JESUS IS VERY PARADOXICAL
22 August 1974 am in Buddha Hall
THE SECOND SAYING
JESUS SAID: MEN POSSIBLY THINK THAT I HAVE COME TO THROW PEACE UPON THE WORLD, AND THEY DO NOT KNOW THAT I HAVE COME TO THROW DIVISIONS UPON THE EARTH – FIRE, SWORD, WAR.
FOR THERE SHALL BE FIVE IN A HOUSE: THREE SHALL BE AGAINST TWO AND TWO AGAINST THREE; THE FATHER AGAINST THE SON AND THE SON AGAINST THE FATHER; AND THEY WILL STAND AS SOLITARIES.
JESUS SAID: I WILL GIVE YOU WHAT THE EYE HAS NOT SEEN, AND WHAT THE EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND WHAT THE HAND HAS NOT TOUCHED, AND WHAT HAS NOT ARISEN IN THE HEART OF MAN
Jesus is very paradoxical, but meaningfully so. To take in the meaning many things have to be understood. First, peace is possible if everybody is almost dead. There will be no war, no conflict, but there will be no life either. That would be the silence of the graveyard. But that is not worth anything; then even war is better because in war you are alive and vital.
Another type of peace – a totally different dimension of peace – exists when you are vital, alive, but centered in your being: when self-knowledge has happened, when you have become enlightened, when the flame is lit and you are not in darkness. Then there will be more life, more silence, but the silence will belong to life, not to death. It will not be the silence of the graveyard.
This is the paradox to be understood: war is bad, hate is bad; they are the evils on the earth and they must go. Disease is bad, health is good; disease must go, but you must remember that a dead man never falls ill; a dead body can deteriorate but cannot be ill. So if you don’t understand, all your efforts may create a dead world. There will be no disease, no war, no hatred – but no life either.
Jesus would not like that type of peace. That type of peace is useless; then this world, with war, would be better. But many have been endeavoring, and their attitude is just negative. They think, ”If war stops, everything will be okay.” It is not so easy. And this is not only the ordinary man’s conception – even very great philosophers like Bertrand Russell think that if war is finished everything will be okay. This is negative – because war is not the problem, the problem is man. And the war is not outside, the war is within. If you have not fought the war within, you will fight it without.
If you have not fought the war within, you will fight it without.
If you have fought the war within and have become victorious, then the war without will cease. That is the only way.
In India, we have called Mahavira ‘the conqueror’, ‘the great conqueror’ – the jinna. The word jinna means the conqueror. But he never fought with anybody so whom has he conquered? He never believed in violence, never believed in war, never believed in fighting. Why do you call this man Mahavira, the great conqueror? This is not his original name; his original name was Vardhaman.
What has happened? What phenomenon has occurred? This man has conquered himself, and once you conquer yourself your fight with others ceases immediately – because this fight with others is just a trick to avoid the inner war. If you are not at ease with yourself, then there are only two ways: either you suffer this unease or project it on somebody else. When you are inwardly tense you are ready to fight – any excuse will do. The excuse is irrelevant; you will jump on anybody – the servant, the wife, the child.
How do you throw your inner conflict and unease? You make the other responsible, then you pass through a catharsis. You can become angry now, you can throw your anger and violence and this will give you a release, a relief – of course temporary, because the inside has not changed. It will again accumulate, it remains the old. Tomorrow again it will accumulate anger, hatred, and you will have to project it.
You fight with others because you go on accumulating rubbish inside yourself and you have to throw it out. A person who has conquered himself has become a self-conqueror, has no inner conflict. The war has ceased. He is one inside – there are not two. Such a man will never project, such a man will not fight with anybody else.
So this is a trick of the mind to avoid the inner conflict, because the inner conflict is more painful – for many reasons. The basic reason is that every one of you has an image of yourself as being a good man. And life is such that without this image it will be difficult to live.
Psychiatrists say that illusions are needed to live. Unless you have become enlightened, illusions are needed to live. If you think you are so bad, so devilish, so evil, if this image – which is the truth that you are – gets inside, then you will not be able to live at all. You will lose all self-confidence, and you will be filled with such condemnation towards yourself that you will not be able to love; you will not really be able to move, you will not be able to look at another human being. You will feel so inferior, so bad, so devilish, that you will die – this feeling will become a suicide. And this is a truth – so what to do?
One way is to change this truth: become a man of God, not a man of the devil – become divine. But that is difficult, arduous, a long hard path. Much has to be done; only then can the devil become divine. It can become divine! You may not be aware of the root of the word devil: it comes from the same word from which ‘divine’ comes. Both ‘devil’ and ‘divine’ come from the same Sanskrit root, deva. The devil can become divine, because the divine has become the devil. The possibility is there; they are two poles of one energy. The energy which has gone sour, bitter, can become sweet.
An inner transformation is needed, an inner alchemy is needed – but that is long and arduous. And the mind always looks for the shortcut where the least resistance is. So mind says, “Why bother about becoming a good man? Just believe that you are good.” This is easy because nothing is to be done. Just think that you are good, just create an image that you are beautiful, heavenly, that nobody is like you, and even this illusion of goodness gives you energy to live.
If illusions can give you so much energy, you can conceive how much will happen when the truth is realized. Even the illusion that you are good gives you life to move, gives you legs to stand on, gives you confidence. You become almost centered even with the illusion, and this center that happens in illusion is the ego. When you are really centered, that is the self. But that happens only when the truth is realized: when your inner energies have been transformed, the lower has been transformed into the higher, the earthly into the heavenly; when the devil has become divine, when you have become radiant with the glory that is yours; when the seed has come to sprout, when the mustard seed has become a great tree.
But that is a long process; one needs the courage to wait, one needs not to be tempted by the shortcut. And in life there are no shortcuts; only illusions are shortcuts. Life is arduous because only through arduous struggle does growth come to you – it never comes easily. You cannot get it cheaply; anything that is cheap cannot help you to grow. Suffering helps – the very effort, the very struggle, the long path that gives you sharpness, growth, experience, maturity. How can you achieve maturity through a shortcut? There is a possibility – now they are working with animals, and sooner or later they will work with human beings. There is a possibility: you can be injected with hormones. A child of ten can be injected with hormones and he will become a young man of twenty.
But do you think he will attain the maturity that he should have attained if he had passed through ten years of life? The struggle, the arising sex, the need to control, the need to love: to be free and yet controlled, to be free and yet centered; to move with the other, to suffer in love, to learn – all that will not be there. This man who looks twenty is really ten years of age. Through hormones you have only blown up his body.
But they are doing this with animals, with fruit, with trees. A tree can be injected, and the tree that would naturally come to flower in three years will come in one year. But those flowers will lack something. It is difficult to see because you are not flowers, but they will lack something. They have been forced, they have not passed through a seasoning. Fruit will come sooner but those fruits will not be so mature; they will lack something – they are artificial.
Nature is not in a hurry. Remember: mind is always in a hurry, nature is never in a hurry – nature waits and waits, it is eternal. There is no need to be in a hurry; life goes on and on and on, it is an eternity. But for mind time is short, so mind says, “Time is money.” Life never says that. Life says, “Experience!” – not time. Life waits, can wait: mind cannot wait – death is coming near. There is no death for life, but for mind there is death.
Mind always tries to find a shortcut. And to find a shortcut, the easiest way is to create an illusion: think that you are what you want to be – then you have become neurotic. That is what has happened to many people who are in madhouses: they think they are Napoleon or Alexander, or somebody else. They believe it and they behave that way.
FOR THERE SHALL BE FIVE IN A HOUSE…. This is a parable: in your body there are ‘five in the house’ – the five senses, the five indriyas. Really, deep down you have five bodies, because each sense has its own center, and each sense goes on manipulating you in its own direction. The eye says, “Look at the beauty”; the hand says, “Touch, it is so lovable.” The eye is not at all interested in touch; the hand is not at all interested in looking at a beautiful person, a beautiful body or a beautiful tree.
All five senses exist as five separate centers and your mind is just a coordinator; it goes on coordinating between these five. When you look at me and you hear me, you hear from the ears and you look from the eyes. Eyes never hear, ears never look; then how do you conclude that you hear the same person you see? How can you conclude? The mind goes on coordinating. It is a computer: whatsoever the eyes feed in, whatsoever the ears feed in, it combines and gives you the conclusion.
The method of friction which Gurdjieff used, which Jesus used…. And those who know the innermost secret story of Jesus’ life say that he was not crucified, but that he managed to be crucified just like Gurdjieff. He managed to be crucified – it was a drama that he arranged. Those who were crucifying him thought they were killing him, but such a man as Jesus cannot be forced to die. He could have escaped very easily, for it was well known that he was to be caught.
He could have moved away from the capital or away from the country, there was no problem – but he came to the capital. It is said that he enacted the whole thing, and that Judas was not his enemy but his friend who helped, who helped Jesus to be caught. The whole thing was managed and controlled by him.
What happened on the cross was the last inner war, the last and greatest friction. When he was dying, but not losing trust in the divine; when the earth was falling back to the earth; when the division was absolute, total – he was not identified at all. He allowed it.
Gurdjieff used to say that this crucifixion of Jesus was a drama, and that really, the author of the drama was neither Pontius Pilate nor the high priest of the Jews, but Jesus himself. He managed it, and he managed it so beautifully that even up to now it has not been discovered – not exactly – what happened and how.
You cannot imagine managing your own crucifixion, but that is what religion is: managing your own crucifixion. Going to the cross means going to the climax of friction – where death is.
Jesus says: FOR THERE SHALL BE FIVE IN A HOUSE: THREE SHALL BE AGAINST TWO AND TWO AGAINST THREE.
A friction has to be created. The senses have to fight and the fight has to be made conscious. They continuously fight but the fight is not conscious; you are fast asleep and the fight goes on. The eye is continuously fighting the ear, the ear is continuously fighting the eye – because they are competitors.
Have you observed that a blind man has more listening capacity than a man who has eyes? That’s why blind men become beautiful musicians, singers. Why does this happen? They have more capacity for sound, rhythm, more sensitivity in their ears. Why? – because the eye is no longer a competitor. The energy that was being used by the eyes is available for the ears; they are the competitors.
Your eyes are using eighty percent of your energy, leaving only twenty percent for the other four senses. They are starved; they are continuously fighting. The eyes have become the supreme, the dictatorial force. You live through the eyes and some senses have gone completely dead. Many people have no smell, that sense has gone completely dead; they never bother, they are not even aware that they cannot smell. The eyes have completely exploited the nose, because it is so near that it can be exploited. Children have a sense of smell, but by and by it is lost because the eyes go on using more and more energy. The eye has become the center of your being, which is not good.
Methods of friction use the senses against each other. In many methods the seeker remains with closed eyes for many months. The energy starts moving, you can feel it. If you remain constantly with closed eyes for three months, you will be able to feel the energy moving continuously towards the ears, towards the nose. Your sense of smell may come back, you may start smelling. There have been methods and schools where seekers completely cut one sense against the other; a fight is created. If you close the ears for three months and just see, don’t listen, then you will see there is a constant movement of energy.
If you can see your senses fighting, you will become separate because you become a witness. You are no longer the eyes, no longer the ears, no longer the hands, no longer the body – you are a witness. The fight goes on within the body and you are an onlooker. This is the meaning, the deepest meaning of the parable, but it is also true in another sense.
FOR THERE SHALL BE FIVE IN A HOUSE: THREE SHALL BE AGAINST TWO AND TWO AGAINST THREE; THE FATHER AGAINST THE SON AND THE SON AGAINST THE FATHER; AND THEY WILL STAND AS SOLITARIES.
In another sense too this is true, that in a family of five, three will be against two and two will be against three. Whenever a religious person happens in a family friction starts, because for a family a religious person is the most dangerous person. The family can tolerate anything except religion, because once you become religious you will not be identified with the body.
The family is related to the body: your father is your father because of your body. If you think you are the body, then you are related to your father. But if you come to know that you are not the body, who is the father? How are you related to him? The mother has given birth to your body, not to you.
You are so identified with the body that you think the mother has given birth to you.
When you are not identified, the identification is broken, then who is the mother? She has not given birth to you but only to this body which is going to die. So the mother has not given you life; rather, on the contrary, the mother has given you one more death. The father has not given you life, he has given you one more possibility to die. Once you are not identified with the body you have broken from the family, you are uprooted.
So the family can tolerate it if you go to a prostitute. It is okay, nothing is wrong – rather, on the contrary, you are getting more and more identified with the body. If you become an alcoholic, if you are a drunkard, it is okay, because you are getting more and more identified with the body. Nothing is wrong in this. But if you become a meditator, if you become a sannyasin, then it is not okay. Then it is difficult because you are being uprooted. Then the family no longer has power over you; then you are no longer part of the family, because you are no longer part of this world.
So Jesus says: Father will be against son, son will be against father. And: I have come to disrupt, to divide, to create conflict and friction.
This is true. You can worship a Buddha, but ask Buddha’s father – he is against him. Ask Buddha’s relatives – they are against him, because this man has gone beyond their control. Not only that: he is also helping others to go beyond the control of the society, of the family. The family is the basic unit of society. When you go beyond society you have to go beyond the family, but this does not mean that you should hate it – that is not the point; nor that you should go against it – that is not the point either. That is going to happen anyway. Once you start to find yourself, all that has been before will be disrupted, there is going to be chaos. So what should you do? They will pull you back, they will try to bring you back, they will make every effort to do so. What should be done?
There are two ways: one is the old way which is to escape from them, not to give them any opportunity – but I think that is no longer applicable. The other is to be with them, but as an actor: don’t give them the opportunity to know that you are moving beyond them. Move! Let that be your inner journey, but outwardly fulfill all formalities: touch the feet of your father and your mother and be a good actor.
The old way cannot be followed by many. That’s why the earth could not become religious – because how many people can go out of society? And even if they go out of society, the society has to take care of them. When Buddha was here, or Mahavira or Jesus, then thousands left their families. But still only thousands – millions were left behind and they had to take care of them. The whole earth cannot become religious if that is the only way. And it is not good either; it can be done in a more beautiful way, and that beautiful way is to be a good actor.
A sannyasin must be a good actor. By being a good actor I mean that you are not related at all, but you go on fulfilling the formalities. Deep down you are uprooted, but you don’t even give a hint that you are uprooted. And what is the use of giving a hint? – because then they will start trying to change you. Don’t give them any chance. Let this be an inner journey and outwardly be completely formal. They will be happy then because they live in formalities. They live on the outside, they don’t need your inner worship. They don’t need your inner love – just the show is enough.
These are the two ways: one is that of Buddha and Jesus, the other is that of Janak and me. Be wherever you are. Don’t create any outward show that you are changing and becoming religious, because that can create trouble and you may not be strong enough right now. Create the conflict inside but don’t create it outside. The inner conflict is more than enough; it will give you the growth, the maturity needed.
… THE FATHER AGAINST THE SON AND THE SON AGAINST THE FATHER; AND THEY WILL STAND AS SOLITARIES.
This word solitary has to be understood deeply. When you become religious you become solitary; then there is no society for you, you are alone. And to accept that you are alone is the greatest transformation that can happen to you, because mind is afraid of being alone; mind wants somebody else to hang on to, to cling to. Alone you feel a trembling, a fear grips you. Alone…? And immediately you rush towards society, to the club, the conference, the sect, the church, somewhere where there is a crowd, where you can feel that you are not alone, where you can lose yourself into the crowd.
That’s why the crowd has become so important. Go to the racecourse, go to the cinema hall – but a crowd is needed in which you are no longer solitary, where you can relax.
But a religious man is a solitary because he is trying to reach his highest peak. He is not to lose himself in others. He has to remember, become more mindful, he has to become more aware and alert – and he has to accept the truth. This is the truth: that everybody is alone and there is no possibility of any togetherness. Your consciousness is a solitary peak. But that is the beauty of it and you are unnecessarily afraid of it.
Imagine Everest in a crowd of Everests – then the whole beauty is lost. Everest is beautiful and challenging because it is alone, a solitary peak. A religious man is like Everest: he becomes a solitary peak, alone, and he lives and enjoys it. That doesn’t mean that he will not move in society, it doesn’t mean he will not love. On the contrary, only he can love. On the contrary, only he can move in society, because only he is. You are not – so how can you love? He can love but his love is not going to be like a drug, he is not going to be lost. He can share, he can give himself completely and still remain himself. He can give himself to you and still not be lost, because his mindfulness remains the innermost peak. There, in that shrine, he remains alone. Nobody enters there, nobody can enter there.
In the innermost core of your being you are alone.
The purity of aloneness and the beauty of aloneness….
But on the contrary, you feel afraid. Because you have lived in society – you are born in society. you have been brought up by the society – you have completely forgotten that you can also be alone.
So to move for a few days into loneliness, just to feel your aloneliness, is beautiful. Then come to the marketplace, but bring your aloneness with you. Don’t get lost there. Remain aware and alert: move into society, go into a crowd, but remain alone. You can be alone in the crowd if you want; you can be in the crowd even while you are alone if you want. You can go to the Himalayas and sit there and think of the market – you are in the crowd.
It happened when Junnaid came to his master: he was alone and the master was sitting in a temple.
When Junnaid entered, the master was alone and he said, “Junnaid, come alone! Don’t bring the crowd with you!” So Junnaid looked back, of course, because he thought there was somebody else coming with him. But there was no one. The master laughed and said, “Don’t look back, look within.”
Then Junnaid closed his eyes and he found that the master was right. He had left his wife but his mind was clinging to her; he had left his children but their images were still there; and the friends who had come to give him the last send-off were still standing in his mind.
The master said, “Go out and come alone, because how can I talk with this crowd?”
So Junnaid had to wait for one year outside the temple to be freed of ‘this crowd’. And after one year the master called, “Now Junnaid, you are ready, come in. Now you are alone and a dialogue is possible.”
You can carry the crowd; you can also be in the crowd and yet alone. Try it: the next time you are moving in a big crowd in the market, just feel alone – and you are alone so there is no problem, you can feel it. And once you can feel that you are alone, you have become a solitary. Jesus says he has come to make you solitaries, to stand alone.
I WILL GIVE YOU WHAT THE EYE HAS NOT SEEN, AND WHAT THE EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND WHAT THE HAND HAS NOT TOUCHED, AND WHAT HAS NOT ARISEN IN THE HEART OF MAN.
Your eyes can see that which is without, they cannot see within, there is no way. Your ears can hear that which is without, they cannot hear within, there is no way. They are outgoing, all senses are outgoing. There is not a single sense that is ingoing. So when all the senses stop functioning, suddenly you are in. There is no sense that goes in.
Jesus says: I WILL GIVE YOU WHAT THE EYE HAS NOT SEEN – but first become a solitary. And that is what I mean by a sannyasin: a solitary. First become a sannyasin, first realize that you are alone, and be at ease with this aloneness. Don’t be afraid. Rather enjoy it, rather see the beauty of it, the silence and the purity and the innocence. No dirt has ever entered there because nobody has entered into that shrine. It has remained eternally pure, it is virgin; nobody has been there.
Your virginity is hidden within you. Become a sannyasin, a solitary, and then, Jesus says: I WILL GIVE YOU WHAT THE EYE HAS NOT SEEN.
When you become a solitary, totally alone, suddenly you realize that which no eye can see, no ear can hear, and what the hand has not touched. How can you touch your self? You can touch the body, but that is not your self. The hand cannot enter in, it cannot touch your consciousness – there is no way. And the last sentence is the most beautiful uttered by any person on this earth:… AND WHAT HAS NOT ARISEN IN THE HEART OF MAN.
… Because your soul is beyond even your heart. Of course, your heart is very deep within; but still, as far as your soul is concerned, it is also without, it is not within. The hands are without, the eyes are without, the heart is also without, on the periphery. The innermost core is not even the heart.
Hunger arises in your body, love arises in your heart – not prayer. Prayer is still deeper, deeper than the heart. Hunger is a bodily need; love is a need of the heart. God is a need of the beyond, not even of the heart. One has to transcend the mind, one has to transcend the heart too. One has to transcend all peripheries so that only the center remains.
And what has not arisen in the heart of man? God has not arisen in the heart of man. In the mind science arises, philosophy arises; in the heart, art, poetry arises – but not religion. Religion arises at a deeper layer, at the deepest beyond which there is no going, at your very center, which is not even the heart. I WILL GIVE YOU… WHAT HAS NOT ARISEN IN THE HEART OF MAN.
That which is beyond and beyond and beyond. You cannot catch hold of it, you cannot see it, you cannot hear it, you cannot even feel it. Here Jesus transcends even those mystics who are of the heart.
There are three types of mystics: first, mystics of the head – they talk in terms of theology, philosophy, they have proofs for God. There is no proof at all, or, everything is a proof. But there is no need for a proof and you cannot prove God anyway, because all the proofs can be disputed and all the proofs can be proved wrong. Then there are mystics of the heart: they talk of love, of the beloved, the divine, of Krishna; they talk in songs, poetry – they are romantic. Their search is deeper than the head but still not deep enough.
Jesus says: I will give you something which has not arisen even in the heart… where no theology reaches and no poetry has any glimpse of, nor logic nor love – where both stop. I WILL GIVE YOU THAT WHICH HAS NOT ARISEN IN THE HEART OF MAN.
This is the deepest, the most profound possibility – and Jesus opens it. But in Christianity it is lost.
Christianity started to weave theories around it, it became a head affair – not only a heart affair, it became a head affair. Christians have produced great theologicians. Look at Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica – hundreds of volumes of theology. But they missed because Jesus is not in the head. And because of these head-oriented theologicians, mystics who were of the heart, who were a little deeper, were expelled from the church. Eckhart and Francis were expelled. They were thought fools, or to have gone mad, or to be heretics – because they were talking of the heart, they were talking of love.
But Jesus is missed by both. He is neither head-oriented nor heart-oriented; he is not oriented at all. He says, simply throw all orientations, throw all that is without and come to the innermost core where only you are, where only the being throbs, where only existence is. You can come to this, and if you come to this, then every mystery is revealed and all doors are opened. But even at the door you can miss. If you remain head-oriented you remain standing at the door, theorizing, or you may be standing at the door and poetizing – talking in poetry and singing.
I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin went once to a psychiatrist and said, “I am very puzzled: now do something. It has become impossible. Every night I have a recurrent dream that I am standing at a door and I am pushing and pushing and pushing. There is a sign on the door and I push and push to no end. Every night I wake up perspiring and the door never opens.”
The psychiatrist started to note whatsoever he was saying. After half an hour’s talk he asked, “Now tell me, Nasruddin, what is written on the door, on the sign?”
And Nasruddin said, “It says ‘pull’.”
If ‘pull’ is written on the door then don’t go on pushing; otherwise you will have a recurrent dream, you will push eternally! And there is no problem at all: simply look at what is written on the door.
Jesus says neither head nor heart is written on the door – it is beyond both.
So do one thing: go beyond. Neither fall a victim of logic, of intellect, nor become a victim of emotions, of sentimentality. The head is in the body and the heart is also in the body. Go beyond both. What is beyond? There, is simple existence, you simply are.
Being is without any attributes. That simple ‘beingness’ is dhyan, that simple ‘beingness’ is meditation – and that is written on the door.
Suddenly the door opens when you are a simple being – not emotions, nor thoughts; no cloud around you, unclouded; no smoke around the flame, just the flame. You have entered.
… AND WHAT HAS NOT ARISEN IN THE HEART OF MAN I WILL GIVE YOU.