Matthew 5
Jesus said unto his disciples:

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;

Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already in his heart.

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Moses brought law to the world; Jesus brings love. Moses is a must before Jesus can be possible. Law is enforced love; love is spontaneous law. Law is from the outside; love is from the inside. Law is without; love is within. Love can happen only when a certain order, a certain discipline, a certain law, exists. Love cannot exist in the jungle. Moses civilizes man; Jesus spiritualizes man. That’s why Jesus says again and again, “I have come not to destroy, but to fulfill.”
Moses gives commandments, Jesus gives insight into those commandments. One can follow the commandments on a formal, superficial level. One can become a righteous person, a puritan, a moralist, and deep down nothing changes: all remains the same. The old darkness is still there, the old unconsciousness is still there. Nothing has really changed; you have just painted your surface. Now you are wearing a beautiful mask. Nothing wrong in wearing a beautiful mask – if you have an ugly face it is better not to show it to others. Why be so hard on others? If you have an ugly face, wear a mask – at least it will save others from seeing you. But the mask cannot change your ugly face. Never forget for a single moment that the mask is not your face. You have to transform your face too.
Moses gave a very crude discipline to society. He could not have done better – there was no way. Human consciousness existed in a very, very primitive way. A little bit of civilization was more than one could expect. But Moses prepared the way, and Jesus is the fulfillment. What Moses started, Jesus completes. Moses has laid the foundation; Jesus raises the whole temple. Those stones in the foundation have to be crude and ugly. Only on those crude and ugly stones can a beautiful marble temple be built. Always remember this: Jesus is not against Moses. But the Jews misunderstood him, because Moses talks about law and Jesus talks about love.
To the Jews, particularly the priests, the politicians, it appeared that the law would be destroyed by Jesus; hence they were angry. And they were right too. The law would be destroyed in a sense, because a higher law would be coming in. The lower law would have to go. The lower has to cease for the higher to come.
Law depends on fear, law depends on greed, law punishes you. The central idea of law is justice, but justice is not enough, because justice is crude and hard, violent. Only compassion can allow your being to bloom, can help you come to your highest peak – not justice. Law is better than lawlessness, but compared to love, law itself is lawlessness – compared to love. It is relative, because law depends on the same evils against which it fights.
Somebody murders, then the law murders him. Now, it is the same thing you are doing to the person that he has done to somebody else. It is not higher, although it is just. But it is not religious, it has no spirituality in it; it is mathematical. He has killed somebody and the law kills him. But if killing is wrong, then how can the law be right? If killing in itself is wrong, then the law is very much lacking. It depends on the same evil – remember it.
When Jesus started talking about love, the people who had been law-abiding became very much afraid. Because they knew that if the law was dropped, then the animal hidden inside them would come up, and would tear down the whole society. They knew that their faces were only beautiful on the surface – deep down, great ugliness. And when Jesus said, “Drop all masks,” they became afraid, they became angry: “This man is dangerous, this man has to be punished and destroyed before he destroys the whole society.”
But they misunderstood. Jesus was not saying just to drop the mask. He was saying: “I have brought you an alchemy, so that your real face can be beautiful. Why carry the mask? Why this weight? Why this false plastic thing? I can give you a higher law that needs no fear, that needs no greed, that needs no enforcement from the outside but arises in your being because of understanding, not because of fear.” Remember, that is the difference: out of fear is law; out of understanding is love.
Moses is a must, but Moses must go also. Moses has done his work, he has prepared the ground. When Jesus appears, Moses’ work is fulfilled. But the Jews were angry. It is very difficult for people to stop clinging to their past. Moses had become very, very central to the Jewish mind. They thought Jesus was against Moses. And this has been so down the ages: the misunderstanding.
Hindus thought that Buddha was against the Vedas – the same problem, exactly the same. Buddha is not against the Vedas – in a sense, yes, but only in a sense. He is bringing something from the depth, and once that depth becomes available to you, the Vedas will not be needed. So he looks like he is against: he makes the Vedas meaningless. And that is the whole purpose of Jesus: to fulfill Moses and still to make Moses meaningless. The new dispensation has come in.
Jesus was a man of love, of immense love. He loved this earth, he loved the smell of this earth. He loved the trees, he loved the people. He loved the creatures because that is the only way to love the creator. If you cannot praise the painting, how can you praise the painter? If you cannot praise the poetry, how can you praise the poet?
Jesus is very affirmative, yea-saying. And he knows one very significant fact which he brings into his sayings again and again: “God is an abstraction; you cannot stand face to face with God.” God is as much an abstraction as humanity is. Whenever you come across, you come across human beings, never across humanity. You meet this human being, that human being, but never humanity. You always come across the concrete. You will never come across the abstract God, because he will not have any face. He will be facelessness. You will not be able to recognize him. Then where to find him?
Look into each eye that you come across, look into each being that you come across. This is God in concrete form, God materialized. Everybody here is an incarnation of God – the rocks and the trees and the people and all. Love these people, love these trees, these stars, and through that love you will start feeling the immensity of being. But you will have to go through the small door of a particular being.
Jesus has been very much misunderstood. He was misunderstood by the Jews, and he was the climax of their intelligence for which they had waited for ages. When he came he was rejected. And he has been even more misunderstood by the Christians. A great yea-sayer has been converted into a no-sayer. Christians have depicted Jesus as very sad, with a long face, in great misery as if he is being tortured. This is false; it is not true about Jesus. It cannot be true about Jesus. Otherwise who else will laugh, and who else will love, and who else will celebrate? Jesus is a celebration of being, and the highest celebration possible. Remember it, only then will you be able to understand these sutras.
An immensely beautiful anecdote:

Jesus was on the cross, and below St. Patrick was praying for his soul, as soon his master would die.
Jesus called down to St. Patrick, “Patrick, come up here. There is something I must tell you.”
Patrick, not looking up, replied, “Lord, to be sure oi cannot for oi am praying fer yer soul, that oi am.”
Jesus then calls – a little louder, with a hint of urgency: “Patrick, for Christ’s sake stop this nonsense and come up, it is very important what I must tell you.”
“Lord, oi cannot. Have not oi told you oi’m prayin’ fer yer soul, bejabbers!”
Jesus again, almost shouting, “Patrick, for the last time I say, come up here! It is of utmost urgency, you cannot afford to miss.”
Patrick reluctantly relents, and says under his breath, “Goddammit! This man is a fool. Asking me to go up there when oi am busy praying for his soul!” – goes off to fetch a ladder. He puts up the ladder against the cross and with slow, deliberate reluctance climbs rung after rung till he reaches the top. “Well, master, here oi am. Now will yer tell me what it is that you brought me all the way up here for?”
“Look Patrick,” Jesus says, “over beyond those trees you can see our house.”

Jesus is dying on the cross and he says, “Look beyond those trees. Can you see our house?” He was immensely in love with this earth. That is the only way to be in love with God; there is no other way.
If you deny existence, you are intrinsically denying God. If you say no to life, you have said no to God, because it is God’s life. Always remember God has no lips of his own; he kisses you through somebody else’s lips. He has no hands of his own; he embraces you through somebody else’s hands. He has no eyes of his own, because all eyes are his; he looks at you through somebody’s eyes. He sees you through somebody’s eyes and he is seen by your eyes, and he goes on seeing through your eyes.
Quakers rightly say that God has nothing else but you, only you – that’s what God has. This insight has to penetrate deeply, only then will you be able to understand the sayings of Jesus; otherwise you will miss – as Christians have been missing down the ages. Let this become the very foundation stone: that life is God. And then things will become very, very simple. Then you will have the right perspective. Say yes, and suddenly you feel a kind of prayer arising in you.
Have you tried it? Sitting silently, doing nothing, start swaying in a kind of inner dance and start saying, “Yes, yes…” Go into it. Let it come from your very heart. Let it spread over your whole being. Let it throb in your heartbeat, let it pulsate in your blood. Let this yes electrify you and you will be surprised: for the first time you have tasted what prayerfulness is.
The English word yes can become a great mantra. It is. The very sound of it is yea-saying; the very sound of it creates an affirmation in the heart. Say no – try the polar opposite sometimes – sitting silently, say “No, no…” Go into it. Let your whole being say no, and you will see the difference. When you say no you will be angry. When you go on saying no you will become enraged. When you go on saying no you will feel that you are cut off from existence, separate, isolated, alienated – the bridge has disappeared. And particularly the modern mind is a no-saying mind. Descartes, the French philosopher, has said: “Cogito ergo sum: I think therefore I am.” The modern mind says: “I say no therefore I am.” It is a no-saying mind, it goes on saying no. No creates the ego. You cannot create the ego without saying no. You can create the ego only by saying no, more and more.
Ego separates, ego makes you irreligious, because ego takes you away from the whole, and you start thinking you are a whole unto yourself. You forget that you exist in an immense complexity, that you are part of a vast universe, that you are not an island – “No man is an island…” We are all parts of an infinite continent. Yes-saying bridges you with the continent. Yes-saying bridges you with God. Say yes more and you will become more religious. Let yes be your church, your temple. And Jesus is a yes-sayer.
Even dying on the cross, he says, “Look beyond those trees. Can you see our house?” And this is his last moment. But his love for existence, for life is still there, radiantly there. In the last moment he prays to God: “Father, forgive these people because they don’t know what they are doing.”
They knew exactly what they were doing. They knew they were killing. But that is not the point. When Jesus says: “They don’t know what they are doing,” he is saying: “They are so asleep, so confined in their egos, they have lost their eyes, Father. They don’t have any consciousness. I can see great darkness in their heart. Forgive them, they are not responsible.” This is the voice of love. He is not condemning them. Ordinarily he would have prayed: “Destroy all these people. They are destroying your only begotten son. Kill them immediately, right now! Come like a thunderbolt! Shower like fire; burn them here and now. Show them what they are doing to your son.” That may have been just, but that was not right for Jesus.
Jesus does not exist at the level of justice, he exists at the level of compassion. Compassion forgives, justice punishes, and when you punish you create in the other’s mind great anger. He will watch for his own time to take revenge – and with a vengeance. Only love creates reconciliation because love does not create any chain. Anger, fear, violence, aggression, punishment – all create ugly chains. And one thing leads still into deeper darkness, into deeper gloom.
Jesus’ whole message is yes. He says yes to his own death, accepts it, welcomes it because it is the will of his God: “Then let it be so.” He relaxes into it. You are not relaxed even in life, and he relaxes into death too. That was the last test, and he passed through it victoriously.
Death is the only criterion, the only touchstone where a man is really known: what he is, of what mettle he is made. It is very easy to talk about love; it is difficult to love, because love is a cross. It is very easy to talk about compassion, but to be committed to compassion one has to lose all.
Just the other day I was reading this anecdote:

Uncle Si and Aunt Rose were on in years, but they still prayed every night. Their prayer was always, “Lord, when you’re ready for us, take us. We are ready.”
A group of playful boys heard their prayers and decided to have a little fun. They got on top of the house and talked down the chimney, in a deep voice, Si, Si…”
Aunt Rose asked, “What do you want?”
The voice answered, “I want Si.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m from the Lord and I’ve come for Si.”
“Well, he ain’t here, he’s gone.”
“Well, I’ll just have to take you, Aunt Rose, instead of Si, if he’s not there.”
“Get out from under that bed, Si,” said Aunt Rose sharply. “You know he knows you are there.”

When death comes, one forgets everything. For years they have been praying, “Lord, we are ready whenever you are ready.” And now that the Lord is ready, Aunt Rose is not ready to go.
I have heard an old Sufi parable:

An old man was coming from the forest – he was a woodcutter. He was carrying a big load of wood, and he was really old – seventy, eighty, tired of life. Many times he would say to the sky, “Where is death? Why don’t you come to me? I have nothing left to live for here, I am just dragging on. Do you want me to commit suicide? That will be a sin. Why can’t you come easily?” Again and again he would pray, “Death, come and take me, I am finished.” And, in fact, there was nothing to live for. He was an old man and had nobody to look after him, no money left. Every day he would have to go to the forest, cut wood and sell it, and somehow manage for his bread and butter.
That day it happened that death was passing by. Suddenly he asked – he threw down his load of wood – and shouted to the sky, “Death! Where are you? You come to everybody. I have seen so many people dying. Why are you so angry with me? Why don’t you come to me? Come on! I am ready!”
And, by chance, death was passing by, so death came. It appeared before him and said, “Okay, so what do you want?”
And he started trembling. He said, “Nothing much, it’s just that I am an old man and I am unable to put this load onto my head, and there is nobody else to support me. Please, just help me to put this load on my head. Thank you.”

For years he had been praying for death. In fact, he was not praying for death; he was not aware of what he was doing.
Jesus is fully aware, and yet for a moment he wavers. So what to say of other people? For a moment he wavers on the cross, and he says to God, “Why have you forsaken me? Why? What wrong have I committed? Why are you so far away? Why is this being done to me?” For a single moment he wavers – even at that stage. So what to say about ordinary human beings? But he saw the point – he was a man of perception, great insight. He relaxed and said, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. Do whatsoever you want to do.” He effaced himself utterly.
In that moment Jesus died and Christ was born. To me, in that moment the resurrection happened, not after the crucifixion. In that moment the discontinuity happened: Jesus disappeared the moment he said, “Thy will be done.” That is the death of Jesus, the death of any sense of self. Jesus ceased at that moment; he became Christ. This is the real resurrection. The other thing may be just a parable – meaningful, but not historical – a myth, pregnant with great significance but not factual. But this is the real fact. Just a moment before he was wavering, afraid, trembling, and a moment later he settled and relaxed. He surrendered. That moment he was no longer separate from God. When your will is separate from God, you are separate from God. When your will has been surrendered to God’s will, you are not separate; then his will is the only will.
These sutras:
Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee;

Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Jesus says, “If you come to the temple with flowers, with offerings, to pray, to surrender to God, and you remember that somebody is angry at you – you have done something, you have angered somebody – then the first necessity is to go back and be reconciled to your brother. All are brothers here, remember, because the father is one.” The trees are your brothers; that’s how St. Francis used to talk to the trees: “Sisters, brothers.” The fish, the seagulls, the rocks, the mountains – all are your brothers because they all come from one source.
Jesus is saying that if you are not reconciled with the world, you cannot come to pray to God. How can you come to the Father if you are not even reconciled with the brother? And the brother is concrete, the Father is abstract. The brother exists, and the Father is hidden. The brother is manifest, and the Father is not manifest. How can you be reconciled with the unmanifest? You have not even been capable of being reconciled with the manifest. This is a meaningful sentence. It does not mean only your brother, it does not mean only human beings; it means the whole existence – wherever you have been offending. If you have been cruel to anybody…

A great Zen master, Rinzai, was sitting. A man came. He pushed the door very hard – he must have been angry – he slammed the door. He was not in a good mood. Then he threw his shoes, and came in. Rinzai said: “Wait. Don’t come in. First go and ask forgiveness from the door and from your shoes.”
The man said: “What are you talking about? I have heard that these Zen people are mad, but it seems true. I was thinking it was just rumor. What nonsense you are talking! Why should I ask forgiveness from the door? And it looks so embarrassing – those shoes are mine!”
Then Rinzai said, “Get out! Never come here again. If you can be angry at the shoes, why can’t you ask their forgiveness? When you were angry, you never thought that it was so foolish to be angry with the shoes. If you can relate with anger, then why not with love? A relationship is a relationship. Anger is a relationship. When you slammed the door with such anger, you related to the door; you behaved wrongly, immorally. And the door has not done anything to you. First go, otherwise don’t come in.”
Under the impact of Rinzai’s silence, and the people sitting there, and that presence, like a flash, the man understood. He understood the logic of it, it was so clear: “If you can be angry, then why can’t you be loving? Go!” And he went. Maybe in his whole life that was the first time… He touched the door and tears started flowing from his eyes. He could not hold back those tears. And when he bowed down to his own shoes, a great change happened in him. The moment he turned and came toward Rinzai, Rinzai took him in his arms and embraced him.

This is reconciliation. How can you pray if you are unreconciled? How can you come to a master if you are unreconciled with existence?
Jesus says: Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; Leave there thy gift… The altar is secondary, the prayer is secondary, because right now you are not in the mood to pray. One has to earn prayer. By being reconciled with existence, one earns prayer. Prayer is not just that you go into the temple and you do it. It is not a kind of doing, it is an arousal into consciousness of unknown peaks. But that is possible only if you are reconciled, relaxed with existence.
Now this is something absolutely different from what Christians have been doing down the ages. They are not reconciled. They are not even reconciled with their own bodies – what to say of others? They are not even reconciled with their own existence. They have great condemnation in them. With that condemnation how can they pray? Their prayer will be just so-so, lukewarm; it will not transform them.
Prayer is a magic formula, it is a mantra, it is a spell. But it has to be provoked in the right moment. You cannot pray at any time, in any place. You have to get into the right tuning. That’s why all the religions have chosen particular moments – early morning when the sun is just going to rise, and there is more possibility of getting in tune with existence. The whole night you have slept. For eight hours, at least, you have not been in the world. For eight hours, at least, you have not been in business, you have not been cutting each other’s throats. For eight hours, at least, you have been in a relaxed state, fast asleep.
When you rise in the morning, your eyes are clear and there are less clouds in your being. There is a kind of innocence – not only in you – it is all around. The trees are innocent, they have also rested. The dewdrops on the leaves are innocent, the sky is innocent, the birds are innocent, and the sun is rising… Again a new day. With great innocence everything is coming back out of the primordial source, refreshed, rejuvenated. That’s why religions have decided on brahmamuhurt – early morning before the sun rises, – because with the sun, many things start arising in you. The sun is great energy. When it starts pouring into you, it brings all your drives, desires alive, all your quarrels alive. Again you are moving into the world. So the morning has been chosen just as the easiest point from which you can be tuned to existence.
Prayer can be done only when you are tuned. And Jesus is saying a very, very psychologically valid thing. If, while before the altar, you remember that you have angered somebody, and somebody is still carrying a wound because of you – somebody is angry somewhere, then go and help the person to heal, bring things to a reconciliation.

Henry Thoreau was dying and his old aunt came to see him. And she said, “Henry, are you reconciled to God?”
And Henry opened his eyes, and said, “But I don’t remember that I ever had any quarrel with him. I have never quarreled with him.”

But very few people can say this. Henry Thoreau was very saintly, very holy. You are quarreling every day. Remember, with whomsoever you are quarreling, you are quarreling with God because nothing else exists. Your life is a continuous quarrel. And then those quarrels go on accumulating; they go on poisoning your system, your being. And then one day you want to pray, and the prayer looks so false on your lips. It does not come, it does not fit. It is not possible for you to pray suddenly; you will have to prepare for it.
The first preparation Jesus says is: …be reconciled to your brother. …to your brother… means all human beings, animals, birds. The whole existence is your brother, because we come out of one source, out of one father or one mother. This whole multiplicity comes out of unity.
So, remember, God can be loved only through man. You will never meet God, you will always meet man. Once you have started loving God through man, you can go still deeper – you can love God through animals. And then still deeper – you can love God through trees. And still deeper – you can love God through mountains and rocks. And when you have learned how to love God through all his forms, only then is your love changed into prayer. To me, these three words are very significant: sex, love, and prayer. Sex is a reconciliation of your body with other bodies. Let me repeat: sex is a reconciliation between your body and other bodies. That’s why it is so satisfying, that’s why it brings such a thrill to you, such excitement, such relaxation, such calm. But it is the lowest reconciliation. If you don’t know any higher, then it is okay. But you are living in your house, not knowing that your house has many other rooms. You are living only in a dark cell, and you think this is all – and there are many beautiful rooms in your house. But you will remain a beggar, because you remain only in the body. The body is only your porch, the porch of the palace.
But sex brings joy because it is a reconciliation between two material bodies. Two bodies vibrate to one tune. There is song, a physical song. A poetry arises between the two energies of the bodies – they dance together hand in hand, they embrace each other, they are lost into each other. For a few moments there is ecstasy, then it disappears because bodies cannot melt into each other – they are too solid for that.
Then the second thing is love. Love is reconciliation between two minds, two psychological energies. Love is higher, deeper, greater. If you can love a person, by and by, you will see sex disappearing between you. Western people become very much afraid of that phenomenon.
Every day some couple or other comes to me and they say: “What is happening to us? We have become more loving, but why is sex disappearing?” – because they have been taught that sex and love are synonymous. They are not. And they have been taught if you love the person more, then you will be more sexually involved with the person. Just the reverse is the true case. If you love the person more, sex will start disappearing, because you are getting a higher reconciliation. Who bothers with the lower? This is more satisfying, brings greater contentment, more lasting joy.
And the third state of love energy is prayer. That is reconciliation between one’s soul and the soul of existence. That is the highest reconciliation; there is none beyond. So when that happens, the so-called love also starts disappearing – just as when love happens sex starts disappearing. I am not condemning sex – there is nothing wrong in it – it is perfectly beautiful, healthy in its own place. But when the higher energy comes, the lower starts disappearing. There is no need for it; its work is finished.
It is like a child who has grown in the mother’s womb for nine months; now he is ready to get out of the womb. Those nine months were beautiful. He will be grateful to his mother for his whole life; he cannot repay the debt. But now he is ready to get out of it. That womb cannot contain it any longer; the child has started to become bigger than the womb.
It happens exactly like that. If you go really deeply into sex, a moment comes when your love is more than the sex can contain. Then you start overflowing, you start moving higher, and soon you are out of sex. One day, again it happens. When love is too much, you start overflowing into prayerfulness, and then love disappears.
There is a very beautiful parable told about Jesus. Meditate over it. This is a very curious episode in which Christ three times asks Peter: “Do you love me?” and Peter affirms with increasing earnestness.
What is the significance of this apparently pointless repetition? Why three times? Once is enough. You ask somebody: “Do you love me?” and he says yes or no and it is finished. Why repeat it three times?
First, three is the symbol of those three layers: sex, love, prayer. Actually the three questions are not identical in the original, but English is a poor language – poor compared to any ancient language – because English is more scientific, more mathematical. And the old languages were not scientific, were not mathematical – that was their beauty – they were poetical. So there were many meanings for a single word, and there were many words with a single meaning too. It was more fluid, there was more possibility. In the original it cannot be said that the three questions are all identical; they are not.
There are two distinct words used for love. Christ’s original question uses the verb agapao, which means a state of love, not a relationship. When Jesus says: “Are you in love with me?” he is saying: “Are you in prayer with me?” He is asking the highest. The difference has to be understood.
A relationship is a lower state. The highest state of love is not a relationship at all, it is simply a state of your being. Just as trees are green, a lover is loving. They are not green for particular persons; it is not that when you come they become green. The flower goes on spreading its fragrance whether anybody comes or not, whether anybody appreciates it or not. The flower does not start releasing its fragrance when it sees that a great poet is passing by: “Now this man will appreciate, now this man will be able to understand who I am.” And it does not close its doors when it sees that a stupid, idiotic person is passing there – insensitive, dull – a politician or something like that. It does not close itself: “What is the point? Why cast pearls before the swine?” No, the flower goes on spreading its fragrance. It is a state, not a relationship.
When Jesus asks for the first time, “Do you love me, Peter?” he uses the word agapao. It means: “Are you in a state of love with me?” – state of love with me. Jesus means: “Has your love for me become your love for the whole? Have I become the door for the whole, for the divine? Do you love me not only as a person but as a representative of God? Do you see my father in me? Can you see in me God himself?” That is the meaning of agapao: it implies prayer, compassion.
Compassion is a beautiful word. It comes from the same root as passion. When does passion become compassion? Passion is a relationship, it is a desire to be related, it is a need; it creates dependence, bondage. And all kinds of misery come in its wake. Compassion is the same energy, but it is no longer a hankering to relate. Not that it does not relate, but that desire has gone. Compassion is a state where you can be alone and perfectly happy, absolutely happy. You can be happy with people, you can be happy alone – then you have attained to the state of compassion. But if you cannot be happy alone and you can only be happy with someone, then it is passion, you are dependent. And, naturally, you will be angry with the person without whom you cannot be happy. You will be angry – that’s why lovers are angry at each other, continuously angry – because nobody can like one’s bondage.
Freedom is the ultimate value in the human soul, so anything that degrades you from your freedom, that creates a confinement around you, you hate. That’s why lovers continuously hate each other. And the psychologists have come to see that the love relationship is not a simple love relationship. Now they call it “love-hate relationship,” because the hate is always there. So why call it only love?
Between the friend and the enemy there is not much difference. With the friend your relationship is love-hate, and with the enemy, your relationship is hate-love. That’s the only difference – just the difference of emphasis. Love on top and hate hidden behind it – it is friendship. Hate has come on top and love has gone behind it – it is enmity.
Watch it. Observe it. Compassion means you have gone beyond the necessity of depending on anybody else. Now you can share because you don’t need. You can share only when you don’t need. You can give only when you don’t need. Beggars can’t be givers. If you are hankering for somebody to give you love, how can you give? You can at most pretend. And the same is the situation from the other side. The other is also pretending that he or she loves you, so that you can love them.
Now both are deceiving each other. That’s why honeymoons cannot be very long. How long can you deceive? How long? The more intelligent you are, the shorter will be the honeymoon. If you are really intelligent, the first night will be enough, you will be finished. You will see through and through that you are a beggar and she is a beggar, and both beggars are asking to be fulfilled by each other. And they don’t have anything. They are just pretending, promising. This promising is only in order to get. But nobody has it in the first place, so nobody gets it. And sooner or later one starts seeing through the pretensions. Then the wife is angry because she has been deceived, and the husband is angry because he has been deceived. And nobody really has deceived.
Beggars cannot be givers. You can share only when you have. Compassion can be shared because one is overflowing with it – like a cloud full of rainwater, ready to shower.
So in the first question when Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” he uses the word agapao. Agapao is compassion, agapao is conscious love, love through understanding, not love through infatuation; love through awareness, not love through an unconscious liking – because you like the shape of the woman, or you like the nose of the man, or you like the hair color, or the eyes. These are all silly things; how can love happen through these things? Love is not a liking, it is an understanding. It is not emotional. When it has immense intelligence, has compassion in it, then in that intensity of compassion, agapao happens.
Peter’s reply uses the word philo. Peter says, “Yes, my Lord, I love you!” But he uses another word. He does not use agapao, he uses philo – the word that exists in philosophy or the word that exists in philanthropist. Philo, which has the quality of personal affection, is a relationship, not a state. It is not conscious; it is unconscious. One rises in agapao, and one falls in philo. That’s why we say “falling in love” – you stumble in it, you go down in it, you fall into a dark pit through it. Philo is unconscious, it is not out of alertness, awareness, understanding, observation; it is not out of an integrated soul, it is not out of individuation. It is out of some hidden impulses, instincts, infatuation – it is lust.
A second time Christ asks the question, still using the word agapao. The master goes on and on hammering. Peter has missed; it was so simple. But you also go on missing the way, remember. He is not aware that Jesus is using one word and he is answering with another word; it is just an unconscious thing. Jesus has to ask again, a second time. Again he uses the word agapao so that Peter can hear it – maybe now he hears. But Peter’s response is again on the personal level. In fact, he becomes a little angry. He must be thinking, “What does Jesus think of me – stupid or something? I have said ‘I love you,’ and now he is asking me the same question again.” He must have felt a little angry. But he again uses the same word philo. In anger you become even more unconscious. Now he cannot hear what Jesus is saying, he cannot see who Jesus is. The question being asked again has disturbed him. He misses again.
The third time, Christ accepts Peter’s lack of understanding, and uses the word philo himself. Why? Because Jesus sees that he will not understand that state – he has never tasted it; it is beyond him. When the master sees you cannot come to him, he has to come to you. When he goes on shouting, calling and you don’t come, then he descends into your darkness to hold your hand and take you from there.
The third time, Jesus uses the word philo, and Peter, aggrieved by the insistence, protests his love even more earnestly. He must have become even angrier: “Why is Jesus asking again and again when I have answered it? Is there some kind of suspicion in Jesus’ mind? Has he some doubts about my love?” All these questions must have arisen. He goes on missing. Even philo – Jesus has come very close to his understanding but there also… Now he is so angry, and Jesus is standing just by his side holding his hand but he cannot see. He goes on declaring, “I love you,” but this declaration is his egoistic declaration.
Christ says gently: “Go and feed my sheep.” “It is no use,” Jesus says, “I will have to wait for another time. Right now it is not going to happen.” The master sometimes has to wait for years. The disciple on the one hand wants it to happen, and on the other hand goes on creating all kinds of hindrances, obstructions. But that too is natural, because how can you expect more from an unconscious mind, from a mind which has not known what consciousness really means, which lives in a dark dungeon and has never seen any light? You go on talking about love and light… In compassion, Jesus says, “Okay, Peter, so go and feed my sheep. Forget about it. Right now is not the right time. I should not have asked in the first place. I will have to wait.”
Maurice Nicoll, one of the disciples of George Gurdjieff and one of the most significant disciples, says: “As we cease to invent ourselves, so we cease to invent other people. We begin to feel a common existence which is without passion, and is simply what it is, without further definition.”
When you stop inventing yourself – your ego is your invention – when you stop creating a false pseudo personality around you, when you just start being whatsoever you are, when you start relaxing into existence: “As we cease to invent ourselves, so we cease to invent other people.” Both things go together. If you are inventing yourself, you will be inventing others too. You go on creating a very beautiful image of yourself, and correspondingly you go on creating beautiful images of other people. Neither your image about yourself is true, nor is your image about other people true. So you live in a kind of illusion, and again and again you are frustrated because nothing comes according to your image. It cannot come – your image is just your invention, it is not the truth.
Maurice Nicoll is right. He says: “When we stop inventing ourselves, we stop inventing others, and then suddenly there is a common ground, a common existence. Passion disappears, and when passion disappears, compassion appears.” The meaning of the word compassion is to have such intense passion that passion itself burns out in that intensity. It is so intense that it burns itself and disappears into fire – the fire of its own intensity. Then there is a totally different kind of love: compassion. It goes on showering from you, goes on in ripples continuously, day and night, year in, year out. And whosoever is ready to partake of it can partake of it; whoever is ready to receive and digest, can digest and be fulfilled through it. Then it flows for all, for all things.
In the very fire of passion, compassion is born. Out of passion, compassion is born. Sex cannot contain love, love cannot contain prayer. But love exists in sex like a child exists in a womb, or a bird exists in an egg – the egg protects for a time, then it hinders. Then the egg has to be broken, then the bird has to come out and fly into the sky.
Sex is an egg in which the bird of love grows. Then, the bird itself – love itself – is another egg in which prayerfulness grows. And when prayerfulness has grown to its utmost, only God is, you are not. Then wherever you are, you are in the temple. Then whoever you are, you are utterly blissful. That is the meaning of heaven; that is the meaning of the “kingdom of God.”
So Jesus says: “First go and be reconciled with your brother, be reconciled with the creation.”
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
The question is not of committing something; the question is of thinking. This is the difference between crime and sin. Crime is that which you have committed, sin is that crime about which you have been thinking. Crime is that sin which has become actualized into the world of things: you have done it, you have exposed it to the world. Sin is that crime which you are nursing within yourself.
Jesus says: “If you think in terms of lust, you have already committed adultery.” The law of Moses says: “Don’t commit adultery.” That is one of the commandments. But it only prevents you from action, it does not say anything about thought. It only says how to relate with people, it does not say anything about what goes on in your dreams.
Jesus says: “That is not going to transform you. You can be absolutely moralistic from the outside and deep inside you may contain all the snakes and all the scorpions and all the poisons of the whole world. The real problem has to be there.”
What does he mean? Does he mean, “Don’t look at a beautiful woman”? That is not possible. He cannot mean that, because if he says, “Look at the lilies in the field,” how can he say, “Don’t look at a beautiful woman”? If lilies are beautiful, then why not a beautiful woman or a beautiful man? If lilies represent God and his beauty, then man represents God at a higher point, woman represents the most beautiful phenomenon in the world. Jesus cannot say that. Then what is he saying? Try to understand it.
You see a beautiful woman. If you enjoy the beauty, the form, the way she walks, the grace around her – you are simply thrilled with great awe, you are thrilled by God’s beauty in her – there is no lust. Lust enters only when you see a beautiful woman and immediately you start thinking, “How to possess her?” Thought is the culprit, desire is the culprit. When the thought comes, “How to possess her? How to have her? How to snatch her away from others?” then you have become ugly. Violence has come in.
Do you know where this word violence comes from? It comes from the same root as violation. You have violated a subtle law of God the moment you think of possessing. It is a profanation. The beauty was immense but you have profaned it, you have started thinking how to use it. It is as if you see a flower and you start thinking, “How to take it? How to steal it?” or, “How to take it away and sell it in the market?” This is a violation, this is a profanation – hence, it is violence.
When lust arises – the desire to possess and exploit – the beauty is lost. Then you have already made the woman ugly in your heart. It was so pure, it was so beautiful, it was such a splendor to see. Now you have destroyed everything. And rather than enjoying it, rather than being thrilled by it, rather than rejoicing about it, you have become worried: “What to do? – because she belongs to somebody else, somebody’s wife.” Now you will be disturbed. Rather than being enhanced and nourished by her beauty, now you will be disturbed. And you will start thinking, “How to take her away? What to do?” You miss the whole point. A door was opening through her beauty. You missed it; otherwise you have corrupted it. That’s what adultery is.
Jesus is not saying to become insensitive to beauty. He cannot say it – I can vouch for it, he cannot say it – notwithstanding what Christians have been teaching to the people. He is a man of immense sensitivity, of great love. How can he be insensitive to beauty? He is simply saying: “Don’t lust. Enjoy.” And there is no need to enjoy anything by possessing it. In fact, how can you enjoy something once you possess it? In the very possession the beauty is destroyed. You have poisoned it, you have corrupted it. That’s what adultery is.
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
This has been misinterpreted by neurotic people down the ages. There have been Christian saints who have cut off their genital organs. There have been people who have taken their eyes out according to this. Man seems to be so stupid. But these people have been revered and respected; they have been sanctified, they have become saints. These were simply neurotic people, hysterical people, and utterly stupid. This is not the meaning. This is just a way of saying that the part has to be sacrificed for the whole. The whole cannot be sacrificed for the part – that’s all. It is just a way of saying that if you find that any part of your being is creating a disturbance between you and the whole, it has to be sacrificed.
As far as I know, any part that has any pretensions of being whole is the disturbance. And that is only your mind, nothing else. Only your mind pretends: “I am whole, sufficient unto myself.” The mind is the only pretender. It gives you the idea of separation, of ego.
Jesus is saying: “Sacrifice the part. If it is your head, sacrifice the head.” It does not mean cut your head off. It simply means bow down, surrender your head. If it is your mind, your thinking process, that is creating trouble for you, sacrifice it; it is not of any worth. For the whole, everything has to be sacrificed; only then will you become whole.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
The greatest saying of Jesus: …ye resist not evil… And it has been said of old: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. That is the concept of law, justice. Jesus brings love. He says: …resist not evil… Why? This looks like a very strange statement: …resist not evil… Then evil will grow if nobody resists it. The meaning is very, very different; it is concerned with the inner alchemy. And the same is the meaning in Jesus’ prayer in which he asks, “Give us our daily bread.”
Hindus and Mohammedans and others have been laughing about the Christian prayer – it looks so childish: “Give us our daily bread.” Couldn’t Jesus think of anything else than to ask for the daily bread? But these people don’t know what he means by the “daily bread.”
Jesus says: “As your body exists through air, food, water, every day your soul also gets a certain nourishment from God. That is your daily bread, daily nourishment.” Every day you get a certain quantity of spiritual energy. Now, with that energy you can destroy or create. If you destroy you will be misusing it; that will be violence – violation, profanation. If you use it in a creative way it will become your path toward godliness. It will grow in you to higher peaks, altitudes. It will bring a plenitude in you, a pleroma.
God’s energy that goes on showering on you is what he calls the “daily bread.” If this energy is not properly used, but is squandered in useless and destructive activities, then… God goes on giving, and you go on throwing it away, not knowing what you are throwing away.
It happened, a Sufi parable…

A man came to the river early in the morning for a morning walk and stumbled upon a bag. He opened the bag; it was full of stones. Sitting on the bank, just playfully he started throwing those stones into the river. He enjoyed the splash of those stones. By and by, it became lighter and then the sun started coming up. The last stone was left. Then he looked, because now there was light, and he started beating his chest and crying and weeping. And some people gathered and they asked, “What is the matter?”
He said, “This is a diamond, and I have thrown thousands. Continuously, for one hour I have been throwing, not knowing what I was throwing. I was thinking these are just stones. But only the last is left.”

But I say, even he was fortunate – at least he became aware when the last was left. Millions of people are not aware even at that late stage; they simply go on throwing. They live and die, and they don’t ever come to know the daily bread, the diamond that descends in you everyday. It is your energy. You can put it into anger – it is the same energy. You can put it into love – it is the same energy. It is your choice. That’s why Jesus says …resist not evil… If you start resisting evil your whole energy will go into resistance. There is much evil. It is not a moral teaching; it is an alchemical teaching.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Don’t waste your energy. If he wants to hit you, he has already hit you. Give him the other cheek too, and thank him. Say, “Thank you, sir, and if some time you need me again, I will be ready.” And go on your way. Don’t waste your energy, because that energy is so precious. Don’t waste it just in retaliation, reaction, fighting, anger – you will be throwing away diamonds.
We live in a constant inner atmosphere of objecting, complaining, condemning, no-saying. Saying no, we go on missing what is just in front of our noses. This constant objecting inside: “This is not right! That is not good! Things should be like this! Things should be like that!” Much energy gets involved with this objecting. We start putting things right, and life is short and life is fleeting – and nothing is ever being put right. We simply drown ourselves in our activity.
Jesus says: “Be aware. Your energy is precious, and you have only a limited amount of it available.” More will become available if you use this amount. Jesus says: “Those who have will be given more” – his statements are the most beautiful ever made – “and those who have not, even that which they have will be taken away from them.” Very paradoxical but absolutely true.
If you save this energy you will get more. The more you save, the more you have, the more will be given to you, because you are proving yourself worthy of it. The less you have of it, the less you will be given. And when you don’t have anything, even that which you have will be taken away. You will remain just an empty shell, a negative emptiness – not the emptiness Buddha talks about. You will just be an empty shell with no meaning: “A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”
By this constant wrong use of our energy we create a prison around ourselves. Yet the doors of the prison are always open, because no jailer is there except yourself. You are the prison, and the prisoner, and the jailer too. We have but to sacrifice our stupid, habitual attitudes and the same energy that creates the prison becomes our freedom, salvation.
Nicholas of Cusa maintained that right living involved only one thing – what he called “learned ignorance.” Learn to be innocent again. “Learn ignorance” he used to say. Become a child. Don’t resist, don’t fight. Enjoy the energy that is showering on you. Become very, very primal. Learn to be innocent again. Drop your clinging to your dull and dead past, knowledge, mind. “Learned ignorance” means knowing ignorance.
There is a kind of ignorance that knows, and there is also a kind of knowledge that is ignorant. The knowledge of the pundit, the knowledge of the priest is just knowledge for its name’s sake; it does not know. And the ignorance of a Jesus or a Buddha… When Bodhidharma was asked by Emperor Wu, “Who are you?” he simply said, “I don’t know.” This ignorance, this innocence knows.
Stop creating securities for yourself. Stop fighting people. Stop fighting! Jesus says specifically: …resist not evil… Your mind will say, “But when there is evil then one has to resist. Evil cannot be allowed; evil has to be fought and destroyed.” Nobody has ever destroyed evil. Evil is eternal. You will be destroyed in fighting it. It can’t be destroyed. Beware of that fallacy, that fallacious idea.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you…
The whole message is very clear and loud. Jesus is saying: “Not a single iota of energy has to be wasted for anything. The whole energy has to be conserved. When the energy comes to a certain degree, the transformation happens automatically. That is the science of alchemy.”
You heat water, you go on putting heat energy into it. Then the hundred-degree heat comes and the water evaporates. Ninety-nine – it was hot, but still water. Ninety-nine point nine – and it was very, very hot, but still water. Hundred degrees – and the jump! So it happens in the inner world.
These sayings are not moral maxims. These sayings are concerned with inner transformation. If you go on preserving your energy and you don’t go on squandering it anywhere… A dog starts barking and you start barking. You say, “I have to resist evil. This dog has to be taught a lesson.” You can teach the dog a lesson. It has never been heard that they have learned any lesson – they go on barking. Many like you have been there, teaching lessons to the dogs. Dogs are very stubborn; they go on barking. You are simply wasted. And barking at dogs, you lose the capacity of praying to God, because the barking and the praying cannot exist together. Fighting, hatred, anger, and love cannot exist together. It is simple inner economics.
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven…
If you want to be the children of God, then this has to be done – you have to preserve energy. And he is giving you energy every day. If a man simply goes on preserving, nothing else is needed. Jesus is giving such a key – a great key. It can unlock the ultimate door.
…for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
And Jesus says: “Don’t be bothered about the just and the unjust. Look at God! His clouds come and shower on both the just and the unjust. His sun comes and gives light and life to both good and bad. So why are you worried? God goes on giving energy to all.”
So, please, don’t become a reformer. Remember, if you want to reform yourself, don’t become a reformer because you can do either one or the other. If you become a reformer, you start changing other people. Don’t become a reformer if you want to be reformed. Preserve your energy. And the miracle is that if you are reformed, if you are transformed, then many will be transformed through you. Your very catalytic presence will be enough: just your being there, and many will be thrilled with the unknown, just your touch, and something will start vibrating in them.
Not that you have to do much: it is just, if your light is burning, people will start coming toward you; groping in the dark, they will start moving toward you. And as they come closer and closer and closer, one day the unlit lamp becomes lit through the one who is already lit. The flame jumps from one place to another. Just closeness is needed.
Be around a master. Be around somebody who has arrived, and go closer and closer with no resistance, with no fight, with no protection. Be vulnerable, and all else follows of its own accord.
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. So who are you to be worried about good and bad? Who are you to be worried about how the world should be? That is again just an ego trip.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?
The puritan, the publican, the moralist, the formalist – they also do the same. When people love them, they love them. There is nothing much in it, nothing much that can be said is special. When people love you, you love; when somebody smiles at you, you smile. But that is not the point. When somebody hits you, and you smile, and somebody is full of hatred toward you, and your love goes on flowing – this is the miracle. This is magic, and only this magic can make you the children of God. Nothing else will be of help.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
This too is one of the most fundamental sayings: Be ye therefore perfect… Remember, you can be perfect only because intrinsically you are perfect. You come from God, how can you be imperfect? You belong to God, how can you be imperfect? Intrinsically, you are God, because God is in you and you are in God. But you have not given an opportunity for yourself to see into it. You are so engaged, occupied outside – doing this, doing that, bringing a little good to the world, justice to the world, making this reform and that. You are so much concerned with the outside, that’s why you have not been able to look into your innermost shrine. And God is there, God is abiding in you.
Yes, you can be perfect, because you are perfect. Only the perfect can be perfect. So perfection is not to be created, it has only to be discovered. It is already there, hidden maybe, hidden behind veils maybe, but it is there. Remove the veils, and you will find it. You are not to invent it, you are only to discover it. Or maybe even discovery is not the right word. Let me say, rediscover it.
Enough for today.

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