension.

To talk to disciples is not a kind of discussion or debate— it is a dialogue. It is as much a dialogue as it is when two lovers talk to each other. The disciple is in love with the Master, the Master is in love with the disciple. There is deep love flowing. That love becomes the bridge, and then great truths can be explained, conveyed, almost materialised.

and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:

And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying...

From the multitude he has escaped, but not from the disciples. To the disciples he is available. He can fly with God and the disciples can fly with him. Maybe they are not so expert at flying, but their readiness is there. And that is the only thing that is needed, the most essential. Maybe they cannot go to the very heights alone, but trusting the Master they can follow—they can follow to any length, to any extreme they can go.

The Master flies with God, the disciple flies with the Master. The disciple cannot see God yet, but he can see the Master, and through the Master he can feel God. That's why the Master becomes almost a God to the disciple. He is. By and by, the closer the disciple comes to the Master, the more and more he will see that the Master is an emptiness or a mirror in which God is reflected. Sooner or later, he himself will become an emptiness, a mirror, and will be able, in his turn, to help others.

he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

Blessed are the poor in spirit:

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

This is one of the most fundamental statements ever made. Many other Beatitudes will follow, but nothing to be compared with this. It is exceptional, it is extraordinary. And the beauty is 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.' In other Beatitudes he will say: '...they shall inherit the earth.' But in this he says'... for theirs is the kingdom of God.'

The 'poor in spirit' means exactly what Buddha was saying to Sariputta: nothingness. Ego makes you feel that you are rich, that you are somebody, this and that. When the ego disappears and you are a nobody—that's what Jesus means by 'poor in spirit'.

Buddha's word is more sophisticated, philosophical.

Therefore, O Sariputta,

Form is nothingness

Nothingness is form.

Jesus' words are simple, unsophisticated. And it is natural. Buddha was the son of a great king, Jesus is the son of a carpenter. For many years he was just working in his father's workshop bringing wood, cutting wood. He knows the ways of the simple people, the woodcutters, the carpenters. He says: Blessed are the poor in spirit—those who know that they are nothing, those who know that their inside is just empty, there is no self, no ego, no claim, no word, no knowledge, no scripture—just emptiness, pure sky, spaciousness. 'Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.' It is theirs right now! It is not said that they 'will have', there is no postponement, there is no time element involved. If you are nothing, this very moment you are God. If you are nothing, you are God! Between nothingness and God, there is no gap to be crossed—there is no gap. From one side it is nothingness, poverty of spirit, from the other side it is the kingdom of God.

A very paradoxical statement: Those who are poor—they will become kings; and those who think they are kings—they will remain poor. Lose if you want to gain; gain if you want to lose. Possess if you want to remain a beggar; dispossess if you want to become a king. Don't possess anything at all— not even yourself. That's what is meant by 'poor in spirit'. Theirs is the kingdom of God here and now, right away. It is not a promise for the future, it is a simple statement of truth.

The other Beatitudes are not so deep. If this is understood, then there is no need to read ahead. If this is not understood— and this must not have been understood, that's why Jesus continues—then he makes the truth more diluted, understandable.

Then he says

Blessed are they that mourn:

for they shall be comforted.

Now the future comes in. The disciples have missed, otherwise there would have only been one Beatitude because it contains all. There is no need to elaborate it. Jesus has said everything. This is his ultimate sutra. But he must have looked around into the eyes of the disciples, and he must have seen that they had not been able to understand it—it is too high. He has to come a little lower, he has to bring the future in.

The mind can understand the future, the mind cannot understand the present. The mind is absolutely incapable of understanding the present. If I say to you 'Right now you are Buddhas and Christs' you listen to me but you say 'What are you saying? I—and a Buddha? and just last night I was gambling. And, Bhagwan, you don't know me, I am a smoker. Or sometimes I even take hashish. You don't know me, I am a sinner. And what are you talking about? I know myself better. I am not a Buddha, I am the worst sinner in the world.'

So you can listen to me if I say 'You are a Buddha right now. Nothing is missing, nothing is lacking.' You listen out of politeness, but deep down you say 'Nonsense!'

Jesus has said the ultimate.

Blessed are they

which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:

for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the peacemakers:

for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they

which are persecuted for righteousness' sake:

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad:

forgreat is your reward in heaven:

for so persecuted they

the prophets which were before you.

Ye are the salt of the earth...