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I WILL SPEAK ON CHRIST, but not on Christianity. Christianity has nothing to do with Christ. In fact, Christianity is anti-Christ -- just as Buddhism is anti-Buddha and Jainism anti-Mahavir. Christ has something in him which cannot be organized: the very nature of it is rebellion and a rebellion cannot be organized. The moment you organize it, you kill it. Then the dead corpse remains. You can worship it, but you cannot be transformed by it. You can carry the load for centuries and centuries, but it will only burden you, it will not liberate you. That's why, from the beginning, let it be absolutely clear: I am all for Christ, but not even a small part of me is for Christianity. If you want Christ, you have to go beyond Christianity. If you cling too much to Christianity, you will not be able to understand Christ. Christ is beyond all churches.

Christ is the very principle of religion. In Christ all the aspirations of humanity are fulfilled. He is a rare synthesis. Ordinarily a human being lives in agony, anguish, anxiety, pain and misery. If you look at Krishna, he has moved to the other polarity: he lives in ecstasy. There is no agony left; the anguish has disappeared. You can love him, you can dance with him for a while, but the bridge will be missing. You are in agony, he is in ecstasy -- where is the bridge?

A Buddha has gone even farther away. He is neither in agony, nor in ecstasy. He is absolutely quiet and calm. He is so far away that you can look at him, but you cannot believe that he is. It looks like a myth -- maybe a wish fulfillment of humanity. How can such a man walk on this earth, so transcendental to all agony and ecstasy? He is too far away.

Jesus is the culmination of all aspiration. He is in agony as you are, as every human being is born -- in agony on the cross. He is in the ecstasy that sometimes a Krishna achieves: he celebrates; he is a song, a dance. And he is also transcendence. There are moments, when you come closer and closer to him, when you will see that his innermost being is neither the cross nor his celebration, but transcendence.

That's the beauty of Christ: there exists a bridge. You can move towards him by and by, and he can lead you towards the unknown -- and so slowly that you will not even be aware when you cross the boundary, when you enter the unknown from the known, when the world disappears and God appears. You can trust him, because he is so like you and yet so unlike. You can believe in him because he is part of your agony; you can understand his language.

That's why Jesus became a great milestone in the history of consciousness. It is not just coincidental that Jesus' birth has become the most important date in history. It has to be so. Before Christ, one world; after Christ, a totally different world has existed -- a demarcation in the consciousness of man. There are so many calendars, so many ways, but the calendar that is based on Christ is the most significant. With him something has changed in man; with him something has penetrated into the consciousness of man. Buddha is beautiful, superb, but not of this world; Krishna is lovable -- but still the bridge is missing. Christ is the bridge.

Hence I have chosen to talk on Christ. But remember always, I am not talking on Christianity. The Church is always anti-Christ. Once you try to organize a rebellion, the rebellion has to be subsided. You cannot organize a storm -- how can you organize a rebellion? A rebellion is true and alive only when it is a chaos.

With Jesus, a chaos entered into human consciousness. Now the organization is not to be done on the outside, in the society; the order has to be brought into the innermost core of your being. Christ has brought a chaos. Now, out of that chaos, you have to be born totally new, an order coming from the innermost being -- not a new Church but a new man, not a new society but a new human consciousness. That is the message.

And these words from the gospel of St. John -- you must have heard them so many times, you must have read them so many times. They have become almost useless, meaningless, insignificant, trivial. They have been repeated so many times that now no bell rings within you when you hear them. But these words are tremendously potential. You may have lost the significance of them, but if you become a little alert, aware, the meaning of these words can be reclaimed. It is going to be a struggle to reclaim the meaning... just like you reclaim a land from the ocean.

Christianity has covered these beautiful words with so many interpretations that the original freshness is lost -- through the mouths of the priests who are simply repeating like parrots without knowing what they are saying: without knowing, without hesitating, without trembling before the sacredness of these words. They are simply repeating words like mechanical robots. Their gestures are false, because everything has been trained.

Once I was invited to a Christian theological college. I was surprised when they took me around the college. It is one of the greatest theological colleges in India: every year they prepare two hundred to three hundred Christian priests and missionaries there -- a five-year training. And everything has to be taught: even how to stand on the pulpit, how to speak, where to give more emphasis, how to move your hands -- everything has to be taught. Then everything becomes false, then the person is just making empty gestures.

These words are like fire, but through centuries of repetition, parrot-like repetition, much dust has gathered around the fire My effort will be to uncover them again. Be very alert because we will be treading on a well-known path in a very unknown way, treading on very well-known territory with a very different, totally new attitude. The territory is going to be old. My effort will be to give you a new consciousness to see it. I would like to lend you my eyes so that you can see the old things in new light. And when you have new eyes, everything becomes new. Listen:

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD.

The Upanishads can feel poor, the Vedas can be jealous:

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD.

What does it mean when the gospel says IN THE BEGINNING? Christians have been interpreting it as if IN THE BEGINNING means that there was a beginning. They have been using and interpreting these words 'IN THE BEGINNING' as if they show something about the beginning of time. But without time how can there be a beginning? To begin, time will be needed in the first place. If time was not in existence, then what do you mean by IN THE BEGINNING?

IN THE BEGINNING is part of time and cannot precede time, so IN THE BEGINNING does not mean that there was a day when God created the world. That's absolutely foolish. IN THE BEGINNING is just a way of talking. IN THE BEGINNING does not mean in the beginning at all, because there has never been a beginning  -- and there can be no end. God is eternal, His creativity is eternal. It has always been so and it will always be so.

Because of these words 'IN THE BEGINNING' much controversy has continued for centuries. There have even been foolish priests and bishops who have tried to fix the exact date: four thousand four years before Christ, on a certain Monday, the world started. And what was God doing before that? Eternity must have preceded it -- four thousand years is nothing. What was he doing before that? Not doing anything at all? Then why suddenly on a certain date did he start the Creation?

It has been a problem, but the problem arises because of a wrong interpretation. No, IN THE BEGINNING is just a way of speaking. One has to start from somewhere, the gospel has to begin from somewhere. Life is eternity, life never starts from anywhere, but every story has to start and every scripture has to start. Arbitrarily they have to choose a certain word and you could not choose better: IN THE BEGINNING. IN THE BEGINNING simply says that we don't know.

But from the very beginning, if there was any beginning, God has been creative. Let me try to say it in a different way: God IS creativity. You can even drop the word 'God'. In fact the gospel itself does not want to use the word 'God'. IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD.

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD. What word are you talking about, what is this word? Somebody who has known truth knows well that to name God is futile: there is no name, no definition -- and all words are small, they cannot contain the whole. THE WORD is again simply a way of indicating the nameless, the unknown. IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD.

Jews, who preceded Jesus, of whom Jesus was the very culmination.... The Judaic spirit came to a fulfillment in Jesus. Of course they denied Jesus; that is another story. Sometimes it happens that somebody amongst you attains to the fulfillment of the whole race, but the fulfillment is so vast and so great and you are so low that you cannot believe it; you have to deny it.

Christ rose high. Jews had been waiting for centuries for this man -- look at the irony! -- they had been waiting for centuries for this man to happen, all their hope was with this man who would transform their lives and who would bring the kingdom of God on earth... and then this man happened and they themselves, who had been waiting for him, could not believe, could not trust. What happened?

They became too addicted to waiting itself. "Now, if this is the man, then what will we do?" Then the waiting will have to stop, will have to be stopped. And they had waited so long -- in fact, waiting itself had become their whole activity, their whole religious activity: waiting for the son of God to come. And now suddenly this man is there and says, "I am here."

But now they would rather cling to their waiting than look at this man -- because to look at this man will be the end; now there is nothing else to wait for. Future disappears, hope disappears, desire disappears. This man will kill all hoping, all desiring, all future -- that is too much! The old mind has become addicted to its own waiting, the old mind has become addicted to its own misery, frustration -- now it is too much.

It happens: if you have been ill very long, by and by you start having a certain investment in the illness. Then you become afraid -- if you become healthy again, fear arises because you will have to go to the office again, to the marketplace. For these few years you have been resting: there has been no anxiety; you could relax. Now again the responsibility. And not only that -- for these few years that you have been ill, everybody has been sympathetic to you, almost everybody tried to love you. You have become the center of your family, friends, acquaintances; everybody has been kind. To move again in the harsh and cruel world: the mind recoils back; it doesn't seem worth it.

If a race has been waiting for too long.... And Jews have always been waiting. They are still waiting -- and the man has happened and gone. But they have invested too much in waiting: their waiting has become their prayer, their synagogues are nothing but waiting rooms for the messiah to come. And he has been here!

And I tell you, if he comes again -- though I don't think he will commit the same mistake again -- if he comes again, Jews still will not accept him, because then what will happen to their waiting? They have lived too much in it; their imprisonment has become their home and they have decorated it. And now to move in the harsh, open sky -- where sometimes the sun is burning too much, and sometimes it is raining, and sometimes it is cold or it is hot -- it is dangerous. They are sheltered.

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD...

Jews have been insistently emphasizing that God's name should not be asserted because it is something to keep deep down in the heart. To assert it is to make it profane; to say it is to make it part of the ordinary world and language. To say it again and again is to make it lose its meaning and significance.

If you love somebody and the whole day you say, "I love you, I love you," many times -- and you enjoy saying it -- in the beginning the other person may be happy, but sooner or later the thing is going to be too much. "I love you, I love you" -- you are making a beautiful word useless. Don't use it too much. Then it is significant, then it carries some meaning. In fact those who are really in love may not use it at all. If the love is not shown by itself it cannot be said -- there is no need to say it. And if it is shown by itself, then what is the need to say it? There should be a few key words which you use rarely, very rarely. They should be kept for rare occasions when you touch a peak.

The Jews have always insisted that the name of God should not be taken. It was the custom in the old days, before Christ, that only the High Priest of the Temple of Solomon was allowed to use it -- and once a year only. Nobody else was allowed. So THE WORD is the code, the code for God's name. Something has to be used to indicate it and this is a beautiful code: THE WORD. They don't use any words: they simply say: THE WORD. The same has been done in India also. If you ask Sikhs, the followers of Nanak, they will say: NAM, the Name. They don't say any name; they.simply say: the Name. It means the same as THE WORD.

Only the High Priest was allowed, and the High Priest had to purify himself. The whole year he would purify himself and fast and pray and get ready. Then one day in the year the whole community would gather. Then too the High Priest would not utter the word before the crowd: he would move into the innermost shrine of the temple; the doors would be closed. Deep in silence where nobody could hear -- the crowd would be waiting outside and there was no possibility for them to hear -- he would assert the name in such sanctity, deep love, intimacy. He was asserting the name for the whole community.

It was a blissful day when the name was asserted. Then for the whole year the name was not to be brought to the lips. You have to carry it in the heart; it has to become like a seed. If you bring the seed out of the soil again and again, it will never sprout. Keep it deep down. Water it, protect it, but keep it deep in darkness so that it sprouts, dies and is reborn.

The name of God has to be kept deep in the heart. Even you should not hear it; it should be so deep in your being, in your subliminal depths, that it never even reaches to your own mind. That is the meaning of why the High Priest goes into the innermost shrine. Nobody hears, the doors are closed, and he asserts the name once. The meaning is this: go into the deepest shrine of your temple of the heart, purify yourself, and once in a while, when you feel the fragrance of your being -- when you are at the peak of your energy, when you are really alive and not an iota of sadness lingers around you: you are happy, tremendously happy, ecstatically happy and tranquil and silent, you are in a state where you can thank, where you can feel grateful -- then go into the innermost shrine. Your mind will be left out -- that is the crowd. You move deeper in the heart and there you assert so silently that even your mind will not be able to hear it. There, the Word has to be carried.

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD.

There is no difference between God and His name. He has no name; He himself is His name. His `is-ness' is His name; His existence is His name. A child is born. What name does he have? -- no name. But he is. That `is-ness' is his name. Then, for utilitarian purposes, we give a name to him and by and by he will forget his `is-ness' and he will become identified with the name. If somebody insults the name, he will be angry; if somebody praises the name, he will be very happy. And the name never belonged to him!

God is the child, always the child, always the innocence of the world. He has no name. That is the meaning of this saying: AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD. `Is-ness', existence, being: AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD. His name is His being. Don't repeat His name, move into His being -- that is the only way to attain Him. In fact, forget about Him. Move into your own being and `is-ness', and you will attain to Him.

ALL THINGS WERE MADE BY HIM; AND WITHOUT HIM WAS NOT ANYTHING MADE THAT WAS MADE.

God is creativity. To say that God is the Creator is already to falsify Him, but to say, "God is creativity," will not be understandable. Then people will think: then why use 'God'?  -- just `creativity' will do. We say, "God is the Creator," but because of this expression much nonsense arises. Then when did He create the world? Then why didn't He create it before? Why couldn't He create it before, why did He create it at the time He created it? Why has He created it the way it is? Why can't He improve it?

So much misery, so much suffering in the world, and He is the Creator. Then God becomes the culprit. Then we feel angry: if He is the Creator then He is responsible for all. Why can't He change it? Then all sorts of problems arise, and theologians go on answering these questions.

In the first place, they need not arise if you look at the thing directly. God is not the Creator, He is creativity. Creativity is His being. He has always been creating; He cannot be on a holiday from His creativity. That is not possible; you cannot go on a holiday from your innermost nature -- no. Whatsoever you can leave is not your nature; that which you CANNOT leave is your nature.

God's nature is creativity. He has always been creating. And there is no other way: the only way the world can exist is how it exists. It is the only way. Whatsoever you think or condemn or appreciate is meaningless. It is like going to a rose and asking, "Why do you only have so many petals? A few more could be there. What was wrong? " But if a few more were there, the same question would have again been relevant.

Whatsoever the world, the mind will always create questions. So those who know, drop the mind and accept the world. And there are only two ways: either accept the mind and be against the world, or accept the world and drop the mind. This is the only way things are and can be, and there is nobody you can complain to and there is nobody who can listen to your complaints and improve. God is creativity, not a Creator.

ALL THINGS WERE MADE BY HIM -- all things really are made OF Him, not BY Him! -- AND WITHOUT HIM WAS NOT ANYTHING MADE THAT WAS MADE. And not only in the past -- even now whenever a thing is created He is the creator, you are only the instrument.

You paint a picture or you write a song. What do you think -- you are the creator? In the moment of deep creativity you disappear, God again starts functioning. So it is not a question of the past. Wherever and whenever creativity happens, it is always through Him. Ask all the great poets. They will say that whenever great poems have descended on them, they were, at the most, passive receivers. It happened; they were not the creators.

The idea that you can create is simply your illusion. All creativity belongs to Him. Even through you, whatsoever is created He is the creator. To understand this is a great illumination. To understand this the ego disappears; to understand this is to allow Him to take total possession of you. You become an instrument, and in small things, great things become possible. Then He moves through you. If you dance, He dances. You are, at the most, the field where He dances. When you sing, He sings. You are, at the most, the flute, the empty flute, which just becomes a passage to it. At the most you can allow -- it is always He who is doing things.

This is what I mean when I say `float', when I say `flow with the river'. Allow His creativity to flow through you. Don't impose any pattern on Him; don't impose your will. If you can allow yourself to be totally possessed, there is no misery and you are no more a human being. The Jesus within you has become Christ the very moment you allow total possession. Then the Jesus disappears and the Christ appears.

Christ is the principle; Jesus is the son of the carpenter Joseph. Jesus disappeared at a certain moment and Christ entered. `Christ' simply means that now the man is no longer man, the man is God-possessed. Just like when somebody goes mad and you say, "The man is maddened," you can say "The man is 'goddened'." Now the man is no more there.

IN HIM WAS LIFE; AND THE LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN.

God is the only existence, the only being: the only life there is; the only dance there is; the only movement, the only energy there is. In the ocean and in the waves, in the illusory world and in the truth, in the dreams and the dreamer, the only energy there is, is God. All is He; He is all.

IN HIM WAS LIFE; AND THE LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN. And whenever you come to understand this -- this: that He is the only life -- your life becomes enlightened. You are full of light then. GOD IS LIFE! If you understand this your whole life becomes full of light. His life becomes a light in your understanding. When His life is reflected within you, it becomes light.

AND THE LIGHT SHINETH IN DARKNESS; AND THE DARKNESS COMPREHENDED IT NOT.

And the light is shining all around you. Life is all around you -- in the birds, in the trees, in the river. Life is all around you, there is nothing else -- you are living in the ocean of life. Out and in, within and without, only life is bubbling. A great stream of life, and you are just like a fish in it.

AND THE LIGHT SHINETH IN DARKNESS; AND THE DARKNESS COMPREHENDED IT NOT.

But you don't comprehend it. You are still identified with darkness, your eyes are still closed. You are blind.

This is a beautiful thing to understand: THERE WAS A MAN SENT FROM GOD...

This should be so. These are parables but I say they should be so, because how will a man who has lived in darkness be able to come to light by himself, alone? A Master will be needed.

If you are fast asleep, how will you awaken yourself? -- it seems impossible. Somebody who is already awake will be needed to shake you out of your sleep, to give you a jerk, so your needle of unconsciousness jumps out of the groove and takes a new route. For a single moment you open your eyes and you look.

THERE WAS A MAN SENT FROM GOD, WHOSE NAME WAS JOHN.

Unless God himself is going to do it, it seems almost impossible that you will be able to realize what is what. So all the religions of the world.... Hindus say AVATARS; they say, "Man himself is so helpless that God has to descend." AVATAR means descendence of God. He has to come himself to awaken you.

This simply shows how deeply you are in sleep, nothing else -- not that you have to make it a fanatic belief that God comes down. It simply shows that you are so fast asleep that unless God comes down, there seems to be no possibility for you. And if sometimes you awaken, it simply shows that God must have come down to awaken you.

THERE WAS A MAN SENT FROM GOD, WHOSE NAME WAS JOHN. THE SAME CAME FOR A WITNESS, TO BEAR WITNESS OF THE LIGHT, THAT ALL MEN THROUGH HIM MIGHT BELIEVE.

I am here. If you can look into me, you will come to trust in things that you have not been able to realize yourself. Through me, you can have a little glimpse of that which is still unseen.

And God is the unseen. Somebody is needed who can be a witness, who can bear witness, who can say, "Yes, I know Him," who can resound in your depths, who can give you a taste, by his touch, that "Yes, God exists." God can never be just a belief, because a belief will be impotent. It will be intellectual, heady, but it will not transform you. You can carry the belief for your whole life: it will be a part of your junkyard; it won't change you.

Trust, faith, is different. Belief is intellectual; trust is existential. But how can you come to trust unless you come close to a man who can bear witness, who can say from his very depths of being that "Yes, God is"? If you allow yourself to become vulnerable to him, and his being stirs something within you, then a trust is born.

THE SAME CAME FOR A WITNESS -- John became a witness -- TO BEAR WITNESS OF THE LIGHT.... He has known the Light, he is coming from the Light. And remember, whosoever knows the Light also knows that he is coming from the Light, because there is no other way of being here.

You may not be knowing it, but you also come from the Light. That is the very source -- the seed and the source of all life. You may be unaware, you may have forgotten, you may have become completely oblivious of the fact of where you come from -- the source is so far away that you don't remember at all -- but whosoever within you will become aware of the Light will immediately become aware that "I am coming from Him." In fact he will immediately become aware that "I am Him; I am He. My father and I are one."

As above, so below. He will claim, just as the seers of the Upanishads have claimed: "AHAM BRAHMASMI... I am that." Or he will say, like Mansoor: "ANALAHAK... I am the truth." Or like Jesus: "I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE." Jesus says, "If you trust me, you have trusted Him who has sent me; if you love me, you have loved the one that you know not."

THE SAME CAME FOR A WITNESS, TO BEAR WITNESS OF THE LIGHT, THAT ALL MEN THROUGH HIM MIGHT BELIEVE. John is a door, a window, from whom you can have a glimpse of the faraway Himalayan peaks.

HE WAS NOT THAT LIGHT, BUT WAS SENT TO BEAR WITNESS OF THAT LIGHT.

This has to be understood, this is one of the really significant things. Whenever a man like Jesus comes, he is always preceded by someone who prepares the ground. It has to be so because a ready ground is needed. Life is a deep continuity; everything is related, it is one whole. John came to prepare the ground because many weeds were there. Grass was growing, a thousand and one types of trees trespassed the whole land. They had to be cut -- weeds removed, the soil changed. Only then could the gardener come and sow the new seeds.

Whenever there is a man like Jesus, he is always preceded. So the gospel says: HE WAS NOT THAT LIGHT, BUT WAS SENT TO BEAR WITNESS OF THAT LIGHT -- he had come to prepare the ground.

HE CAME UNTO HIS OWN, BUT HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT.

He has come to help; he has come to fulfill the aspiration of ages. He has come unto his own... BUT HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT. This is something very ironical, but it has always happened. Jesus is born a Jew: Jews will not accept him. Buddha was born a Hindu: Hindus will not accept him. This is how it has always been. Why? Because whenever a man like Jesus or Buddha is born, he is such a rebellion that all that is established is shaken.

An ordinary man lives in the past -- and for the ordinary man the past is more important because the past is already established, grounded. He has much at stake in the past, much investment in the past. For example, if I suddenly come to you and tell you that the way you have been praying is wrong, and you have prayed that way for fifty years -- now there is much at stake. To believe me will be to believe that your fifty years have been useless. To believe me will be to disbelieve fifty years of your own life; to believe me will be to believe that you have been a fool for fifty years. This is too much! You will fight, you will defend.

And when it is a question of a race.... Thousands of years the race has been doing certain things, and then a Jesus comes and he throws things upside down. Everything is again a chaos. He melts all that is established, uproots all that was thought to be very significant, creates confusion. He has to, because he has now brought you the right thing. But you have been believing that something else was right for so many centuries. What to choose -- Jesus or your own long past? What to choose -- Jesus or the tradition?

Do you know from where the word `tradition' comes? It comes from the same root as the word `trade'. It also comes from the same root as the word `traitor'. Tradition is a trade, it is a business -- and tradition is also a betrayal.

Tradition believes in certain things which are not true -- tradition is a traitor to truth -- so whenever truth comes, there is conflict. You can see this here. I am born a Jain, but Jains won't accept me. Here you can find Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, Hindus, Buddhists, but very few Jains. Impossible for them to accept me. HE CAME UNTO HIS OWN, BUT HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT.

Jains are too much against me. Hindus are not so much against me but they are also, a little. But Christians -- no. Jews -- not at all. The further away you go, the less is the antagonism. I am born a Jain -- Jains are a small community, surrounded from everywhere by Hindus; Jains are almost Hindus -- so Jains will be very antagonistic, Hindus a little less, and Mohammedans, Christians and Jews not so much.

The further away you go, the less will be the antagonism. Hence you can understand why so many people from so many countries are here and not so many Indians. With Indians there is a problem: their tradition is at stake. If they believe me, then their tradition -- they will have to lose it.

That's why you will see more young people near me and less old people, because young people do not have much investment in their past. In fact, a young man is looking for the future, an old man looking after the past. A young man has a future; an old man has only a past. The future means death: his whole life is past. So whenever a man of seventy comes to me, it is very difficult to change him because seventy years will be fighting me. When a small boy of seven comes, a little Siddharth, there is nothing to fight. He can surrender absolutely, there is nothing -- he has no past, just the future. He can be adventurous, he can take the risk; he has nothing to lose. But an old man -- he has much to lose. That's why if a pundit comes -- one who knows too much without knowing it -- he will have much fight, he will have all sorts of arguments, he will defend himself. He has much to lose. But when an innocent man comes who says, "I don't know much," he is easy, he is ready to let go.

HE CAME UNTO HIS OWN, AND HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT.

BUT AS MANY AS RECEIVED HIM, TO THEM GAVE HE POWER TO BECOME THE SONS OF GOD, EVEN TO THEM THAT BELIEVE ON HIS NAME:

AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH....

Very few people came to him. John lived near the River Jordan, in the wilderness, outside the cities and towns. People who really wanted to be transformed, they would seek him and come to him. Very few came, but those who came -- TO THEM GAVE HE POWER TO BECOME THE SONS OF GOD, EVEN TO THEM THAT BELIEVE ON HIS NAME. Those who could trust were transformed. And he prepared the ground: these were the first prepared people to whom Jesus was to appear.

AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, AND DWELT AMONG US, (AND WE BEHELD HIS GLORY, THE GLORY AS OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER), FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH.

AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH -- one of the most beautiful sentences in the gospel -- AND DWELT AMONG US. Jesus is as if the Word has become flesh: God has become man. The secret has become open; the hidden has become unhidden; the mystery has become an open truth. All the doors of the temple are open.

AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, AND DWELT AMONG US.... John created the situation, because the Word can become flesh only when the listener is ready.

If you are ready, then I can tell you what I carry within my heart. If you are not ready, it is impossible to utter it; it will be absolutely useless. In fact, it cannot be brought out unless you are ready. When your heart is ready, that very readiness will bring the truth that I carry within my heart. Then the heart can talk to the heart, depth can respond to depth.

John created a group, a small group of chosen people who would be able to trust, who would be able to see with the eyes of trust. Only then is Jesus possible. Remember this: If the listener is ready, only then can the truth be uttered.

I was travelling in this country for many years, all year round, just to find people who would be able to transform themselves so that whatsoever I carry within me can become flesh, it can be uttered. Now people ask me why I don't go anywhere. That work is done. Now those who are ready will come to me. Now this is the only way.

That's why I don't want masses and crowds to come here -- because if they come, then I will not to able to utter that which I carry... and I would like to share it before I leave. If you are ready, then and only then can something of the beyond descend on you.

AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, AND DWELT AMONG US, (AND WE BEHELD HIS GLORY, THE GLORY AS OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER).... And this is really something to be understood, because Christians have been misinterpreting it continuously. They go on saying Christ is the only begotten son of God. Yes, it is true in a way -- but not true in the way Christians say it.

Buddha is also the only begotten son of God, and Krishna is also the only begotten son of God. Remember, I emphasize: THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD. And I am also the only begotten son of God, and you are also the only begotten son of God. Then why say `only begotten'? If all are His sons, then why say it?

It has some significance, some meaning -- it has to be said. It is just like this: you fall in love with a woman and you say, "You are the only woman, the only beautiful woman in the world." Not that this is true, but still, in a certain moment of love, it is true. It is not an ordinary fact; it is a truth. When you say to a woman, "You are the only beautiful woman in the world who has ever existed or will ever exist," that doesn't mean that you know all the women who have existed in the world before or that you know that all the women who are going to exist will not be more beautiful than this. How can you know, how can you compare? This is not a logical fact; this is a poetic realization.

In that moment of love it is not a question of statistics. Some logician can raise the argument: "Wait! Do you know all the women that exist right now in the world? Have you looked, searched, and have you found that this is the most beautiful woman in the world? What are you saying? You are using comparative language."

But you will say, "I'm not worried about other women, and this is not comparative. I am not comparing: I am simply asserting a truth about my feeling. It is not a fact of the outside world; it is a truth of my inner feeling. This is how I feel: that this is the most beautiful woman in the world. I am not saying anything about the woman; I am saying something about my heart. I don't know all the women; there is no need." It is not comparison. It is a simple feeling. You are so possessed by the feeling that NOT to say this will be wrong.

When you love Jesus, he is the only begotten son of God. So this sentence is good: it says... THE GLORY AS OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER. `As' -- as IF he is the only begotten son of God. Those who fall in love with Jesus -- for them he is the only begotten son of God. They are not saying anything about Buddha or against Buddha. They are not comparing.

That's what I mean when I say Buddha is also the only begotten son, you are also. Everybody in this world is unique. Once you attain to your inner realization, you are the only begotten son of God -- as if the whole existence exists for you and only for you. The trees flower for you and the birds sing for you and the rivers flow for you and clouds gather together for you. You become the sole center of existence when you attain.

Or, if you fall in love with a Buddha, a Jesus or anybody -- these assertions of lovers should not be taken as statements of fact. They are poetic realizations. You cannot argue with them; they are not arguments at all. They assert something of the heart.

AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, AND DWELT AMONG US... FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH. Wherever truth is, there is grace. And wherever there is grace, there is truth.

Try to understand this. You can be graceful only when you are true. If you have a certain lie within you, that lie will disturb your grace, that lie will be poisonous to your beauty, because that lie has to be hidden, suppressed. Nobody is to be allowed to know it. You cannot be open; you will be shut by the lie.

If you deceive, you cannot be free and flowing. You will be stuck with your deception. So I don't say that lies are bad because they are harmful to others -- no. They are bad because you will miss your own grace. Deceptions are not bad because you deceive others; deceptions are bad because they will disturb your flow and you will not be flowing. You will start freezing. In many places you will be stuck, dead. You will have blocks in your being.

Look at a child. Every child has grace. Then where does it disappear to? When every child brings grace in the world, where does it disappear? By and by it is lost, and then everybody becomes graceless, ugly. It is rare that somebody is capable of being as graceful as he was when he was a child. What happens? Why is a child graceful?

Have you seen a child whom you can say is ugly? No, that never exists. A child, and ugly, is impossible. All children are beautiful, unconditionally beautiful. They are flowing, and they are true. When they want to cry, they cry; when they want to laugh, they laugh. When they are angry, they are angry, and when they are loving, they are loving. They are true to the moment, they are never deceiving.

But soon they learn the politics. Soon they will learn that: "Mother likes it if I smile. It is easier to persuade her, it is easier to manipulate her, if I smile." A small child is becoming a politician! He waits. He may be angry inside, but when the mother comes he smiles because that is the only way to get the ice-cream. Now the smile is false, and a false smile is ugly because the whole being is not in it; it is something painted from without. Then more and more things will be painted, more and more personalities will gather around, and the essence will be lost. Then you become ugly. Truth and grace are always together. Truth is grace, and grace is truth.

The gospel catches the exact point of Jesus' being: truth and grace. He was true, profoundly true to the very core -- utmost, utterly true. That's how he got into trouble. To live with a society which is absolutely untrue, to live with it with utter truthfulness, is to get into trouble.

And the grace. He was not a politician and he was not a priest. He simply loved life and lived it. He was not here to preach anything: he had no dogma to inculcate, he had no ideas to force on people. In fact, he lived a pure, graceful, flowing life, and he was infectious. With whomsoever he moved -- whomsoever came into contact with him was magnetized, hypnotized. This man was a child, an innocent child. People were attracted. People left their houses, their jobs: they simply started following him.

He was not a preacher, he was not giving any political revolution to the world, he was not giving any reformation to the world. He was just giving you a way to live flowingly. And that was the trouble -- because Jews are one of the most suppressed races in the world. Very suppressive. moralistic, puritans. That became the troublesome thing. They live by principles. They live by the law, and the law has to be followed.

Of course, they are very successful people in the world. If you live by the law you will be very successful. If you live by love, you are bound to be a failure. It is miserable, unfortunate, but it is so: law succeeds, love fails -- in the world. In God: love succeeds, law fails -- but who bothers about God?

Jews are very lawful, very good citizens, and wherever they move they are always successful because they always move by the law. They live by arithmetic. That is why they get most of the Nobel prizes in the world. Nobody can compete with them. Very talented -- in business they are successful, in politics; whatsoever they do, they do exactly the right thing. But they are very formalistic puritans, in a deep bondage with the mind. A deep hangover in the mind continues.

And Jesus started talking about law. The gospel says:

AND OF HIS FULLNESS HAVE ALL WE RECEIVED, AND GRACE FOR GRACE.

FOR THE LAW WAS GIVEN BY MOSES, BUT GRACE AND TRUTH CAME BY JESUS CHRIST.

THE LAW WAS GIVEN BY MOSES. Moses is the foundation of Judaism. Of course it was needed because unless law is established, love will not be possible. Law is a must, it is a necessity, but it is not enough.

Moses gave the law to the world. The people were primitive, uncultured; they had no sense of society. Moses created a society, and one of the most enduring societies -- the Jews. In fact, Moses must have been a great genius because he provided the law, and Jews have survived all sorts of catastrophes. He must have given them a very permanent base. But he was a lawgiver, just as Manu was the lawgiver to Hindus. Moses is the Manu of Jews, he gave the law.

Let me tell you a small story. It happened that Moses was passing and he came across a man who was praying. But he was doing such an absurd prayer (not only absurd, but insulting to God) that Moses stopped. It was absolutely unlawful. It is better not to pray than to pray in such a way, because the man was saying things which are impossible to believe. The man was saying, "Let me come close to you my God. my Lord, and I promise that I will clean your body when it is dirty. Even if lice are there, I will take them away.... And I am a good shoe-maker, I will make you perfect shoes. You are moving in such ancient shoes -- dirty, gone completely dirty.... And nobody looks after you, my Lord. I will look after you. When you are ill, I will serve and give you medicine. And I am a good cook also!"

This type of prayer he was doing! So Moses said, "Stop! Stop your nonsense! What are you saying? To whom are. you talking -- to God? And He has lice on His body? And His clothes are dirty and you will clean them? And nobody is there to look after Him, and you will be His cook? From whom have you learned this prayer?"

The man said, "I have not learned it from anywhere. I am a very poor and uneducated man, and I don't know how to pray. I have made it up myself and these are the things that I know. Lice trouble me very much, so He must be in trouble. And sometimes the food is not good -- my wife is not a good cook -- and my stomach aches. He must be also suffering. This is just my own experience that has become my prayer. But if you know the right prayer, you teach me."

So Moses taught him the right prayer. The man bowed down to Moses, thanked him, tears of deep gratitude flowing, and he went away. Moses was very happy. He thought that he had done a good deed. He looked at the sky to see what God thought about it.

And God was very angry! He said, "I have sent you there to bring people closer to me, but you have thrown away one of my greatest lovers. Now he will be doing the right prayer, but it won't be a prayer at all -- because prayer has nothing to do with the law. It is LOVE. Love is a law unto itself; it needs no other law."

But Moses is the lawgiver. He founded the society: he brought the Ten Commandments. Those Ten Commandments have remained the foundation of the whole Western world: Judaic, Christian, Mohammedan -- all three religions depend on the law of Moses.

So the whole world has known only two lawgivers: the East knows Manu and the West knows Moses. Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, they have been supplied the law by Manu, the law has been given by Manu, and Moses has given to Mohammedans, Christians, Jews.

These two lawgivers have created the whole world. And there must be something -- both are `M': Manu and Moses. Then comes Marx who is the third `M'. China, Russia -- he has given the law to them. These are the three great `M's' -- lawgivers.

FOR THE LAW WAS GIVEN BY MOSES...

Law is for the society; love is for the individual. Law is how you behave with others; love is how you behave with yourself. Love is an inner flowering; law is an outward performance. Because you live with people you have to be lawful, but that is not enough -- good, but not enough. If a person is simply lawful, he will be dead. He will be a good citizen, but he will be dead. Law can be the foundation of the society, but it cannot be the very building. You can live on the law, but you cannot LIVE in it. It has no space for that. For that, love is needed.

Jesus was the fulfillment of Moses. What Moses started Jesus was completing, but Jews denied him; what Manu started Buddha was completing, but Hindus denied him. Marx still needs a Buddha or a Jesus in the world. Someday he will come, but Communists will deny him.

They become law-oriented. Then love seems to be against law. In fact, law is needed only so that love can become possible. Law is needed so that people can live peacefully and love; law is not, in itself, the end. It is the means; love is the end. But when people become too law-abiding, then love itself seems to be unlawful. They become afraid of love because who knows? -- you are moving on a dangerous path.

Love is mad; law is calculation. Law is dependable, the society can decide on it. But love is not reliable -- who will decide? Love knows no rules: it is not arithmetic, it is poetry. It is dangerous. Love is always wild, and law is social.

Remember this: be lawful but don't end there, otherwise you lived in vain. In fact, you lived not. Be lawful because if you are not lawful you will be in trouble. You have to be in the society, you have to follow certain rules, but they are only rules. There is nothing ultimate about them, there is nothing from God about them.

Let me tell you this: the Ten Commandments were created by Moses. They were not from God, they cannot be. Those Ten Commandments are human rules of the game. "Don't steal! " -- because property is individual. But if the game changes and the property becomes shared, then "Don't steal!" will not be much of a law. Or if someday the world becomes really affluent then there will be so much that nobody steals. Stealing is possible only if poverty is there. People are hungry and poor -- they steal. But if the society is affluent, as it is going to be someday, and there are too many things -- whatsoever you need, more is available -- then who will be a thief? Then the commandment will disappear. there will be no need for it.

The Ten Commandments are social. Moses brings the law; Jesus brings truth, grace, love. Love is from God, law is from the mind. Love is of God, law is of man.

And with love, grace happens. And with love -- truth. Remember this, because to understand Jesus is to understand the phenomenon of love. To understand Jesus is to understand the intricacies of grace. To understand Jesus is to understand truth. Remember, if you can understand truth, truth liberates. And there is no other liberation.