JESUS
Come Follow Yourself Vol 02 09
Ninth Discourse from the series of 11 discourses - Come Follow Yourself Vol 02 by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
Matthew 13
34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.”
37 He answered and said unto them, “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man;”
38 “The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;”
39 “The enemy that sowed them is the Devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.”
40 “As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.”
41 “The son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and which do iniquity.”
42 “And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
43 “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. Who have ears to hear, let him hear.”
44 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.”
The other day I was reading a few lines of Stephen Crane’s. I would like to read them to you:
A man said to the universe, “Sir, I exist.”
“However,” replied the universe, “the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”
Man can exist in two ways. One, that the whole celebrates him. One, that the whole welcomes him. One, that the whole feels blessed because of him. And the other, that the whole feels cursed.
Man can live a life of good, truth, and beauty – and man can live a life of untruth, evil, and ugliness. And man is free to live and to choose. Man is a tremendous freedom: that is his innermost nature. Nothing is forced. Hence the beauty of the adventure, and hence the danger also. You have to choose.
Your choice will determine your being, your choice will become your destiny. On each step, every moment, you have to decide who you are.
People come to me and they ask who they are. It is not a question of inquiry because the being is not a static thing waiting for you to be discovered. The being has to be created moment to moment. That is the only way to discover it.
You create yourself moment to moment. You are born not as a fixed entity, but only as an infinite potentiality. You are born as a seed, not as a tree. You are born open, not closed, and that opening is tremendous. You will have to choose every moment who you are going to be. Your decision is your destiny. And unless you live a life so that the whole feels blessed, you are not religious.
A religious life is a life of spontaneity. A religious life is a life of flow, of dynamism. A religious life is a life of prayer. Prayer is the supreme good.
Let me explain to you what prayer is. It is not something you do; it has nothing to do with doing. It is something you become, by and by. It is something you live, it is something that surrounds you like a climate, it is something like a deep gratitude. Looking at the trees, or looking at the sea, or looking at the grass, a tremendous urge arises in you to say, “Thank you.” That is prayer.
Not that you say it. It is not in the saying, but in the very urge, in the very mood that you would like to say, unconditionally, “Thank you” – not knowing to whom your thank-you is addressed, not knowing who is the creator of the morning and the evening and the stars and the moon and the sun, not knowing whose hands are hidden behind every grass leaf and who is smiling in every dewdrop. Not knowing at all.
Knowledge is ugly; not knowing is beautiful. Remember, not knowing is not ignorance. Not knowing is ultimate knowledge. It transcends even what you call knowledge. Not knowing is innocence. In deep innocence a thank-you arises, unaddressed, not knowing whom you are addressing. But that is not the point. Deep within your being, in your depths, you feel gratitude.
Prayer is the feeling of the unknown presence. That feeling of the unknown presence becomes reverence. Prayer has to be just like breathing. It is not that you do it and you are finished with it. It is something that goes on and on and on like breathing. Awake or asleep, it surrounds you, it throbs within your heart. It almost becomes you. No separation exists. And a life of prayer is what I call a good life. A life of gratitude is what I call a religious life.
This life of spontaneity, of flow, does not know what sin is. Sin comes from knowledge. That is the meaning of the biblical story. When Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, he sinned. Then he was thrown out of the Garden of Eden. This story has no parallel; this story is simply unique: “…because he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge.”
No other religion has emphasized in such a crystal clear way that knowledge is sin and that unless you become like children again, you will not become good. Unless you drop all knowledge and you become innocent again, uncorrupted by knowledge, you will not be accepted back. The source will go on rejecting you.
Not that the source wants to reject you. But the way you behave, through knowledge, creates the situation for your own rejection. God had to expel Adam and Eve. Not that he wanted to – he must have wept because they were his children – but he was helpless.
Whenever you create the feeling in the whole of helplessness, you commit sin. And whenever you force the whole to reject you, you commit sin. Whenever you force the whole to throw you out of the garden, you commit sin.
Sin is behaving in a cunning way, behaving as if you know. Sin is being self-complacent, sin is thinking you are enough unto yourself. A child is not enough unto himself; a child is helpless. A child does not know anything; he acts out of innocence. Then it is good. The moment you start acting out of knowledge, it is sin.
Try to understand the import of what I am saying. I am saying that if you live a virtuous life out of knowledge, it is not virtuous. You can have character out of knowledge, you can have a quality of morality out of knowledge, but then it is no longer moral. Then you are still eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Your so-called saints are, deep down, sinners because they still go on getting their nourishment from the tree of knowledge. The real sage is innocent. He acts – not because of the commandments, because all commandments are sin. He acts out of his totality. He responds in this moment.
He does not act out of the mind. To act out of the mind is to sin, and to act out of the mind is to be thrown out of the garden, out of the Kingdom of God. Once you accept the mind as your source of activity, you have denied God, and in your denial of God, you are denied.
Whenever you act out of the mind, your act is going to be fragmented because the mind is a split phenomenon. The mind is not one. It is many, it is a multitude, its names are legion. Whenever you act out of the mind, only a part acts – against the whole. Whenever you act out of no-mind…
Sometimes you act: you know there are moments when you act out of no-mind. You are walking. You have gone for a long morning or evening walk and suddenly a snake crosses the path. You don’t have time to think. The mind needs time; the mind is a time process. You don’t have time to think. If you think, you will be gone! The snake is there and the snake is not going to wait for you to think. The snake acts out of no-mind; you will be in danger if you believe in the mind. But you will act out of no-mind. You will simply jump.
And remember, and watch: you will jump first, and then you will think about what has happened. That jump comes out of your totality; it is not of the mind. That jump is a spontaneous total. It is here and now. It has nothing to do with past, nothing to do with future. It has no past, no future. It is absolutely here, now.
The quality of good is the quality of an act that comes out of your totality. You fall in love: you see a man or a woman and suddenly, in spite of you, something happens. Your total being responds in a new way. Even you are surprised! You throb, you sing, you have a dance within you – as if clouds have separated and you have seen the source of light. In a single moment – in fact, that moment is not a part of time. In fact, it is a “no moment,” as if time has stopped. Something took possession of you. This is out of no-mind.
Whatever is like love is good. That’s why Jesus says, “God is love.” He’s not saying God is loving. He is simply showing a quality: God has the same quality as love. “Good” is love, good has the same quality as love.
All that comes from the mind is from the Devil. “The Devil” is just a way of saying it – because it separates. Let me define “Devil” as one who separates, and God as one who unites. God and Devil are both ways of speaking. They are not entities; they are symbols.
Just a few days before, I read a beautiful story of DuBois’. I would like you to listen to it and try to understand it.
It was one o’clock and I was hungry. I walked into a restaurant, seated myself, and reached for the bill of fare. My table companion rose. “Sir,” said he, “do you wish to force your company on those who don’t want you?”
“No,” I said. “I wish to eat.”
“Are you aware, sir, that this is social equality?”
“Nothing of the sort, sir. It is hunger,” I said, and I ate.
The days’ work done, I sought the theater. As I sank into my seat, the lady next to me shrank and squirmed. “I beg pardon,” I said.
“Do you enjoy where you are not wanted?” she asked coldly.
“Oh, no,” I said.
“Well, you are not wanted here.”
I was surprised. “I fear you are mistaken,” I said. “I certainly want the music, and I like to think the music wants me to listen to it.”
“Oh sir,” said the lady, “this is social equality.”
“No, madam,” said the usher. “It is the second movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.”
After the theater, I sought the hotel where I had sent my baggage. The clerk scowled. “What do you want?”
“Rest,” I said.
“This is a white hotel,” he said.
I looked around. “Such a color scheme requires a great deal of cleaning,” I said. “But I don’t know that I object.”
“We object!” said he.
“Then why…” I began, but he interrupted.
“We don’t keep niggers,” he said. “We don’t want social equality.”
“Neither do I,” I replied gently. “I want a bed.”
I walked thoughtfully to the train. “I will take a sleeper through Texas. I’m a little bit dissatisfied with this town.”
“Can’t sell you one.”
“I only want to hire it,” said I, “for a couple of nights.”
“Can’t sell you a sleeper in Texas,” he maintained. “They consider that social equality.”
“I consider it barbarism,” I said, “and I think I will walk.”
Walking, I met another wayfarer who immediately walked to the other side of the road where it was very muddy. I asked his reason.
“Niggers is dirty,” he said.
“So is mud,” said I. “Moreover, I am not as dirty as you, yet.”
“But you are a nigger, aren’t you?” he asked.
“My grandfather was so called.”
“Well then?” he answered triumphantly.
“Do you live in the south?” I persisted pleasantly.
“Sure,” he growled. “And starve there.”
“I should think that you and the Negroes should get together and vote out starvation.”
“We don’t let them vote! We?”
“Why not?” I said in surprise.
“Niggers is too ignorant to vote.”
“But,” I said, ‘I am not so ignorant as you.”
“But you are a nigger?”
“Yes, I am certainly what you mean by that.”
“Well then?” he returned with that curiously inconsequential note of triumph. “Moreover,” he said, “I don’t want my sister to marry a nigger.”
I had not seen his sister, so I merely murmured, “Let her say no.”
“By God, you shall not marry her even if she said yes!”
“But I don’t want to marry her,” I answered, a little perturbed at the personal turn.
“Why not?” he yelled, angrier than ever.
“Because I am already married. And I rather like my wife.”
“Is she a nigger?” he asked suspiciously.
“Well,” I said again, “her grandmother was called that.”
“Well then?” he shouted in that oddly illogical way.
I gave up. “Go on,” I said, “either you are crazy or I am.”
“We both are,” he said as he trotted along in the mud.
The mind is crazy; the mind is mad. The mind creates divisions, fragments. The mind creates nations, races: white and black, poor and rich. The mind is the Devil. When you can feel that you are one with all, you have gone beyond the mind. To feel one with all, to feel unison, is to be good. And to act out of that oneness is to be religious.
A religious man has no character. A religious man has a spontaneity. A religious man has a moment-to-moment contact with the whole. That contact is never lost. He lives prayerfully.
A nonreligious man may be apparently good, moral, he may have a character, but he is frozen, dead. He acts out of that character: out of the mind, out of knowledge, out of the rules. He is never in contact with the whole; he is always out of step. That’s what I call the Devil, that’s what I call bad.
That’s what Jesus means by this parable. He has not been understood; he has been very misunderstood. But if you can carry this feeling of what good is and what bad is, you will be able to go deep into this parable.
All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.”
Jesus always talked in parables. The parable is a poetic way of saying things that cannot be said in prose. It is a very feeling way of saying things from the heart, things that cannot be expressed by the head. A parable is a way to talk in pictures and not in words.
Have you ever observed that children always understand pictures? That’s why, in children’s books, you have to have many colored pictures: not much text, many pictures. First they understand the pictures, and then they understand the text.
In your dreams, you are again living in parables. You have pictures and pictures and pictures. The text is not much: your unconscious understands only pictures. Your conscious has become trained for language, words, but your unconscious is still that of a child.
When Jesus, a man like Jesus, is talking, he is trying to bridge something between himself and your unconscious. He is not a preacher. When a preacher talks to you, he talks in concepts. He is trying to communicate from one head to another head. When people like Jesus, Buddha, or Zarathustra talk, they are trying to communicate something from their innermost depth to your innermost depth. They always use parables.
A parable becomes a picture. Logic is not needed to understand it. If you can love sympathetically, that will do. If you can listen sympathetically, that will do. If you can listen in deep trust, that is enough. No logic is needed. The parable will manifest itself, will surround you, will become part of your being. You may forget the message but you will never forget the parable. It will be deeply imprinted, it will remain within you for ever and ever. Stories have a way to penetrate to the innermost core.
All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: Then Jesus sent this multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.” He must have used that parable with the multitude, with the crowd. The disciples wanted to know what he means. The disciples wanted to know the exact significance of the parable.
He answered and said unto them, “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man;”
“The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;”
“The enemy that sowed them is the Devil: the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.”
“As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.”
“The son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;”
“And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
“Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
A simple parable, but very significant. Move step-by-step into it: “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man…” “The son of man” has a very particular meaning in Jewish literature. It is used only for the prophets because ordinarily, whomever you call human beings are not yet human beings. They have the potentiality to be, but they have not actualized it. They are just like seeds. They have not yet sprouted, they have not yet bloomed. Their fragrance is just a possibility; it is not yet actual.
Jews call a man “son of man” who has become perfectly actualized, the perfect man: one who is no longer just potential, one who has bloomed, flowered. “The son of man” is a very, very respectful expression. It is next only to “the son of God.” And unless you become the son of man, you will not be able to become the son of God. First become actualized human beings: real, authentic, true. Then, the next step becomes possible. Then you can transcend humanity and you can become the son of God.
Jesus uses “son of man” for himself again and again – more than he ever uses “son of God.” Rarely does he use “son of God.” Often he uses the expression “son of man” because for those who have not become even human beings, the son of God is a myth. They cannot understand it. You can understand only that which has become, in some way, actual within you. You can understand only that which has become part of you.
You are part human being. When Jesus says “son of man,” at least a part within you can respond that yes, it is true. A part within you can trust him. But when he says “son of God,” he is moving in some direction about which you are completely oblivious. You have not known it, you have not even heard about it. It makes no sense to you.
So he uses the expression “son of God” only very rarely, only with very close disciples who are by and by growing into divinity; whose hands are touching the divine, who have been groping and now they have come to the door, who have attained a small glimpse of the ultimate. Only then he uses “son of God.” Otherwise he says “son of man.”
He answered and said unto them, “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man…” One who has become actualized, one who has become really human, how will you know him? This crystallization will be his innermost phenomenon, you will not be able to see it. You will not be able to look within him, you will not be able to understand what has happened within him. That will remain a mystery to you; it will remain hidden. But one thing you can watch, one thing you can see and understand, and that is: “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man…”
You will see through his acts, through his words, even through his gestures, that he is sowing the seed of good. Whatever he does, however he moves – even walking, sitting, sleeping – he is continuously sowing seeds of good. His whole life is nothing but a showering of good seeds all around. Wherever he moves, he goes on sowing good seeds.
Not that he thinks about it deliberately, not that he plans it, not that he makes any effort about it, not that he has become very skilled in a certain discipline. No, spontaneously: he cannot help it. That’s how he is. That’s how it happens to him; that’s how his whole being functions now.
Goodness, good deeds, good is the functioning of one who has become actualized. Remember: you have been taught just the opposite. You have been taught, “Become good in your acts so you can realize yourself.” That is wrong. That is looking at the thing from the wrong end. The real teachers have not said that. They have said just the opposite. They have said, “Become actualized, and you will find that your acts have become good.”
Character is not to be cultivated. A cultivated character is immoral, however moral it appears to be. A cultivated character is a bondage, it is an imprisonment. And whomever you call men of character are all frozen, dead people – blocked. They need to be melted so they can flow again.
They may be good, but they stink. They may be good, but it is very difficult to live with them. They may be good, but they are very paralyzing to others – crippling. If you live with them, they will become a heavy weight on your chest. They will crush you and destroy you. They are destructive.
When you are really in contact with a good man – a good man whose goodness is not forced and cultivated, but one who has realized his potentiality and now the goodness flows – it is just like a fragrance of a flower that has opened. When the flower opens, the fragrance spreads: not otherwise. Otherwise you can have a plastic flower and you can spray it with perfume. A character that has to be maintained, controlled, is sprayed perfume. The flower is not real.
Jesus says: “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man.” Recognize that he is the son of man. You will be able to know from his acts. But he does not act through morality, through discipline. He acts out of his heart. You cannot see his heart without seeing his acts: that is your blindness.
Never try to follow the acts of good people. That’s how the whole world has become almost dead, a great graveyard. I was just reading a few days ago that Paul, St. Paul, said to his people, “I imitate Christ. You imitate me. And that is the way.”
This is dangerous teaching. This man Paul has completely misunderstood. He says, “I imitate Christ. You imitate me.” He says, “Do whatever I do. That’s the way.” These are the people who have destroyed the message of Christ completely.
If you imitate, you will remain false. You may become Christlike, but you will not be a Christ. You may become Buddhalike, but you will not be a Buddha. You will be just a pseudo Buddha, a false thing, an untrue thing. And that is not going to make you blissful, and that is not going to create a sense of obligation in existence.
“He answered and said unto them, he that soweth the good seed is the son of man.” This is the way you will recognize him, that’s all. “The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one.” How to translate this “wicked one” – the Devil, Beelzebub, Satan – into today’s twentieth-century language? I call it the mind.
Buddha is more modern, more contemporary, than Jesus. Buddha will never say this. He will say the mind corrupts, not the Devil. “The Devil” is a symbolic way of saying the same thing – but dangerous because then in Christianity, the Devil became very, very important. And in the Christian mind, the Devil became a reality and God also became a personalized reality. They are not persons; they are both interpretations of a certain inner phenomenon.
The inner phenomenon is that your being can function in two ways: either through the mind, or through no-mind. If you work through the mind, that is what Jesus calls “the wicked one.” If you work through the no-mind, then you function through your nature. That’s what Buddha calls nirvana, selflessness, anatta, enlightenment.
You are separate from the mind. Once you know how to function without the mind – how to bypass it, how to put the mind aside – then you are functioning in the totality, with the totality. Then you are in tune with it. Then you are not like an island; you have surrendered and you have become part of the mainland, the continent. Then you are not separate from existence. It is not that you exist; then God exists in you. Then the ego has disappeared like a dewdrop in the morning sun.
“The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the Devil…” The Devil is not outside you. It is very tempting to think of him as outside because then you can throw all the responsibility on him and you can become completely free of the responsibility.
People have been always using scapegoats to throw their responsibilities on. Whatever is wrong with you, you will always find some cause for it in somebody else. Somebody says something and you feel angry. Now you think he has insulted you. In fact, you have become angered – not that he has insulted you. If you were a little more aware, there would have been no anger, and then there would have been no insult also. You throw responsibility. One feels good just putting the responsibility on others’ shoulders.
This is one of the oldest ways the human mind has been defending itself. Once you can say and argue that somebody else is responsible, you can relax and you can be yourself, whatever you are. No need to transform.
If you see that the Devil is within and that there is no point in throwing out the responsibility onto somebody else – that you are the problem – then to live with that problem becomes difficult, to live with that problem becomes almost impossible. A moment comes when you have to drop it. It is too much and it is foolish and stupid to carry it. You are not benefited by it; you are simply crushed under the weight.
Never throw the responsibility on some Devil outside. The Devil is within, as much within as God is within. If you function through the mind, this is the Devil. If you function without the mind, if you function through meditation, no-mind, it is God. God is a function of you. The Devil is also a function of you.
If you function unaware, unalert, not remembering yourself, you have allowed the Devil to enter you. And remember, I am not being anthropomorphic at all. There is nobody outside who enters within you. These are only ways of talking.
“The enemy that sowed them is the Devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Jesus is saying that the good survives and the bad dies. Jesus is saying the good is eternal and the bad temporary. Jesus is saying the good remains and the bad is momentary. This has to be understood.
Forget his words, they have become out of date. And Christians go on talking about these words and explaining them. The words are dead. What he says is very significant, and will always remain significant, but the language has to be changed.
Listen to how different it sounds if I say: “Good is that which is going to survive – maybe temporarily it is defeated, but eventually, finally, it wins.” In India we say satya meva jayate: truth wins, eventually. Maybe in the moment the lie appears to win, but finally that cannot be so because a lie is a lie and will be exposed someday or other. It cannot become an eternity.
Just think, how can a lie become eternity? It has no roots in existence, it has no being of its own. Even if it exists for the moment, it has to borrow its being from some truth.
That’s why whenever you assert a lie, you defend it, you argue for it, you try to prove it, and you like to say, “This is truth.” You are trying to borrow being and life from truth for the lie. But a borrowed life is a borrowed life. For a moment it may deceive, but it cannot deceive eternally; it cannot deceive for ever and ever. Someday or other it is bound to be exposed.
A lie is a lie, and cannot become true. And a truth is a truth: maybe hidden for the moment, misunderstood, not heard, heard wrongly, interpreted wrongly – but a truth is a truth. A diamond is a diamond: maybe lost in the mud, but it is not the mud and it cannot become the mud. Finally, it has to be discovered.
Truth is eternal. Or, it will be better if we say it just the other way around: that which is eternal is true. Don’t cling to anything that is not eternal, otherwise you are living with a lie. And all the time you lived with it is simply wasted because the lie will be exposed and you will find your hands empty.
Jesus is saying that in the end, good survives and all that is bad dies in the fire, is destroyed. So look at, watch your life. What are you sowing? The world is a field, life is an opportunity. What are you sowing?
Are you sowing love or are you sowing only lust? If you are sowing only lust, in the end you will come to know and you will have to repent much because that lust was just a momentary fantasy: ungrounded, without any roots. It was just in the mind. Love? Then you can rely upon it. Then you are building your house on a rock, not on the sands.
What are you accumulating in the world – possessions, things, wealth? Then you are deceived by the Devil, by the mind, by ambition, desire. Or are you trying to realize who you are? – the real wealth.
The only thing that can be possessed is your being, because you already possess it. Nothing else can be possessed. If you are searching for one thing that you can possess and can be yours, and can be yours for ever and ever – even death cannot take it away from you – then you are sowing the seeds that Jesus calls “the children of the kingdom.”
And if you are a little alert… And I hope that you are, otherwise you cannot be near me, you cannot be here. A part of you has become alert; hence you are here. A part has become awake. Just watch from the corner that has become lighted. Just watch your past. Do you find anything that can be eternal, that can be existential for ever and ever? If not, then your life has been wasted. Don’t go on repeating it. Jump out of the vicious circle, stop that wheel. If you think that yes, there is something that can be eternal, then water it, protect it; help it to grow.
That is how one finds one’s religion. It is not found in the Bible, it is not found in the Gita or Koran. It is found in one’s own experience. Watch, observe, and go on separating the good seeds from the bad. Before God rejects them, please reject them. Don’t carry anything with you that is to be thrown in the fire. Don’t carry anything with you that is going to die.
It is going to be hard, arduous, to separate yourself from false things because you have attached so much significance to false things; you go on wasting your life for things of no import, childish.
A man goes on accumulating wealth and just goes on thinking that someday in the future he is going to live. Right now, he is preparing. But that preparation is never fulfilled. One day, suddenly, he dies. And the wealth is accumulated there and somebody else will become the possessor. This man wasted his whole life. He could have lived, he could have lived beautifully, because in fact if you want to live, all that is needed is already given to you.
Let me repeat it: if you want to live, all that is needed is already given to you. There is no need to prepare. All preparation is postponement, and all preparation is a trick of the Devil – the mind. The mind says, “How can you live now? How can you dance? First you need a marble floor, then you can dance.”
So first have a marble floor, then you can dance! Do you see the fallacy in it? If you want to dance, the beach is enough, the earth is enough. If you want to dance, you can dance anywhere, anytime. Every moment is as good as any other. Nothing else is needed. Only life is needed in you, and that is there. You need a flowing life, that’s all. To dance, that’s all that is needed. Not even training is needed for dancing. Life itself is the dance. Just allow it to happen.
Do you want to sing? Then what are you waiting for? Do you want to love? Then what are you postponing for? This is the only moment there is, and this is the only life there is. Forget about the future and start being alive here and now. Remember, if you are alive this moment, the next moment you will find yourself more alive because the next moment is born out of this moment.
If you miss this moment, a great punishment is there. It is not that somebody who is sitting there on a golden throne in heaven goes on punishing you. If you miss this moment and you don’t dance, you lose the capacity to dance by and by. That is the punishment. That is the only punishment. There is nobody who is punishing you.
If you pray this moment, you are rewarded because the next moment a greater prayer is waiting. If you don’t pray this moment, you lose the capacity to pray. By and by, you become absolutely incapable of praying, and then you go and ask people how to pray, how to meditate, how to love.
Just look at the absurdity of the questions: “How to love?” “How to pray?” “How to meditate?” “How to live?” Absurd questions, but they show the poverty, the inner poverty of man. He has been postponing everything, and by and by he has forgotten. Every child knows how to pray, and every child knows how to love, and every child knows how to dance, and every child knows how to live. Every child comes complete, with everything ready. One has just to start living.
Have you seen? If you are crying and a small child is watching, he will come near you. He cannot say much, he cannot argue you out of your crying, but he puts his hand on your hand. Have you felt the touch? Never again will anybody touch you like that, like a child can touch. He knows how to touch. Later on, people are simply cold, hard. They touch, but nothing flows from their hands. When a child touches you – the tenderness of it, the softness of it, the message – he pours his whole being into it.
Everybody is born complete to live. And the more you live, the more capable you become of life. That is the reward. The less you live, the less capable you are. That is the punishment.
The religion you have to seek is within you. You have to watch your life moment to moment and drop all that seems to be momentary. It may be very exciting – but futile in the end. Drop it! And look deeply into those moments that may not be so exciting. The eternal cannot be very exciting because that which has to be for ever and ever has to be very silent, peaceful. Blissful, of course, but not exciting; deeply blissful, but with no noise around it. More like a silence than like sound.
You will have to grow awareness so you can sort it out. Otherwise, in the end, you will find you have lived a futile life. That’s what Jesus calls: “…the tares of the field.”
“Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.”
Yes, that is how it is. Once you come to know the eternal, the essential, the infinite, once you have come to feel it, then you are ready to go and sell all that you have been possessing, that you have been accumulating. Then you are ready to sell everything just to have this treasure of eternity.
I will repeat it again: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.” This is what my sannyas is all about. Seek the eternal. Whatever the cost, stake all for it and you will not be a loser.
Try to save that which you have accumulated and you will be lost. Jesus says, “Those who save their lives, lose: and those who are ready to lose them, attain, to life – to life abundant.”
Enough for today.
34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.”
37 He answered and said unto them, “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man;”
38 “The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;”
39 “The enemy that sowed them is the Devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.”
40 “As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.”
41 “The son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and which do iniquity.”
42 “And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
43 “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. Who have ears to hear, let him hear.”
44 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.”
The other day I was reading a few lines of Stephen Crane’s. I would like to read them to you:
A man said to the universe, “Sir, I exist.”
“However,” replied the universe, “the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”
Man can exist in two ways. One, that the whole celebrates him. One, that the whole welcomes him. One, that the whole feels blessed because of him. And the other, that the whole feels cursed.
Man can live a life of good, truth, and beauty – and man can live a life of untruth, evil, and ugliness. And man is free to live and to choose. Man is a tremendous freedom: that is his innermost nature. Nothing is forced. Hence the beauty of the adventure, and hence the danger also. You have to choose.
Your choice will determine your being, your choice will become your destiny. On each step, every moment, you have to decide who you are.
People come to me and they ask who they are. It is not a question of inquiry because the being is not a static thing waiting for you to be discovered. The being has to be created moment to moment. That is the only way to discover it.
You create yourself moment to moment. You are born not as a fixed entity, but only as an infinite potentiality. You are born as a seed, not as a tree. You are born open, not closed, and that opening is tremendous. You will have to choose every moment who you are going to be. Your decision is your destiny. And unless you live a life so that the whole feels blessed, you are not religious.
A religious life is a life of spontaneity. A religious life is a life of flow, of dynamism. A religious life is a life of prayer. Prayer is the supreme good.
Let me explain to you what prayer is. It is not something you do; it has nothing to do with doing. It is something you become, by and by. It is something you live, it is something that surrounds you like a climate, it is something like a deep gratitude. Looking at the trees, or looking at the sea, or looking at the grass, a tremendous urge arises in you to say, “Thank you.” That is prayer.
Not that you say it. It is not in the saying, but in the very urge, in the very mood that you would like to say, unconditionally, “Thank you” – not knowing to whom your thank-you is addressed, not knowing who is the creator of the morning and the evening and the stars and the moon and the sun, not knowing whose hands are hidden behind every grass leaf and who is smiling in every dewdrop. Not knowing at all.
Knowledge is ugly; not knowing is beautiful. Remember, not knowing is not ignorance. Not knowing is ultimate knowledge. It transcends even what you call knowledge. Not knowing is innocence. In deep innocence a thank-you arises, unaddressed, not knowing whom you are addressing. But that is not the point. Deep within your being, in your depths, you feel gratitude.
Prayer is the feeling of the unknown presence. That feeling of the unknown presence becomes reverence. Prayer has to be just like breathing. It is not that you do it and you are finished with it. It is something that goes on and on and on like breathing. Awake or asleep, it surrounds you, it throbs within your heart. It almost becomes you. No separation exists. And a life of prayer is what I call a good life. A life of gratitude is what I call a religious life.
This life of spontaneity, of flow, does not know what sin is. Sin comes from knowledge. That is the meaning of the biblical story. When Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, he sinned. Then he was thrown out of the Garden of Eden. This story has no parallel; this story is simply unique: “…because he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge.”
No other religion has emphasized in such a crystal clear way that knowledge is sin and that unless you become like children again, you will not become good. Unless you drop all knowledge and you become innocent again, uncorrupted by knowledge, you will not be accepted back. The source will go on rejecting you.
Not that the source wants to reject you. But the way you behave, through knowledge, creates the situation for your own rejection. God had to expel Adam and Eve. Not that he wanted to – he must have wept because they were his children – but he was helpless.
Whenever you create the feeling in the whole of helplessness, you commit sin. And whenever you force the whole to reject you, you commit sin. Whenever you force the whole to throw you out of the garden, you commit sin.
Sin is behaving in a cunning way, behaving as if you know. Sin is being self-complacent, sin is thinking you are enough unto yourself. A child is not enough unto himself; a child is helpless. A child does not know anything; he acts out of innocence. Then it is good. The moment you start acting out of knowledge, it is sin.
Try to understand the import of what I am saying. I am saying that if you live a virtuous life out of knowledge, it is not virtuous. You can have character out of knowledge, you can have a quality of morality out of knowledge, but then it is no longer moral. Then you are still eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Your so-called saints are, deep down, sinners because they still go on getting their nourishment from the tree of knowledge. The real sage is innocent. He acts – not because of the commandments, because all commandments are sin. He acts out of his totality. He responds in this moment.
He does not act out of the mind. To act out of the mind is to sin, and to act out of the mind is to be thrown out of the garden, out of the Kingdom of God. Once you accept the mind as your source of activity, you have denied God, and in your denial of God, you are denied.
Whenever you act out of the mind, your act is going to be fragmented because the mind is a split phenomenon. The mind is not one. It is many, it is a multitude, its names are legion. Whenever you act out of the mind, only a part acts – against the whole. Whenever you act out of no-mind…
Sometimes you act: you know there are moments when you act out of no-mind. You are walking. You have gone for a long morning or evening walk and suddenly a snake crosses the path. You don’t have time to think. The mind needs time; the mind is a time process. You don’t have time to think. If you think, you will be gone! The snake is there and the snake is not going to wait for you to think. The snake acts out of no-mind; you will be in danger if you believe in the mind. But you will act out of no-mind. You will simply jump.
And remember, and watch: you will jump first, and then you will think about what has happened. That jump comes out of your totality; it is not of the mind. That jump is a spontaneous total. It is here and now. It has nothing to do with past, nothing to do with future. It has no past, no future. It is absolutely here, now.
The quality of good is the quality of an act that comes out of your totality. You fall in love: you see a man or a woman and suddenly, in spite of you, something happens. Your total being responds in a new way. Even you are surprised! You throb, you sing, you have a dance within you – as if clouds have separated and you have seen the source of light. In a single moment – in fact, that moment is not a part of time. In fact, it is a “no moment,” as if time has stopped. Something took possession of you. This is out of no-mind.
Whatever is like love is good. That’s why Jesus says, “God is love.” He’s not saying God is loving. He is simply showing a quality: God has the same quality as love. “Good” is love, good has the same quality as love.
All that comes from the mind is from the Devil. “The Devil” is just a way of saying it – because it separates. Let me define “Devil” as one who separates, and God as one who unites. God and Devil are both ways of speaking. They are not entities; they are symbols.
Just a few days before, I read a beautiful story of DuBois’. I would like you to listen to it and try to understand it.
It was one o’clock and I was hungry. I walked into a restaurant, seated myself, and reached for the bill of fare. My table companion rose. “Sir,” said he, “do you wish to force your company on those who don’t want you?”
“No,” I said. “I wish to eat.”
“Are you aware, sir, that this is social equality?”
“Nothing of the sort, sir. It is hunger,” I said, and I ate.
The days’ work done, I sought the theater. As I sank into my seat, the lady next to me shrank and squirmed. “I beg pardon,” I said.
“Do you enjoy where you are not wanted?” she asked coldly.
“Oh, no,” I said.
“Well, you are not wanted here.”
I was surprised. “I fear you are mistaken,” I said. “I certainly want the music, and I like to think the music wants me to listen to it.”
“Oh sir,” said the lady, “this is social equality.”
“No, madam,” said the usher. “It is the second movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.”
After the theater, I sought the hotel where I had sent my baggage. The clerk scowled. “What do you want?”
“Rest,” I said.
“This is a white hotel,” he said.
I looked around. “Such a color scheme requires a great deal of cleaning,” I said. “But I don’t know that I object.”
“We object!” said he.
“Then why…” I began, but he interrupted.
“We don’t keep niggers,” he said. “We don’t want social equality.”
“Neither do I,” I replied gently. “I want a bed.”
I walked thoughtfully to the train. “I will take a sleeper through Texas. I’m a little bit dissatisfied with this town.”
“Can’t sell you one.”
“I only want to hire it,” said I, “for a couple of nights.”
“Can’t sell you a sleeper in Texas,” he maintained. “They consider that social equality.”
“I consider it barbarism,” I said, “and I think I will walk.”
Walking, I met another wayfarer who immediately walked to the other side of the road where it was very muddy. I asked his reason.
“Niggers is dirty,” he said.
“So is mud,” said I. “Moreover, I am not as dirty as you, yet.”
“But you are a nigger, aren’t you?” he asked.
“My grandfather was so called.”
“Well then?” he answered triumphantly.
“Do you live in the south?” I persisted pleasantly.
“Sure,” he growled. “And starve there.”
“I should think that you and the Negroes should get together and vote out starvation.”
“We don’t let them vote! We?”
“Why not?” I said in surprise.
“Niggers is too ignorant to vote.”
“But,” I said, ‘I am not so ignorant as you.”
“But you are a nigger?”
“Yes, I am certainly what you mean by that.”
“Well then?” he returned with that curiously inconsequential note of triumph. “Moreover,” he said, “I don’t want my sister to marry a nigger.”
I had not seen his sister, so I merely murmured, “Let her say no.”
“By God, you shall not marry her even if she said yes!”
“But I don’t want to marry her,” I answered, a little perturbed at the personal turn.
“Why not?” he yelled, angrier than ever.
“Because I am already married. And I rather like my wife.”
“Is she a nigger?” he asked suspiciously.
“Well,” I said again, “her grandmother was called that.”
“Well then?” he shouted in that oddly illogical way.
I gave up. “Go on,” I said, “either you are crazy or I am.”
“We both are,” he said as he trotted along in the mud.
The mind is crazy; the mind is mad. The mind creates divisions, fragments. The mind creates nations, races: white and black, poor and rich. The mind is the Devil. When you can feel that you are one with all, you have gone beyond the mind. To feel one with all, to feel unison, is to be good. And to act out of that oneness is to be religious.
A religious man has no character. A religious man has a spontaneity. A religious man has a moment-to-moment contact with the whole. That contact is never lost. He lives prayerfully.
A nonreligious man may be apparently good, moral, he may have a character, but he is frozen, dead. He acts out of that character: out of the mind, out of knowledge, out of the rules. He is never in contact with the whole; he is always out of step. That’s what I call the Devil, that’s what I call bad.
That’s what Jesus means by this parable. He has not been understood; he has been very misunderstood. But if you can carry this feeling of what good is and what bad is, you will be able to go deep into this parable.
All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.”
Jesus always talked in parables. The parable is a poetic way of saying things that cannot be said in prose. It is a very feeling way of saying things from the heart, things that cannot be expressed by the head. A parable is a way to talk in pictures and not in words.
Have you ever observed that children always understand pictures? That’s why, in children’s books, you have to have many colored pictures: not much text, many pictures. First they understand the pictures, and then they understand the text.
In your dreams, you are again living in parables. You have pictures and pictures and pictures. The text is not much: your unconscious understands only pictures. Your conscious has become trained for language, words, but your unconscious is still that of a child.
When Jesus, a man like Jesus, is talking, he is trying to bridge something between himself and your unconscious. He is not a preacher. When a preacher talks to you, he talks in concepts. He is trying to communicate from one head to another head. When people like Jesus, Buddha, or Zarathustra talk, they are trying to communicate something from their innermost depth to your innermost depth. They always use parables.
A parable becomes a picture. Logic is not needed to understand it. If you can love sympathetically, that will do. If you can listen sympathetically, that will do. If you can listen in deep trust, that is enough. No logic is needed. The parable will manifest itself, will surround you, will become part of your being. You may forget the message but you will never forget the parable. It will be deeply imprinted, it will remain within you for ever and ever. Stories have a way to penetrate to the innermost core.
All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: Then Jesus sent this multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.” He must have used that parable with the multitude, with the crowd. The disciples wanted to know what he means. The disciples wanted to know the exact significance of the parable.
He answered and said unto them, “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man;”
“The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;”
“The enemy that sowed them is the Devil: the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.”
“As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.”
“The son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;”
“And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
“Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
A simple parable, but very significant. Move step-by-step into it: “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man…” “The son of man” has a very particular meaning in Jewish literature. It is used only for the prophets because ordinarily, whomever you call human beings are not yet human beings. They have the potentiality to be, but they have not actualized it. They are just like seeds. They have not yet sprouted, they have not yet bloomed. Their fragrance is just a possibility; it is not yet actual.
Jews call a man “son of man” who has become perfectly actualized, the perfect man: one who is no longer just potential, one who has bloomed, flowered. “The son of man” is a very, very respectful expression. It is next only to “the son of God.” And unless you become the son of man, you will not be able to become the son of God. First become actualized human beings: real, authentic, true. Then, the next step becomes possible. Then you can transcend humanity and you can become the son of God.
Jesus uses “son of man” for himself again and again – more than he ever uses “son of God.” Rarely does he use “son of God.” Often he uses the expression “son of man” because for those who have not become even human beings, the son of God is a myth. They cannot understand it. You can understand only that which has become, in some way, actual within you. You can understand only that which has become part of you.
You are part human being. When Jesus says “son of man,” at least a part within you can respond that yes, it is true. A part within you can trust him. But when he says “son of God,” he is moving in some direction about which you are completely oblivious. You have not known it, you have not even heard about it. It makes no sense to you.
So he uses the expression “son of God” only very rarely, only with very close disciples who are by and by growing into divinity; whose hands are touching the divine, who have been groping and now they have come to the door, who have attained a small glimpse of the ultimate. Only then he uses “son of God.” Otherwise he says “son of man.”
He answered and said unto them, “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man…” One who has become actualized, one who has become really human, how will you know him? This crystallization will be his innermost phenomenon, you will not be able to see it. You will not be able to look within him, you will not be able to understand what has happened within him. That will remain a mystery to you; it will remain hidden. But one thing you can watch, one thing you can see and understand, and that is: “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man…”
You will see through his acts, through his words, even through his gestures, that he is sowing the seed of good. Whatever he does, however he moves – even walking, sitting, sleeping – he is continuously sowing seeds of good. His whole life is nothing but a showering of good seeds all around. Wherever he moves, he goes on sowing good seeds.
Not that he thinks about it deliberately, not that he plans it, not that he makes any effort about it, not that he has become very skilled in a certain discipline. No, spontaneously: he cannot help it. That’s how he is. That’s how it happens to him; that’s how his whole being functions now.
Goodness, good deeds, good is the functioning of one who has become actualized. Remember: you have been taught just the opposite. You have been taught, “Become good in your acts so you can realize yourself.” That is wrong. That is looking at the thing from the wrong end. The real teachers have not said that. They have said just the opposite. They have said, “Become actualized, and you will find that your acts have become good.”
Character is not to be cultivated. A cultivated character is immoral, however moral it appears to be. A cultivated character is a bondage, it is an imprisonment. And whomever you call men of character are all frozen, dead people – blocked. They need to be melted so they can flow again.
They may be good, but they stink. They may be good, but it is very difficult to live with them. They may be good, but they are very paralyzing to others – crippling. If you live with them, they will become a heavy weight on your chest. They will crush you and destroy you. They are destructive.
When you are really in contact with a good man – a good man whose goodness is not forced and cultivated, but one who has realized his potentiality and now the goodness flows – it is just like a fragrance of a flower that has opened. When the flower opens, the fragrance spreads: not otherwise. Otherwise you can have a plastic flower and you can spray it with perfume. A character that has to be maintained, controlled, is sprayed perfume. The flower is not real.
Jesus says: “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man.” Recognize that he is the son of man. You will be able to know from his acts. But he does not act through morality, through discipline. He acts out of his heart. You cannot see his heart without seeing his acts: that is your blindness.
Never try to follow the acts of good people. That’s how the whole world has become almost dead, a great graveyard. I was just reading a few days ago that Paul, St. Paul, said to his people, “I imitate Christ. You imitate me. And that is the way.”
This is dangerous teaching. This man Paul has completely misunderstood. He says, “I imitate Christ. You imitate me.” He says, “Do whatever I do. That’s the way.” These are the people who have destroyed the message of Christ completely.
If you imitate, you will remain false. You may become Christlike, but you will not be a Christ. You may become Buddhalike, but you will not be a Buddha. You will be just a pseudo Buddha, a false thing, an untrue thing. And that is not going to make you blissful, and that is not going to create a sense of obligation in existence.
“He answered and said unto them, he that soweth the good seed is the son of man.” This is the way you will recognize him, that’s all. “The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one.” How to translate this “wicked one” – the Devil, Beelzebub, Satan – into today’s twentieth-century language? I call it the mind.
Buddha is more modern, more contemporary, than Jesus. Buddha will never say this. He will say the mind corrupts, not the Devil. “The Devil” is a symbolic way of saying the same thing – but dangerous because then in Christianity, the Devil became very, very important. And in the Christian mind, the Devil became a reality and God also became a personalized reality. They are not persons; they are both interpretations of a certain inner phenomenon.
The inner phenomenon is that your being can function in two ways: either through the mind, or through no-mind. If you work through the mind, that is what Jesus calls “the wicked one.” If you work through the no-mind, then you function through your nature. That’s what Buddha calls nirvana, selflessness, anatta, enlightenment.
You are separate from the mind. Once you know how to function without the mind – how to bypass it, how to put the mind aside – then you are functioning in the totality, with the totality. Then you are in tune with it. Then you are not like an island; you have surrendered and you have become part of the mainland, the continent. Then you are not separate from existence. It is not that you exist; then God exists in you. Then the ego has disappeared like a dewdrop in the morning sun.
“The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the Devil…” The Devil is not outside you. It is very tempting to think of him as outside because then you can throw all the responsibility on him and you can become completely free of the responsibility.
People have been always using scapegoats to throw their responsibilities on. Whatever is wrong with you, you will always find some cause for it in somebody else. Somebody says something and you feel angry. Now you think he has insulted you. In fact, you have become angered – not that he has insulted you. If you were a little more aware, there would have been no anger, and then there would have been no insult also. You throw responsibility. One feels good just putting the responsibility on others’ shoulders.
This is one of the oldest ways the human mind has been defending itself. Once you can say and argue that somebody else is responsible, you can relax and you can be yourself, whatever you are. No need to transform.
If you see that the Devil is within and that there is no point in throwing out the responsibility onto somebody else – that you are the problem – then to live with that problem becomes difficult, to live with that problem becomes almost impossible. A moment comes when you have to drop it. It is too much and it is foolish and stupid to carry it. You are not benefited by it; you are simply crushed under the weight.
Never throw the responsibility on some Devil outside. The Devil is within, as much within as God is within. If you function through the mind, this is the Devil. If you function without the mind, if you function through meditation, no-mind, it is God. God is a function of you. The Devil is also a function of you.
If you function unaware, unalert, not remembering yourself, you have allowed the Devil to enter you. And remember, I am not being anthropomorphic at all. There is nobody outside who enters within you. These are only ways of talking.
“The enemy that sowed them is the Devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Jesus is saying that the good survives and the bad dies. Jesus is saying the good is eternal and the bad temporary. Jesus is saying the good remains and the bad is momentary. This has to be understood.
Forget his words, they have become out of date. And Christians go on talking about these words and explaining them. The words are dead. What he says is very significant, and will always remain significant, but the language has to be changed.
Listen to how different it sounds if I say: “Good is that which is going to survive – maybe temporarily it is defeated, but eventually, finally, it wins.” In India we say satya meva jayate: truth wins, eventually. Maybe in the moment the lie appears to win, but finally that cannot be so because a lie is a lie and will be exposed someday or other. It cannot become an eternity.
Just think, how can a lie become eternity? It has no roots in existence, it has no being of its own. Even if it exists for the moment, it has to borrow its being from some truth.
That’s why whenever you assert a lie, you defend it, you argue for it, you try to prove it, and you like to say, “This is truth.” You are trying to borrow being and life from truth for the lie. But a borrowed life is a borrowed life. For a moment it may deceive, but it cannot deceive eternally; it cannot deceive for ever and ever. Someday or other it is bound to be exposed.
A lie is a lie, and cannot become true. And a truth is a truth: maybe hidden for the moment, misunderstood, not heard, heard wrongly, interpreted wrongly – but a truth is a truth. A diamond is a diamond: maybe lost in the mud, but it is not the mud and it cannot become the mud. Finally, it has to be discovered.
Truth is eternal. Or, it will be better if we say it just the other way around: that which is eternal is true. Don’t cling to anything that is not eternal, otherwise you are living with a lie. And all the time you lived with it is simply wasted because the lie will be exposed and you will find your hands empty.
Jesus is saying that in the end, good survives and all that is bad dies in the fire, is destroyed. So look at, watch your life. What are you sowing? The world is a field, life is an opportunity. What are you sowing?
Are you sowing love or are you sowing only lust? If you are sowing only lust, in the end you will come to know and you will have to repent much because that lust was just a momentary fantasy: ungrounded, without any roots. It was just in the mind. Love? Then you can rely upon it. Then you are building your house on a rock, not on the sands.
What are you accumulating in the world – possessions, things, wealth? Then you are deceived by the Devil, by the mind, by ambition, desire. Or are you trying to realize who you are? – the real wealth.
The only thing that can be possessed is your being, because you already possess it. Nothing else can be possessed. If you are searching for one thing that you can possess and can be yours, and can be yours for ever and ever – even death cannot take it away from you – then you are sowing the seeds that Jesus calls “the children of the kingdom.”
And if you are a little alert… And I hope that you are, otherwise you cannot be near me, you cannot be here. A part of you has become alert; hence you are here. A part has become awake. Just watch from the corner that has become lighted. Just watch your past. Do you find anything that can be eternal, that can be existential for ever and ever? If not, then your life has been wasted. Don’t go on repeating it. Jump out of the vicious circle, stop that wheel. If you think that yes, there is something that can be eternal, then water it, protect it; help it to grow.
That is how one finds one’s religion. It is not found in the Bible, it is not found in the Gita or Koran. It is found in one’s own experience. Watch, observe, and go on separating the good seeds from the bad. Before God rejects them, please reject them. Don’t carry anything with you that is to be thrown in the fire. Don’t carry anything with you that is going to die.
It is going to be hard, arduous, to separate yourself from false things because you have attached so much significance to false things; you go on wasting your life for things of no import, childish.
A man goes on accumulating wealth and just goes on thinking that someday in the future he is going to live. Right now, he is preparing. But that preparation is never fulfilled. One day, suddenly, he dies. And the wealth is accumulated there and somebody else will become the possessor. This man wasted his whole life. He could have lived, he could have lived beautifully, because in fact if you want to live, all that is needed is already given to you.
Let me repeat it: if you want to live, all that is needed is already given to you. There is no need to prepare. All preparation is postponement, and all preparation is a trick of the Devil – the mind. The mind says, “How can you live now? How can you dance? First you need a marble floor, then you can dance.”
So first have a marble floor, then you can dance! Do you see the fallacy in it? If you want to dance, the beach is enough, the earth is enough. If you want to dance, you can dance anywhere, anytime. Every moment is as good as any other. Nothing else is needed. Only life is needed in you, and that is there. You need a flowing life, that’s all. To dance, that’s all that is needed. Not even training is needed for dancing. Life itself is the dance. Just allow it to happen.
Do you want to sing? Then what are you waiting for? Do you want to love? Then what are you postponing for? This is the only moment there is, and this is the only life there is. Forget about the future and start being alive here and now. Remember, if you are alive this moment, the next moment you will find yourself more alive because the next moment is born out of this moment.
If you miss this moment, a great punishment is there. It is not that somebody who is sitting there on a golden throne in heaven goes on punishing you. If you miss this moment and you don’t dance, you lose the capacity to dance by and by. That is the punishment. That is the only punishment. There is nobody who is punishing you.
If you pray this moment, you are rewarded because the next moment a greater prayer is waiting. If you don’t pray this moment, you lose the capacity to pray. By and by, you become absolutely incapable of praying, and then you go and ask people how to pray, how to meditate, how to love.
Just look at the absurdity of the questions: “How to love?” “How to pray?” “How to meditate?” “How to live?” Absurd questions, but they show the poverty, the inner poverty of man. He has been postponing everything, and by and by he has forgotten. Every child knows how to pray, and every child knows how to love, and every child knows how to dance, and every child knows how to live. Every child comes complete, with everything ready. One has just to start living.
Have you seen? If you are crying and a small child is watching, he will come near you. He cannot say much, he cannot argue you out of your crying, but he puts his hand on your hand. Have you felt the touch? Never again will anybody touch you like that, like a child can touch. He knows how to touch. Later on, people are simply cold, hard. They touch, but nothing flows from their hands. When a child touches you – the tenderness of it, the softness of it, the message – he pours his whole being into it.
Everybody is born complete to live. And the more you live, the more capable you become of life. That is the reward. The less you live, the less capable you are. That is the punishment.
The religion you have to seek is within you. You have to watch your life moment to moment and drop all that seems to be momentary. It may be very exciting – but futile in the end. Drop it! And look deeply into those moments that may not be so exciting. The eternal cannot be very exciting because that which has to be for ever and ever has to be very silent, peaceful. Blissful, of course, but not exciting; deeply blissful, but with no noise around it. More like a silence than like sound.
You will have to grow awareness so you can sort it out. Otherwise, in the end, you will find you have lived a futile life. That’s what Jesus calls: “…the tares of the field.”
“Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.”
Yes, that is how it is. Once you come to know the eternal, the essential, the infinite, once you have come to feel it, then you are ready to go and sell all that you have been possessing, that you have been accumulating. Then you are ready to sell everything just to have this treasure of eternity.
I will repeat it again: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.” This is what my sannyas is all about. Seek the eternal. Whatever the cost, stake all for it and you will not be a loser.
Try to save that which you have accumulated and you will be lost. Jesus says, “Those who save their lives, lose: and those who are ready to lose them, attain, to life – to life abundant.”
Enough for today.