THE MUSTARD SEED: My Most Loved Gospel on Jesus
Become a gardener
THE TWENTY-FIRST SAYING
JESUS SAID: IF YOU BRING FORTH THAT WITHIN YOURSELVES, THAT WHICH YOU HAVE WILL SAVE YOU. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THAT WITHIN YOURSELVES, THAT WHICH YOU DO NOT HAVE WILL KILL YOU.
JESUS SAID: LET HIM WHO SEEKS, NOT CEASE SEEKING UNTIL HE FINDS.
AND WHEN HE FINDS HE WILL BE TROUBLED, HE WILL MARVEL, AND HE WILL REIGN OVER ALL.
AND HE SAID: WHOEVER FINDS EXPLANATION OF THESE WORDS WILL NOT TASTE DEATH.
The search is for oneself. Whatsoever you seek, deep down you are seeking yourself in it. That’s why the whole outward search proves ultimately futile. You may be seeking wealth, but you are seeking yourself. When you attain to wealth then you will realize the futility of it; wealth is attained but you remain unfulfilled. It was not wealth that you were seeking at all, the direction was wrong: you chose to move further away from yourself, and you wanted to seek yourself.
What exactly is a man seeking through wealth? He is seeking life through wealth, more life, abundant life.
The mind says, ‘Without wealth how can you live?‘ The mind says, ‘Without wealth how can you be secure?‘ The mind says, ‘Without wealth how will you protect yourself against death?‘
Wealth is a protection against death; the search is for life. But when you attain wealth, suddenly it is revealed that wealth cannot protect you. And if wealth cannot protect you against death, how can it give you more and abundant life? No, you were seeking in a wrong direction.
Another man is seeking power, prestige. What is he seeking? He is seeking to be omnipotent, he is seeking to be so powerful that death cannot destroy him. But that is deep down, he is not even aware of it. When he attains to power, then the poverty will be revealed.
Hence the paradox that whenever you succeed in this world, you feel ultimate failure. I say again and again that nothing fails like success. If you don’t succeed, then the illusion can be maintained, then you think, ‘Someday or other I will succeed and I will attain.‘ But if you succeed, how can you maintain the illusion anymore? You have succeeded, and the inner emptiness remains the same. Rather, on the contrary, now you can feel it more against the contrast: the wealth is there all around you, and within, the poverty; light is there all around you, and within, darkness; life is all around you, and within, death. That’s why, whenever a society becomes affluent, rich, suddenly religion becomes meaningful.
In a poor society religion cannot be meaningful, because people have not yet failed. Their search still carries meaning, the outward search. They think if they can get a good house everything will be okay; they think if they can get a little money then everything will be okay. A poor man can live in illusion, but not a rich man. And if you see a rich man also living in illusion, remember well, he is still poor, he has not succeeded yet.
A Buddha leaves the palace, a Mahavira leaves the kingdom. They succeeded, and success failed them. They became alert that the whole direction had been wrong, so they took an about-turn. They moved into totally the opposite direction: they were kings, they became beggars; they were clothed in the costliest clothes possible, they became naked. It became a conversion: success fails, and failure becomes a conversion.
But why does success fail? It fails because you were searching not for wealth, you were searching not for power, you were searching not for security and safety; you were not searching for a house, you were searching for something else. You were searching for the eternal home from where there is no going away. You were searching for an eternal rest, you were searching for a peace which lasts forever, nontemporal. That is what the search is: a search for the home. It is not a search for any house outside, it is a search for a state of being where you are at home. You were not searching for wealth, you were searching for protection against death; you were searching for a life which no death can destroy.
This life is going to be destroyed. Every moment the fear is there. How can you live this life when it exists just as if you are standing on a volcano? Any moment the explosion, any moment you can be thrown into death. You may live a hundred years, but you will tremble for a hundred years.
Just a few years ago scientists started thinking about this problem, because now there is a possibility that man’s life can be lengthened as much as we want. Within this century it will become possible to change the blueprint in the chromosome in the basic cell. And then you can feed to the basic cell that this body is going to live three hundred years, and then the body will live three hundred years. Right now it lives seventy years because your father and your mother lived almost seventy years; unconsciously they have fed this…. A blueprint is carried by the cell that within seventy years you will die. If we can change the blueprint in the cell, then man can live as long as he wants. This has been one of the greatest dreams: to win over death, to prolong life as long as one wants.
Just a few years back, scientists stumbled upon the fact. Now it can be done, within this century it has become feasible, but a new problem has arisen. They thought that if this could be done, then everybody would be happy and the fear of death would disappear, the anxiety about death would disappear. But no! When they pondered over the problem, they became aware that if a man lives for seventy years, he is afraid of death for seventy years. If he lives for three hundred years, he will be afraid of death for three hundred years. Fear will increase, not decrease. How can the fear go? You may live for three thousand years, it makes no difference — only that for three thousand years you are on the volcano, any moment it can erupt, and the fear continues.
The search is for a deathless existence. And that existence is within you — you are within you. That’s why you cannot touch yourself: hands cannot move inwards, they move outwards, they have been invented to manipulate the outside world; legs cannot travel inwards, there is no need, there is no space to travel; eyes cannot see within, no need — because your being has invented this whole mechanism in order to exist with things, persons, the outside.
Inside, nothing is needed. Inside, you are perfect. Inside, nothing is to be done, everything is as it should be, it is already the case.
The search is for this inner being — and that inner being is omnipotent. No power can become a substitute for it. You may become a Napoleon or a Hitler or anybody you imagine, but you will remain powerless. Unless you become a Buddha or a Jesus, you cannot become omnipotent, you cannot be all-powerful. You may become an Einstein or a Bertrand Russell, but you cannot be all-knowing. You may collect information, as much as you can, but your inner ignorance will remain the same, unless you become a Jesus, a Zarathustra — then you become all-knowing.
The search is for omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence. Remember these three words. They are derived from a Sanskrit root, aum. In Sanskrit, aum is the symbol for the whole universe. It carries three basic sounds: a-u-m. Through these three basic sounds all the sounds have evolved. So aum is the basic sound, the synthesis of all the basic roots. That’s why Hindus have been saying that aum is the secret mantra, the greatest mantra, because it implies the whole existence.
The three English words, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, are derived from aum. They mean one who has become as powerful as aum, one who has become as knowing as aum, one who has become as present as aum — one who has become universal, one who has become the all. And unless the all is achieved, there cannot be any contentment, there cannot be a deep, ultimate satisfaction. You will remain a beggar, and you will go on begging from one life to another; you will move like a beggar, you cannot be the emperor.
Now, we should try to penetrate these beautiful words of Jesus. He is saying very strange things.
JESUS SAID: IF YOU BRING FORTH THAT WITHIN YOURSELVES, THAT WHICH YOU HAVE WILL SAVE YOU. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THAT WITHIN YOURSELVES, THAT WHICH YOU DO NOT HAVE WILL KILL YOU.
Very strange! He says: IF YOU BRING FORTH THAT which is already WITHIN YOURSELVES — if you allow it to grow, if you help it to manifest, to unfold, that which is already there, the mustard seed…. It is already there; the seed of the divine, the seed of the kingdom of God is already there. If you help it, if you allow it to grow… THAT WHICH YOU HAVE WILL SAVE YOU. You already have it, it will save you. But if you miss… IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THAT WITHIN YOURSELVES, THAT WHICH YOU DO NOT HAVE WILL KILL YOU.
If you miss it — as I told you, the word sin in Hebrew means missing the mark — if you miss yourself, you are a sinner. It is already there, you carry the mustard seed, but you don’t give it to the soil, to the right soil, you don’t water it, you have not become a gardener. You carry the seed, dead, encased in the cell, you don’t put it into the earth. You are afraid that the seed may die. The fear is true in a sense: the seed will have to die, only the tree will be born. Every unfoldment is a death and a birth. The past has to die, the old has to die, only then is the new born. The seed will have to die — that’s why you are afraid, so you protect the seed.
I have heard, once it happened: One king was puzzled because he had three sons, and they were all wise, strong, talented, and it was difficult to decide to whom the father should give the kingdom, who would be the ruler after him. And he was getting older every day. It was very difficult to decide because they were all equal in every way, they were equally talented. So he asked a wise man what to do. The wise man made a plan and he told the king, ‘You go on a pilgrimage.‘ And following the wise man’s plan, the king called his three sons and gave them the same quantity of certain seeds of beautiful flowers. He told them, ‘Preserve these seeds as carefully as possible, because your whole life depends on them. When I come back you will have to give me a report of what happened to the seeds.‘ And the king went away.
The first son thought — he was the eldest, was more experienced in the ways of the world, more cunning and more calculating — he thought, ‘The best way will be to lock the seeds in a safe, because when my father comes he will ask for the seeds. I will return them to him exactly as he has given. And much depends, it seems, on this.‘ So he took every care to find the best of all safes and he locked away the seeds. He locked the safe and carried the key with him twenty-four hours a day, because his whole life might depend on the seeds.
The second son thought, ‘The seeds have to be preserved, but if I lock them up like my elder brother, it may happen that in the iron safe they will get rotten. And my father may say, ‘These are not the seeds I gave to you. They have gone rotten, they have become useless.’ So what to do?‘
He went to the market and sold the seeds, which were of rare flowers. He thought, ‘This is the best way: to sell them, keep the money, and when my father comes I will purchase seeds again and who will know the difference? Seeds are seeds. The new seeds I can give to my father, they will be fresh, alive. Why bother about these old seeds? And then, nobody knows when father will be back — one year, two years, three years — he has not given any date, so it may take many years. I need not get worried about the seeds.‘ He sold them and kept the money.
The third son thought, ‘Seeds have been given — there must be some significance in this.‘ He was the youngest, the least trained in the ways of the world, a little foolish, innocent. He thought, ‘Seeds are meant to grow.‘
The very word seed means a growth, the very word; it is not a goal, it is a bridge.
The very word means a reaching towards something.
A seed in itself is meaningless unless it grows, unless it becomes something. A seed is just a passing phase; it is not the goal. It is not the final state, it is just like a bridge you have to pass across. So he went into the garden and planted the seeds.
Then the father came after one year and he asked his sons. The first son was very happy because he thought, ‘The youngest has destroyed them. How can he return the seeds, the same seeds? How can he return them? Now they have become plants and are flowering. And the second has also missed because he has changed the seeds, he has purchased new ones. He went to the market and purchased new seeds.’
The second thought, ‘The first will miss because his seeds will already be rotten, useless, dead. And the third has already missed because the seeds were to be preserved — exactly, literally — and he has not preserved them. I am going to win!’
But the third never thought about winning, he was not interested in any victory. He was simply interested in one thing: ‘Father said the seeds have to be preserved. And seeds are a phase, not a goal. The only way to preserve them is to allow them to grow. And now the flowers have come, and soon seeds will be coming in millions.‘ And he was just happy that his father would be happy.
Then the father came and he told the first son, ‘You are stupid. Seeds are not to be preserved in safety vaults, they are not to be preserved in banks, because if you preserve a seed you kill it. A seed can be preserved only if it is allowed to die into the soil, and allowed to be reborn.’
He said to the second son, ‘You did better than the first, because you understood that the old seeds would die. But the quantity remains the same, and a seed, if preserved, multiplies a millionfold; if a seed is preserved, it multiplies a millionfold. You did better than the first, but you have also missed.’
And then he asked the third son who took his father to the garden and said, ‘I have not preserved them in the safe, I have not sold them in the market, I have thrown them into the ground. These are the seeds, but now they have become plants, and the plants are flowering, and soon there will be many seeds. If you want seeds, I will return them to you a millionfold.’
The father said, ‘You have won! You will be the king of this kingdom, because the only way to preserve a seed is to allow it to die so that it is reborn.’
That’s what Jesus says:
IF YOU BRING FORTH THAT WITHIN YOURSELVES, THAT WHICH YOU HAVE WILL SAVE YOU. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THAT WITHIN YOURSELVES, THAT WHICH YOU DO NOT HAVE WILL KILL YOU.
But you have not looked at all within, you have not even had a single glimpse. So whatsoever you have is going to destroy you, it cannot save you.
You may have wealth, you may have power, you may have many things of this world, but nothing is going to save you. On the contrary, that weight of the world is going to drown you. You have gathered much weight, and that is what is drowning you already, your boat is half-drowned already.
You cannot leave the boat either, because all your possessions are there, you have to carry them to the other shore. But the possessions belong to this shore, and they cannot go to the other shore. Nobody has ever been capable of taking anything from this world to the other.
When you die, how can you carry anything from this world to the other? When you die your body drops. All that could be carried could only be carried through the body, and all that you possessed was possessed through the body. When the body drops, the very medium, the very vehicle drops. Then you cannot carry anything from this world, it is impossible.
That’s why many clever people think, ‘Don’t collect the commodities of the world, just collect knowledge, because knowledge can be carried.‘ Remember well: knowledge cannot be carried either, because when the body drops, the brain drops, and the brain is the accumulator of knowledge.
Your brain is the computer in which knowledge, information collects. It is also outside: if you take the brain of Einstein out, he will be an ordinary idiot, because with the brain knowledge disappears. But if you take the brain of Jesus out, there will be no difference, he will remain the same, because Jesus accumulates awareness, not knowledge.
So there are three types of people:
- the most outward-oriented — they collect things, but those things cannot be carried to the other shore.
- Then the second — who are not so outward-oriented, but still outward — they collect knowledge, scriptures, theories, philosophies. They are more clever but still stupid, because knowledge is accumulated in the brain and the brain is part of the body — the innermost part, but still part of the body. And when the body drops, the brain drops.
- Then there is the third person, who accumulates awareness, who cultivates awareness, whose whole life goal is to be more and more conscious.
This consciousness is your innermost self. Only this consciousness goes to the other shore, only this consciousness belongs to the other shore.
In this body, both worlds exist: this and that, of matter and of consciousness.
And between these two worlds there exists an interlink. That interlink is your knowledge. Drop things and drop knowledge. Just grow more and more in awareness, consciousness, become more and more alert. The more alert, the more you will carry from this world to the other; you will not go like a poor man, you will go rich. In this world you may look like a poor man, like a Buddha, like a beggar, a bhikkhu, but in the other world you will be like a king, because you will carry only yourself.
It happened: when Pompeii was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, the whole city was afire in the middle of the night, buildings were falling and people were escaping. Everybody was carrying something or other, because the city was very rich. And people were carrying their most valuable things: somebody was carrying his gold, somebody his diamonds, somebody his money; scholars were carrying their scriptures, books — whatsoever could be saved they were carrying.
But there was one man who was not carrying anything, just his walking stick.
And those who were carrying things were very disturbed, worried; their whole lives were being destroyed. Only this man was walking amidst the crowd as if he were going for his morning walk. That was his usual routine: at three o’clock in the morning he used to go for a morning walk, and this was the time.
Whosoever looked at him said, ‘Why? You couldn’t save anything? Everything is lost?’
The man said, ‘I didn’t have anything, and all that I have I am carrying.’
‘Then why are you walking as if you are going for a morning walk? It is such a crisis, whole lives are destroyed, people are ruined!’
The man laughed and he said, ‘Because whatsoever you have accumulated is of this world — death ruins it, fire burns it. I have accumulated only awareness. It may be a crisis for you, for me it is time for my morning walk.’
This man is the mystic, this man is the yogi, this man is the one about whom Jesus is talking.
IF YOU BRING FORTH THAT WITHIN YOURSELVES, THAT WHICH YOU HAVE WILL SAVE YOU. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THAT WITHIN YOURSELVES, THAT WHICH YOU DO NOT HAVE WILL KILL YOU.
If you are poor inside, you may be rich outside but you are going to be destroyed by your own possessions. If you are rich inside, then don’t bother. Then whether you have anything or not, death cannot snatch anything from you. Only awareness transcends death; that is the only ray of light in human life which transcends death. Can you die fully aware? That is the only, the whole point. But if you have not lived fully aware, how can you die fully aware? Even in life you are so unaware — how can you be aware in death?
Remember that whenever there is too much pain, the body has an automatic mechanism to throw you into unawareness, because otherwise it will be intolerable. Doctors have invented anesthesia very recently, but nature knows anesthesia, it has always known anesthesia. Whenever you come to a point when there is too much pain, suddenly you become unconscious, you faint, because it will be intolerable. So the body has an inner thermostat. You may be saying to people, ‘It is intolerable, my pain is intolerable,‘ but you are wrong, because if it is intolerable you will be unconscious.
There exists no pain which can be called intolerable. All pains are tolerable, all sufferings are tolerable. That’s why you remain alert, otherwise you would faint. And death is the most painful thing. When death comes, it is the greatest surgery possible, because your whole being has to be taken away, separated from the body with which you have become so much identified and one. It is not cutting a finger, it is not cutting a hand, it is not removing your appendix — it is removing your whole body from you. No doctor can do that yet. The whole body is being removed, separated. And you have lived with this body for seventy years, eighty years; not only lived with it, you have lived in identification with it: you thought you were the body. The pain is such that you will become unconscious.
The whole of life is a preparation to be aware in death. That’s what a sannyasin should do, that’s what a seeker should do: be ready! Don’t lose a single moment, because once lost it cannot be regained. And the only richness that you can get out of it is by being more aware. Do whatsoever, but do it with alertness, awareness. Your lives may be different but your inner search cannot be different; it is the same.
You may be a businessman, you may be a professor, you may be a doctor, an engineer, or a laborer, but it makes no difference. The inner search is the same, and that is how to become more and more conscious. A point comes when you are so conscious that even death cannot make you unconscious. This is what Jesus means: unfold that which is within you. If you have that you will be saved, if you don’t have that you will be drowned.
And in another saying Jesus says a very strange thing. He says, ‘Those who have, they should be given more. And those who don’t have, even that which they have will be taken away.‘ Looks absurd! Jesus says, ‘Those who have should be given more. And those who don’t have, even that which they have will be taken away from them.’
He is talking about awareness, because awareness attracts more awareness. If you become aware, you become capable of being more aware; every step leads to a further step. If you are not aware, then every step leads you further away.
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin knocked one night at a door at three in the morning. He was punch-drunk. The landlord opened the window, looked down and said, ‘Nasruddin, I have told you many times that this is the wrong door, this is not your door. Go to your house and knock there — you are knocking at the wrong door.’
Nasruddin looked up and said. ‘What makes you so certain? Maybe you are looking from the wrong window — what makes you so certain?’
The drunkenness of man is such that it is impossible to think that ‘I am wrong.‘ The other is going to be wrong. If you suffer in your life, you suffer because you are losing your consciousness somewhere: you are wrong, but you think the other may be looking from the wrong window, you think you are always knocking at the right door.
You have always been knocking at the wrong door, because all the doors in this world are wrong — unless you knock at the inner door, which is not part of this world. It moves with you, but it is not part of this world. You carry something within which does not belong to this world. That is your treasure, and that is your door through which God can be approached. Jesus says, ‘Grow in that which you are already carrying.‘ The one ray has already happened: you are not aware, or just a little bit; a cloudy awareness, a dim light, very dim — you cannot see. But it has happened, that is how you are higher than the animals, even that is not in animals.
The first ray of consciousness has penetrated you, but that ray of consciousness is just a mustard seed; you have to give it soil. What is the soil for it? Hindus have called that soil satsang. Go near to those who have grown higher than you, just be near them, in their presence, and your ray of consciousness will become higher and higher — it needs a challenge. But the common tendency of the mind is always to move with inferiors, always to move with people who are even less alert than you. Why? — because there you feel superior, there you feel you are somebody.
Everybody seeks the inferior and through this seeking becomes inferior himself. Whenever you reach a man like Jesus you are disturbed, because you cannot assert your superiority here. You are inferior, it is not an inferiority complex. You simply are inferior before a Jesus, because your consciousness is nothing, and he is a light so tremendous that you become almost dark before him. Even the flicker, the one ray of consciousness seems to be nothing. It has to be so: you take your earthen lamp out in the day in the sun, and what will you feel? It is as if the earthen lamp, the flame has become dark beside the sun. Take your earthen lamp into a dark room and it becomes a sun itself.
Hence the tendency of the mind to seek the inferior. It is just like water: as water always seeks a lower and lower level, mind always seeks the inferior. A husband would not like to marry a woman who is wiser than him, no. He will not marry a woman who is taller than him, no. He will not marry a woman who is older in years than him, no! Why? Biologically it would be better if a husband married a woman who was at least five years older than him, because then they could die together… because a wife is going to live five years more than a man, she has a longer lifespan. Then there would be no widows in the world — and this is a very sad thing…. Biologically it would be the right method that a boy of twenty marries a girl of twenty-five, but the ego feels hurt. Neither would you like to marry a taller girl, because the ego feels hurt — nor will you marry a wise woman. No! The mind always seeks the inferior.
Look at your friends — why have you chosen them? Deep down you will find the cause to be this: they are inferior to you, with them you become a great light; otherwise you are an ordinary flame in an earthen lamp. The mind seeks the inferior to prove that it is superior. People even love animals; people who cannot love human beings, how can they love animals? But a dog buttresses you so beautifully, as no person can. Whether you beat him or welcome him it makes no difference, he goes on moving and waving his tail, he is always welcoming you. He always goes with you wherever you go, you cannot find a better follower than a dog. Why do people enjoy the fellowship of a dog? The inferior helps, you feel you are superior.
Mulla Nasruddin was playing cards with his dog. A man looked, he was surprised — the dog was really playing. So he said to Nasruddin, ‘Nasruddin, you really have a strange and wise dog.’
Nasruddin said, ‘Not so — he is not so wise as he appears, because whenever he gets a good hand he wags his tail. Not so wise as he looks!’
The mind is always seeking the inferior, and there comes a point when even a dog can sometimes be superior to you. In many ways he is! He is stronger; if he fights, you will be nowhere. People go on falling lower; then they seek things, then a car becomes their love object — do whatsoever you want to do and the car cannot do anything: then a house, then objects, possessions. With things you feel like a person, very superior.
Satsang means always choosing the company of the superior. The mind will help you to choose the company of the inferior. Be alert and avoid this, because with the inferior you will become inferior. More and more the ray of consciousness will be lost in darkness.
Always choose the superior, move towards the superior. But your ego will feel hurt. The ego has to be left. Satsang means living against the ego, transcending the ego, always seeking the superior. And you want to encounter God, and you are not happy in encountering Jesus and Buddha? Then how will it be possible?… because God is the superiormost light, the climax of the whole existence, the flowering of all life. If you always choose the inferior, how can you really desire to enter into the kingdom of God? You are following a wrong path.
Remember this, and only one point has to be continuously kept in mind, and that is: move in circles — with people, with friends, with books — always remembering that something superior is there, so that you can drop your ego; you can feel inferior and drop the ego. Always seek the superior. By and by, one step, another step… you will be able to encounter Jesus. And only if you can encounter Jesus will you be able to encounter God.
This is the meaning when Jesus says, ‘Except through me, you cannot reach him.‘ This is the meaning: if you cannot encounter me, how can you think of encountering the suprememost? If you encounter the son, then there is the possibility that you may be capable of encountering the father, because the son is just a representative. Avatars, buddhas, tirthankaras, they are just the representatives, they are a light from the supreme. If you cannot encounter them, if you cannot live with them, if your ego cannot allow them to exist with you, then there is no possibility for the final, ultimate truth.
JESUS SAID: LET HIM WHO SEEKS, NOT CEASE SEEKING UNTIL HE FINDS.
Mind is lethargic, and whenever you move upwards it is more lethargic. If you move downwards it has much energy, because a downward movement needs no effort. It is just water falling from a waterfall, going low — no effort is needed. To reach hell no effort is needed, you will reach automatically; don’t do anything and you will reach. You are already flowing towards lower and lower and lower levels, and the lowest state of your mind is hell. It is not something outside, it is the lowest rung of your ladder where all consciousness disappears: you become just like a vegetating phenomenon. But if you start moving higher, upwards, then effort will be needed, much effort will be needed. That’s why Jesus says:
LET HIM WHO SEEKS, NOT CEASE SEEKING UNTIL HE FINDS.
Many times there will come moments when the mind will say, ‘What are you doing? Why are you making so much effort? Relax, enjoy, rest!‘ And if you listen to the mind you will be thrown back. Don’t listen to the mind! A seeker should persist and go on making efforts until he finds.
But the saying looks against Zen — it has to be understood, it is not — because Zen masters say, ‘Be effortless. Don’t make any effort, otherwise you will miss. A slight movement and you have already missed. Be at rest, be totally relaxed, in a letgo, as if you are not, and you will attain.‘ They say, ‘Seek and you will miss, don’t seek and you will find.‘ Jesus’ saying looks against Zen. It is not, because as you are you cannot be in a total letgo. Even if you try, even if you relax, activity continues.
Zen is not for you as you are, Jesus is for you as you are. And if you follow Jesus, a moment will come when Zen will be for you. When will that moment come? When you have exhausted all your effort, when you have done everything that can be done, when you have come to the last peak of your effort. Now nothing can be done, now there is no more to do; you have put all that you could into it, now nothing is being held back, your whole energy has moved into the effort. And it is not now that you stop, but because the whole energy has moved into the effort, there comes a stop, there comes relaxation. It happens, a letgo happens — you cannot do it. It is just like a man who has been running and running and running, and then comes a moment when he cannot run. Even if you put a bayonet behind him and you say, ‘Move!‘ he says, ‘No possibility!’
I have heard about a frog: he got into a rut on a muddy village road. He went into the rut, but he couldn’t get out of it. It was so difficult, he tried and tried — and nothing! His friends helped, they did all that could be done. And then evening was coming, so in a very depressed, frustrated state, they had to leave him to his fate. Next day, the friends were thinking that he must be dead by now, because he was just on the road, in a rut. So they went to see him, and they found him hopping here and there. They asked, ‘What happened? How could you get out of the rut? It seems impossible, a miracle! How did it happen?’
The frog said, ‘Nothing! A truck came by and I had to get out. A truck was coming and I had to get out!’
The whole effort was not applied when there was no danger. If you can see death, the truck coming by, you will put the whole effort of your being into it, you will get out of the rut. You have been missing because you have been holding back. You do things, you meditate halfheartedly. It is a lukewarm effort, you cannot evaporate through it because there is a particular law: a certain degree has to be attained, only then does evaporation happen. You do this and that, and you know well that you are half in it. Half in it, nothing can happen. The truck has not come yet, you are in the rut: half of your being wants to get out, but half of your being does not want to get out. You want to be free, but the rut also gives you a certain protection, and the rut also gives you a security, it looks like a home — just getting out seems to require too much effort.
Jesus says, ‘Seek, and seek until you find.‘ Go on making the effort, bring the effort to a climax, to a crescendo, then Zen becomes applicable. If you study Zen in the beginning you can move in a wrong direction. And that is happening in the West, because people in the West who have written about Zen don’t know what effort Zen people have been making before they relax. And it appeals to the lazy mind very much. That’s why there is so much attraction for Zen in the West: don’t do anything — it appeals, because nothing is needed, you are already the case. It appeals, but it is not going to help.
Much has to be done before you can come to a point where relaxation is possible. And that relaxation is not from you, it happens: because the whole energy has moved, nothing remains behind to be restless; a rest comes. And Zen is right, because only in that rest is the ultimate revealed. And Jesus is right, because that rest comes only when you have put all your energies into effort. Jesus is the first part and Zen is the last part of the same process; Zen is the conclusion, Jesus is the beginning.
And I would suggest to you that Jesus is better for you, because you are all beginners. Zen can mislead you, the very appeal may be for wrong reasons. You may start thinking, ‘Nothing is to be done, I am okay as I am.‘ You are not okay as you are, otherwise there would be no problem. Why should you come to me? Why should you go to Zen? Why should you seek Jesus? If you are really okay, then there is no problem. Then why do you seek? Then why waste your time in seeking? Then everything is useless if you are really okay, then there is no Yoga for you, no Tantra, no method. But that is not the case. As you are, something is wrong: you are not happy, you are not blissful, you are not ecstatic. You are a miserable lot, in misery, a deep anguish — your being is ill. No, you are not okay, everything is wrong.
Listen to Jesus: LET HIM WHO SEEKS, NOT CEASE SEEKING UNTIL HE FINDS. And only in the end will you find that Zen people are right, because when you have done everything that can be done, effort disappears, effortlessness comes to you. In that repose, in that stillness where there is no movement, no activity, no energy left to do anything, there is samadhi, there is the ultimate door. It happens always in effortlessness, but the effortlessness happens through much effort.
Seek, and do not cease seeking until you find. AND WHEN HE FINDS HE WILL BE TROUBLED… a very difficult thing.
AND WHEN HE FINDS HE WILL BE TROUBLED, HE WILL MARVEL, AND HE WILL REIGN OVER ALL.
Why? When you find, why will you be troubled? You will be troubled because the thing is so great. It is so vast, infinite, that when you find it for the first time you will be completely lost. When you become aware of it for the first time, it is as if a man who has lived all his life in a dark room, in a dark cell, has been brought into the open sky, into the light of the sun. He will be troubled, his eyes will not be able to open. Even if he opens his eyes, he will be so dazzled that the light will look like darkness.
The first encounter with the divine is a crisis, because you have lived many, many lives in a wrong way. You have lived many lives so miserably that when bliss happens you cannot believe it: you will be troubled. You never expected it, you never knew what was going to happen. You talk about God — do you know? What do you mean? The word god is not God, the theories about God are not God. You may know the definition from the dictionary, from the scripture, but what do you really mean when you say, ‘I am seeking God’?
I have heard: A small boy was making a picture, a painting, and his mother asked, ‘What are you doing?’
And he was so absorbed in it, he said, ‘Wait, don’t disturb me — I am making a portrait of God.’
His mother said, ‘But nobody knows how God looks, nobody knows where God is. How will you make a portrait of him?’
The boy said, ‘Don’t be worried. When I get through, they will know how God looks.’
And every seeker is in this situation: you don’t know what you are seeking, you don’t know what the goal is, you don’t know where you are going, why you are going. A deep urge is there, that is right: a deep thirst is there, that is right. But you have never tasted that for which this thirst exists. You move, you grope — when suddenly it happens, you will be troubled.
This sentence shows that Jesus has known. A man who has not known God cannot write this sentence, a man who has not known God cannot say, ‘When you find him, you will be troubled.‘ He will say, ‘Then you will be blissful, absolutely blissful.’
Bliss comes, but it comes only when the crisis has settled. God is the greatest catastrophe that you can come across, because you will be shattered completely, you will be no more, you will be thrown into a bottomless abyss, you will become a zero, your whole existence will disappear like vapor. Suddenly you are dispersed like a cloud and the sun rises — the light is too much and the truth is too much. You have always lived in lies, your whole life has been a fabric woven out of lies and more lies and more lies. You will be shattered, completely shattered. You will die when God rises; when the truth is revealed, you will simply disappear. And Jesus is right, you will be troubled.
Many have come back from this situation, many have left, many have escaped from this situation. And then they never turn back, they become afraid. I have a feeling that people who are atheists are people who somewhere in their past lives have reached this situation, and they became so troubled that they closed their eyes and escaped. Now they don’t want to go to that situation again, and the best way is to deny that God exists.
They are like small children. If you say to a small child, ‘Don’t eat sweets, don’t eat this and that,‘ and if you force him too much and you make him so afraid that whenever he eats sweets he becomes ill and gets diarrhea and much trouble comes to him, then look at that small boy: if he moves into the market he will close his eyes; wherever there is a possibility of a sweet shop or something, he will close his eyes. Afraid, he is denying. He is saying, ‘There is no shop, nothing,‘ because if there is, if sweets are there, then it will be difficult not to become attracted again.
Atheists are those people who somewhere in their past lives encountered this situation, and they became so scared that now they deny, they say there is no God. This denial is based on a deep fear. It is psychological, it is not philosophical.
I have come across many atheists, and whenever I penetrate deep I have always found that they are the people who somewhere got so scared that now the very fear of the possibility grips them: if God does exist, then again he will attract them; if God does exist, then again they will start moving. ‘No! There is no God, no truth, nothing. Everything is a lie, and the whole of life is just an accident.‘ Then they are at ease, then they can avoid the final catastrophe.
Jesus is right: AND WHEN HE FINDS, HE WILL BE TROUBLED…. And you will also come to this situation.
Many of you have sometimes reached, not exactly the point Jesus is talking about, but just somewhere near. And you have come to me and you have told me, ‘It is very difficult now, I cannot meditate, I don’t want to meditate. A fear grips me, and it looks like it is going to be a death. I have come to you to seek life, not death. But I am scared and there is anxiety: whenever I close my eyes and I move deeper, suddenly I feel as if I am going to die.‘ Many of you have come and told this to me. That’s a good sign, that shows you are really going deep, that shows that the meditation is happening. Don’t escape from there, because there is the treasure of the whole.
Just a little more, and you will come to the point where you will be troubled, so much troubled that your whole being will be at stake — and there is every possibility that you may escape. But if you escape, then for many lives you will not be able to gather courage to go in that direction, you will simply avoid that dimension. When trouble arises in your inner being, be alert. Don’t try to escape. Move, go ahead — everybody has to pass through that.
The school to which Jesus belonged, the Essenes, they have a word for that state of trouble. They call it ‘the dark night of the soul’. Everybody has to pass through it. Only then does the dawn come, when you have passed the dark night of the soul. The darker the night, the happier you should feel, because the sooner there will be dawn. Soon, out of the womb of this night, a sun is going to be born; soon — it is not very far away. The darker the night, the nearer it is coming. Don’t try to escape, because every morning needs a dark night as a womb. The dark night prepares the ground for the morning to be. That troubled state is the womb through which ultimate blessing will be born.
Jesus is right — listen to him and remember him. This is going to come to you, any day this is going to happen to you, and the sooner it happens the better. Feel blissful when you feel troubled in your being, not because of any anxiety of this world, but because of the anxiety that comes when truth is reached, when you are close to it.
The same anxiety is felt near an enlightened person also. Whenever you go to him, a certain fear grips you. You start trembling inside, you find reasons how to escape, how not to go to this man. You are attracted, but a deep fear rationalizes: how to leave, how not to come to this man? You are not at ease — you cannot be with a Jesus, with a Buddha. And you have to pass through it, it is part of growth.
AND WHEN HE FINDS HE WILL BE TROUBLED….
But if he has not escaped, not turned his back and run about in the world, then: … HE WILL MARVEL. Then he will feel the mysterium, the mysterious. Then he will laugh and smile, because out of this night such a beautiful morn! Out of this troubled state, out of this hell and fear and anguish, such a blessing! Out of thorns, such beautiful flowers. Then:
… HE WILL MARVEL, AND HE WILL REIGN OVER ALL.
Then he is a beggar no more. When desires disappear — and they disappear only when you have attained to your self, because all desires are basically desires to attain the self, the inner consciousness, the innermost — when you have attained the innermost, desires disappear, you are a beggar no more. You have become an emperor, you have become a king: … AND HE WILL REIGN OVER ALL. Now this whole existence is his kingdom.
AND HE SAID: WHOEVER FINDS EXPLANATION OF THESE WORDS WILL NOT TASTE DEATH.
WHOEVER FINDS EXPLANATION OF THESE WORDS… not explanation in words, that won’t help. I have explained to you in words; this is not going to make you deathless. No, not explanation in words — explanation in living, in a lived experience. Words never explain, rather on the contrary, they explain away. Only experience can explain, only experience can be the explanation. And Jesus said: WHOEVER FINDS EXPLANATION OF THESE WORDS…. That is, whoever finds experience, whoever moves through this troubled state — anxiety, anguish, the spiritual night — and who has marveled and come to see the mysterium, the mysterious.
There are two words…. Rudolf Otto, one of the keenest, profoundest thinkers of this age, has written a very deep, profound book. That book is The Idea of the Holy. He uses two words in that book: one is TREMENDUM, the other is MYSTERIUM. When you first reach this troubled spot, the whole thing is such a tremendous phenomenon, it is tremendum. You are lost in it, you cannot sort out what is happening; you simply go crazy, as if the mind cannot function. This is the last point up to which mind can function. Now the mind has to be left behind. A tremendum happens — an earthquake, an inner earthquake, a volcano erupts: everything of the past is broken and thrown and shattered.
If you can pass through this tremendum, then there arises mysterium, the mysterious. What is the mysterious? The mysterious is that which cannot be explained in any way, the mystery is that which is blissful, beautiful, ecstatic, but cannot be solved. It is the source of existence — you cannot go beyond it, there is no beyond. You can experience it but you cannot analyze it. You can know it but you cannot make knowledge out of it. You can feel it but you cannot create any theoria, any theory out of it. Hence it is the mysterium, the ultimate mystery.
AND HE SAID: WHOEVER FINDS EXPLANATION OF THESE WORDS WILL NOT TASTE DEATH.
One who has tasted the final mystery of existence will not taste death; death is no more for him. Death exists only because of the mind, death exists only because of the ego, death exists only because you are identified with the body. If you are not identified with the body, if you don’t have a mad ego within you, if you are centered in the self, death disappears. Death is there because you are a lie.
If you become true, death disappears. There is no death for the truth; it is eternal, it is eternal life. So this is the vicious circle: because you are a lie there is death, and because of the death you become more afraid, you create more lies around you to protect yourself. Then you get entangled in a vicious circle. One has to be alert and jump out of it.
Death is a problem because ego exists. And ego is the most false thing possible, the most illusory thing possible: it is not there — you have to maintain it somehow, it has to be constantly maintained — it is not a real phenomenon. If you leave it even for twenty-four hours, it will die. Twenty-four hours is too long, twenty-four minutes will do — even twenty-four seconds. You have to feed it continuously, you have to pull it up, you have to manipulate it, you have to support it. Your whole life you work for it so that the dream that you are somebody can be maintained. And then in death it has to disappear. Then you feel the fear: you become unconscious, you are reborn in another body in an unconscious state, and the whole vicious circle starts again.
Don’t be a lie! Start dropping lies, start dropping masks, be an authentic man. And try to be whatsoever you are, don’t try to pretend to be that which you are not, because pretensions won’t save you, they are the very burden which is going to drown you. The truth saves.
Jesus has said: ‘Truth liberates, truth saves. Truth becomes eternal life.’
AND HE SAID: WHOEVER FINDS EXPLANATION
OF THESE WORDS WILL NOT TASTE DEATH.
And the same I say to you: if you can taste your self you will not taste death, if you can know your self you will never know any death.
And that which can save you is already there, but it is a mustard seed. Help it to grow. And the first help that you can give is to help it to die. Don’t cling to the seed, because the seed is a bridge, it is not the goal. Help it to die, dissolve, so that the inner life hidden in it is freed and the seed becomes a great tree. Small is the seed, but the tree will be very great. Almost invisible is the seed — and the tree? The tree will become a great refuge. Millions of heavenly birds will take shelter in that tree.
Truth not only saves you, it also saves others through you. Truth not only becomes freedom to you, it becomes a door of freedom for many others also. If you become a light, it is not only your life that will be lighted — if you become a light then you also become a light for millions; many can travel and reach their goal through you. If you become a light, you become a representative, you become a Christ.
I don’t want you to become Christians — that is useless, that is a lie. I would like you to become Christs. And you can become Christs, because you have the same seed.
Enough for today.