THE SEVENTEENTH SAYING

JESUS SAID: BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY AND ELECT, FOR YOU SHALL FIND THE KINGDOM; AND BECAUSE YOU COME FROM IT YOU SHALL GO THERE AGAIN.

JESUS SAID: IF THEY SAY TO YOU, 'FROM WHERE HAVE YOU ORIGINATED?' SAY TO THEM, 'WE HAVE COME FROM THE LIGHT, WHERE THE LIGHT ORIGINATED THROUGH ITSELF.'

IF THEY ASK YOU, 'WHAT IS THE SIGN OF YOUR FATHER IN YOU?' SAY TO THEM, 'IT IS A MOVEMENT AND A REST.'

The deepest urge in man is to be totally free. Freedom, moksha, is the goal. Jesus calls it the kingdom of God: to be like kings, just symbolically, so that there is no fetter to your existence, no bondage, no boundary -- you exist as infinity, nowhere do you clash with anybody else... as if you are alone.

Freedom and aloneness are two aspects of the same thing. That's why Mahavira called his concept of moksha, kaivalya. Kaivalya means to be absolutely alone, as if nobody else exists. When you are absolutely alone, who will become a bondage to you? When nothing else is there, who will be the other? That's why those who are in search of freedom will have to find their solitariness; they will have to find a way, means, method to reach their aloneness.

Man is born as part of the world, as a member of a society, of a family, as part of others. He is brought up not as a solitary being, he is brought up as a social being. All training, education, culture, consists of how to make a child a fitting part of the society, how to make him fit with others. This is what psychologists call adjustment. And whenever somebody is a solitary he looks maladjusted.

Society exists as a network, a pattern of many persons, a crowd. There you can have a little freedom -- at the cost of much. If you follow the society, if you become an obedient part to others, they will lease you a little world of freedom. If you become a slave, freedom is given to you. But it is a given freedom, it can be taken back any moment. And it is at a very great cost: it is an adjustment with others, so boundaries are bound to be there.

In society, in a social existence, nobody can be absolutely free. The very existence of the other will create trouble. Sartre says, "The other is hell," and he is right to a very great extent because the other creates tensions in you; you are worried because of the other. There is going to be a clash, because the other is in search of absolute freedom, you are also in search of absolute freedom -- everybody needs absolute freedom -- and absolute freedom can exist only for one.

Even your so-called kings are not absolutely free, cannot be. They may have an appearance of freedom but that is false: they have to be protected, they depend on others -- their freedom is just a facade. But still, because of this urge to be absolutely free, one wants to become a king, an emperor. The emperor gives a false feeling that he is free. One wants to become very rich, because riches also give a false feeling that you are free. How can a poor man be free? His needs will be the bondage, and he cannot fulfill his needs. Everywhere he moves comes the wall which he cannot cross.

Hence the desire for riches. Deep down is the desire to be absolutely free, and all desires are created by it. But if you move in false directions, you can go on moving but you will never reach the goal, because from the very beginning the direction has become wrong -- you missed the first step.

In old Hebrew, the word 'sin' is very beautiful. It means one who has missed the mark; there is no sense of guilt in it really. Sin means one who has missed the mark, gone astray, and religion means to come back to the right path so you don't miss the goal. The goal is absolute freedom, religion is just a means towards it. That's why you have to understand that religion exists as an antisocial force: its very nature is antisocial, because in society absolute freedom is not possible.

Psychology is in the service of the society. The psychiatrist goes on trying in every way to make you adjusted again to the society; he is in the service of the society. Politics, of course, is in the service of the society. It gives you a little freedom so that you can be made a slave. That freedom is just a bribery -- it can be taken back any moment. If you think that you are really free, soon you can be thrown into prison. Politics, psychology, culture, education, they all serve society. Religion alone is basically rebellious. But the society has fooled you, it has created its own religions: Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism -- these are social tricks. Jesus is antisocial.

Look at Jesus: he was not a very respectable man, could not be. He moved with wrong elements, antisocial elements, he was a vagabond, he was a freak -- had to be, because he would not listen to the society, and he would not become adjusted to the society. He created an alternate society, a small group of followers. Ashrams have existed as antisocial forces -- but not all ashrams, because society always tries to give you a false coin. If there are a hundred ashrams then there may be one -- and that too only perhaps -- that is a real ashram, because that one will exist as an alternative society, against this society, this crowd, against what Jesus calls 'they' -- the nameless crowd.

Schools have existed -- for example, Buddha's Bihar monasteries -- which try to create a society that is not a society at all. They create ways and means to make you really and totally free -- no bondage on you, no discipline of any sort, no boundaries; you are allowed to be infinite and the all. Jesus is antisocial, Buddha is antisocial, but Christianity is not antisocial, Buddhism is not antisocial. Society is very cunning: it immediately absorbs -- even antisocial phenomena it absorbs into the social. It creates a facade, it gives you a false coin, and then you are happy, just like small children who have been given a false, plastic breast. They go on sucking it, they feel they are being nourished. It will soothe them, of course, they will fall into sleep.

Whenever a child is uneasy, this has to be done: a false breast has to be given. He sucks, believing that he is getting nutrition. He goes on sucking, and then sucking becomes a monotonous process; nothing is moving in, just sucking and it becomes like a mantra. Then he falls into sleep; bored, feeling sleepy, he goes into sleep. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and all other 'isms' which have become established religions, are just false breasts. They give you consolation, they give you good sleep, they allow a soothing existence in this torturing slavery all around; they give you a feeling that everything is okay, nothing is wrong. They are like tranquilizers, they are drugs.

It is not only LSD that is a drug, Christianity is also, and a far more complex and subtle drug which gives you a sort of blindness. You cannot see what is happening, you cannot feel how you are wasting your life, you cannot see the disease that you have accumulated through many existences. You are sitting on a volcano and they go on saying that everything is okay: God in heaven and government on the earth -- everything is okay. And the priests go on saying to you, "You need not be disturbed, we are there. Simply leave everything in our hands and we will take care of you in this world and in the other also." And you have left it to them, that's why you are in misery.

Society cannot give you freedom. It is impossible, because society cannot manage to make everybody absolutely free. Then what to do? How to go beyond society? That's the question for a religious man. But it seems impossible: wherever you move society is there; you can move from one society to another, but society will be there. You can even go to the Himalayas -- then you will create a society there. You will start talking with the trees, because it is so difficult to be alone. You will start making friends with the birds and animals, and sooner or later there will be a family. You will wait every day for the bird who comes in the morning and sings.

Now you don't understand that you have become dependent, the other has entered. If the bird doesn't come you will feel a certain anxiety. What has happened to the bird? Why has he not come? Tension enters, and this is not in any way different from when you were worried about your wife or worried about your child. This is not in any way different, it is the same pattern: the other. Even if you move to the Himalayas you create society.

Then something has to be understood: society is not without you, it is something within you. And unless the root causes within you disappear, wherever you go the society will come into existence again and again and again. Even if you go to a hippy community, the society will come in, it will become a social force. If you go to an ashram, society will come in. It is not the society that follows you, it is you. You always create your society around you -- you are a creator. Something in you exists as a seed which creates the society. This shows really that unless you are transformed completely you can never go beyond society, you will always create your own society. And all societies are the same; the forms may differ, but the basic pattern is the same.

Why can't you live without society? There is the rub! Even in the Himalayas you will wait for somebody: you may be sitting under a tree and you will wait for someone, a traveler, a hunter, who passes by on the road. And if somebody enters, you will feel a little happiness coming to you. Alone, you become sad, and if a hunter comes you will gossip, you will ask, "What is happening in the world? Have you got the latest newspaper?" Or, "Give me news! I am hungry and thirsty for it." Why? Roots have to be brought up to light so that you can understand.

One thing: you need to be needed, you have a deep need to be needed. If nobody needs you, you feel useless, meaningless; if somebody needs you, he gives you significance, you feel important. You go on saying, "I have to look after the wife and the children," as if you are carrying them as a burden -- you are wrong. You talk as if it is a great responsibility and you are just fulfilling a duty. You are wrong! Just think, if the wife is not there and the children have disappeared, what will you do? Suddenly you will feel your life has become meaningless, because they needed you. Small children, they waited for you, they gave you significance, you were important. Now that nobody needs you, you will shrink, because when nobody needs you nobody pays attention to you: whether you are or not makes no difference.

I have heard: One mental patient was psychoanalyzed, but the psychoanalyst was a very eccentric man -- as they almost always are. After two or three years of analysis he told his friend, "This man is in even more trouble than I am, because I go on talking and he never says anything -- not even a yes or no has he said for these three years -- he simply sits there. And now I am worried: what to do? I go on talking and talking and talking, he listens, and this has been going on for three years. What to do?"

The friend said, "Then why don't you stop?" But the man could not stop either.

And then a second trouble happened: the psychoanalyst died. Again he said to the friend, "Now another problem has arisen. First was this -- that this man never said anything, yes or no. I never knew whether he rejected me or accepted me, or whether I was wrong or right. I simply talked and talked and talked, and he listened. Now he is dead, so a second problem has arisen. What to do now?"

The friend said, "If he never talked to you, what is the difference? You go on talking!"

But the man said, "No! But he listened."

The whole of psychoanalysis and its business depends on listening. There is nothing much, there is really nothing much in psychoanalysis, and the whole thing around it is almost complete hocus-pocus. But why...? A man pays you so much attention -- and not an ordinary man, a famous psychiatrist, well known, who has written many books; many well-known people have been treated by him -- so you feel good. Nobody else listens to you, not even your wife. Nobody listens to you, nobody pays any attention to you; you move in the world as a nonentity, nobody -- and you pay so much to a psychiatrist. It is a luxury, only very rich people can afford it.

But why do they do what they do? They simply lie down on the couch and talk, and the psychoanalyst listens -- but he listens, he pays attention to you. Of course, you have to pay for it, but you feel good. Simply because the other is paying attention you feel good. You walk differently out of his office, your quality has changed: you have a dance in your feet, you can hum, you can sing. It may not be forever now -- next week you will have to come again to the office -- but when somebody listens to you, pays attention to you, he says, "You are somebody, you are worth listening to," he doesn't seem bored. He may not say anything but then, too, it is very good.

You have a deep need to be needed. Somebody must need you, otherwise you don't have any ground under your feet -- society is your need. Even if somebody fights with you it is okay, better than being alone, because at least he pays attention to you, the enemy; you can think about him.

Whenever you are in love, look at this need. Look at lovers, watch, because it will be difficult if you yourself are in love. Then to watch is difficult because you are almost crazy, you are not in your senses. But watch lovers: they say to each other, "I love you," but deep down in their hearts they want to be loved. To love is not the thing, to be loved is the real thing; and they love just in order to be loved. The basic thing is not to love, the basic thing is to be loved.

That's why lovers go on complaining against each other, "You don't love me enough." Nothing is enough, never can anything be enough, because the need is infinite. Hence the bondage is infinite, it cannot be fulfilled. Whatsoever the lover is doing, you will always feel something more is possible; you can still hope more, you can still imagine more. And then that is lacking and then you feel frustrated. And every lover thinks, "I love, but the other is not responding well," and the other thinks in the same terms. What is the matter?

Nobody loves. And unless you become a Jesus or a Buddha you cannot love, because only one whose need to be needed has disappeared can love.

In Kahlil Gibran's beautiful book, Jesus the Son of Man, he has created a fictitious but beautiful story -- and sometimes fictions are more factual than facts. Mary Magdalene looks out of her window and sees Jesus sitting in her garden under a tree. The man is beautiful. She had known many men, she was a famous prostitute -- even kings used to knock at her door -- she was one of the loveliest flowers. But she had never known such a man -- because a person like Jesus carries an invisible aura around him that gives him a beauty of something of the other world, he doesn't belong to this world. There was a light around him, a grace, the way he walked, the way he sat, as if he were an emperor in the robes of a beggar.

He looked so much of another world that Magdalene asked her servants to go and invite him, but Jesus refused. He said, "I am okay here. The tree is beautiful and very shady."

Then Magdalene had to go herself and ask, request Jesus -- she could never believe that anybody would refuse the request. She said, "Come into my house and be my guest."

Jesus said, "I have already come into your house, I have already become a guest. Now there is no other need."

She could not understand. She said, "No, you come, and don't refuse me -- nobody has ever refused me. Can't you do such a little thing? Become my guest. Eat with me today, stay with me this night."

Jesus said, "I have accepted. And remember: those who say they accept you, they have never accepted you; and those who say to you that they love you, none of them has ever loved you. And I tell you, I love you, and only I can love you." But he would not enter the house; rested, he left.

What did he say? He said, "Only I can love you. Those others who go on saying that they love you, they can't love, because love is not something you can do -- it is a quality of your being."

In the state you are, you cannot love; in the state you are your love is false. You simply show that you love, so that you can be loved. And the other is also doing the same. That's why lovers are always in trouble: both are cheating each other, and both feel that they are being cheated. But they never look at themselves and see that they are cheating. Have you really loved any woman, any man? Can you say with your total heart that you loved? No! You never bothered about it, you have taken it for granted that you love. The problem is always the other, you never look at yourself.

Mulla Nasruddin had become ninety-nine years old, and a reporter from a local newspaper came to interview him because he was the oldest man in the valley. After the interview the reporter said, "I hope that I will be able to come next year also when you have attained the hundred, when you have completed your hundred years. I hope I will be able to come." Mulla Nasruddin looked at the man wide-eyed and said, "Why not, young fellow? You look healthy enough to me!"

Nobody looks at himself: the eyes look at others, the ears listen to others, the hands reach towards others -- nobody reaches towards himself; nobody listens, nobody looks. Love happens when you have attained a crystallized soul, a self. With ego it never happens; the ego wants to be loved because that is a food it needs. You love so that you become a needed person. You give birth to children, not that you love children but just so that you are needed, so that you can go around and say, "Look how many responsibilities I am fulfilling, what duties I am carrying out! I am a father, I am a mother...." This is just to glorify your ego.

Unless this need to be needed drops you cannot be a solitary. Go to the Himalayas -- you will create a society. And if this need to be needed drops, wherever you are, living in the marketplace, at the very hub of the city, you will be alone.

Now try to understand the words of Jesus:

JESUS SAID: BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY AND ELECT, FOR YOU SHALL FIND THE KINGDOM; AND BECAUSE YOU COME FROM IT YOU SHALL GO THERE AGAIN.

Penetrate each single word: BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY.... Who is the solitary? One whose need to be needed has dropped; one who is completely content with himself as he is; one who does not need anybody to say to him, "You are meaningful." His meaning is within him. Now his meaning does not come from others -- he does not beg for it, he does not ask for it -- his meaning comes from his own being. He is not a beggar and he can live with himself.

You cannot live with yourself. Whenever you are alone you become uneasy; immediately you feel inconvenience, discomfort, a deep anxiety. What to do? Where to go? Go to the club, go to the church or go to the theater -- but go somewhere, meet the other -- or just go shopping. For people who are rich, shopping is the only game, the only sport; they go shopping. If you are poor, you need not enter the shop, you just move on the street looking at the windows. But go!

To be alone is very difficult, very unusual, extraordinary. Why this hankering? -- because whenever you are alone your whole meaning disappears. Go and purchase something from a shop; at least the salesman will give you meaning... not the thing, because you go on purchasing useless things. You purchase just for the sake of the purchase. But the salesman, or the owner of the shop, they look at you as if you are a king. They behave as if they depend on you -- and you know well that this is just a face. This is how shopkeepers exploit: the salesman is not bothered about you at all, his smile is just a painted smile; he smiles at everybody, it is nothing particular for you. But you never look at these things. He smiles and greets and receives you as a welcome guest. You feel comfortable, you are somebody, there are people who depend on you; this shopkeeper was waiting for you.

You are in search all over of eyes who can give you a certain meaning. Whenever a woman looks at you she gives you meaning. Now psychologists have discovered that when you enter a room -- in a waiting room at the airport, or at a station or in a hotel -- if a woman looks twice at you, she is ready to be seduced. But if a woman looks once, don't bother her, just forget it. They have made films, and they have been watching, and this is a fact, because a woman looks twice only if she wants to be appreciated and looked at.

A man enters a restaurant: the woman can look once, but if he is not worthwhile she will not look another time. And woman-hunters know it well, they have known it for centuries; psychologists have come to know just now: they watch the eyes. If the woman looks again she is interested. Now much is possible, she has given the hint, she is ready to move with you or play the game of love. But if she doesn't look at you again then the door is closed; better knock at some other door, this door is closed for you.

Whenever a woman looks at you, you become important, very significant; in that moment you are unique. That's why love gives so much radiance; love gives you so much life, vitality.

But this is a problem, because the same woman looking at you every day will not be of much help. That's why husbands become fed up with their wives, wives become fed up with their husbands -- because how can you gain the same meaning from the same eyes again and again? You become accustomed to it: she is your wife, there is nothing to conquer. Hence the need to become a Byron, hence the need to become a Don Juan and move from one woman to another. This is not a sexual need, remember, this is nothing related to sex at all, because sex goes deeper with one woman, in deep intimacy. It is not sex, it is not love, absolutely not, because love wants to be with one more and more, in a deeper and deeper way; love moves in depth. This is neither love nor sex, this is something else: an ego-need. If you can conquer a new woman every day you feel very, very meaningful, you feel yourself a conqueror. But if you are finished with one woman, stuck, and nobody looks at you, no other woman or man gives you meaning, you feel finished. That's why wives and husbands look so lifeless, 'lustless'. You can just look and you can tell from far away whether the couple coming are wife and husband or not. If they are not you will feel a difference; they will be happy, laughing, talking, enjoying each other. If they are wives and husbands, then they are just tolerating each other.

Mulla Nasruddin's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary came, and he was going out of his house that day. His wife felt a little peeved, because she was expecting he would do something and he was just moving in a routine way. So she asked, "Nasruddin, have you forgotten what day it is?"

Nasruddin said, "I know."

Then she said, "Then do something unusual!"

Nasruddin thought and said, "How about two minutes of silence?"

Wherever you feel life is stuck, it shows that you may have been thinking it was love.... It was not love, it was an ego-need -- a need to conquer, to be needed every day by a new man, a new woman, new people. If you succeeded, then you felt happy for a while because you were no ordinary man. This is the lust of the politician: to be needed by the whole country. What was Hitler trying to do? To be needed by the whole world!

But this need cannot allow you to become solitary; a politician cannot become religious -- they move in opposite directions. That's why Jesus says, "It is very difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. A camel may enter through the eye of a needle, but not a rich man into the kingdom of God." Why? -- because a man who has been accumulating riches is trying to become significant through wealth. He wants to be somebody, and whosoever wants to be somebody, the door of the kingdom is closed for him.

Only nobodies enter there, only those who have attained to their nothingness, only those whose boats are empty; whose ego-needs they have come to understand are futile and neurotic; whose ego-needs they have come to penetrate and found to be useless -- not only useless but harmful also. Ego-needs can make you mad but they can never fulfill you.

Who is a solitary? One whose need to be needed has disappeared, who does not ask any meaning from you, from your eyes, from your responses. No! If you give your love, he will be grateful, but if you don't give, there is no complaint; if you don't give, he is as good as ever. If you come to visit him he will be happy, but if you don't come he is as happy as ever. If he moves in a crowd he will enjoy it, but if he lives in a hermitage he will enjoy that also.

You cannot make a solitary man unhappy, because he has learned to live with himself and be happy with himself. Alone, he is sufficient. That's why people who are related to each other never like the other to become religious: if the husband starts moving towards meditation, the wife feels disturbed. Why? She may not even be aware of what is happening or why she feels disturbed. If the wife starts to pray, starts moving in the direction of religion and God, the husband feels disturbed. Why?

An unconscious fear comes into the conscious. The fear is that she or he is trying to become sufficient unto herself or unto himself; this is the fear. So, if a wife is given the choice, "Would you like your husband to become a meditator or a drunkard?" she will choose that he become a drunkard rather than a meditator. Given the choice, "Would you like your wife to become a sannyasin or to move on wrong ways and go astray?" a husband will choose the latter.

A sannyasin means one who is sufficient unto himself, who does not need anybody, who is not in any way dependent. And that gives fear: then you become useless. Your whole existence has been around his need, that he needed you. Without you he was nothing, without you his life was futile, a desert -- only with you did he flower. But if you come to know that he can flower in his solitariness, then there will be disturbance because your ego will be hurt.

Who is a solitary? And Jesus says: BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY.... People who can live with themselves as easily as if the whole world were there with them, who can enjoy themselves just like small children.

Very small children can enjoy themselves. Freud has a particular term for them: polymorphous. A small child enjoys himself, he plays with his own body, he is auto-erotic, he sucks his own thumb. If he needs somebody else, that need is only for the body; you give the milk, you turn him over, you change the clothes -- physical needs. He has really no psychological needs yet. He is not worried what people are thinking about him, whether they think him beautiful or not. That's why every child is beautiful -- because he does not bother about your opinion.

No ugly child is ever born, and all children become, by and by, ugly. It is very difficult to find an old man beautiful -- rare. It is very difficult to find a child ugly -- rare. All children are beautiful, all old men become ugly. What is the matter? When all children are born beautiful they should die beautiful! But life does something.... All children are self-sufficient -- that is their beauty; they exist as light unto themselves. All old men are useless, they have come to realize that they are not needed. And the older they grow the more the feeling comes that they are not needed. The people who needed them have disappeared; the children are grown-up, they have moved with their own families: the wife is dead or the husband is dead. Now the world does not need them, nobody comes to their home, nobody pays respect. Even if they go for a walk, nobody recognizes who they are. They may have been great executives, bosses in offices, presidents in banks, but now nobody recognizes them, nobody even misses them. Not needed, they feel futile; they are just waiting for death. And nobody will bother... even if they die, nobody is going to bother. Even death becomes an ugly thing.

Even if you can think that when you die millions of people will weep for you, you will feel happy: thousands and thousands will go to pay their homage when you are dead.

It happened once: One man in America planned it -- and he is the only man in the whole history of the world to have done it. He wanted to know how people would react when he was dead. So before his death, when doctors said that within twelve hours he would die, he declared his death. And he was a man who owned many circuses, exhibitions, advertising agencies, so he knew how to advertise the fact. In the morning his agent declared to all the press, to the radio, to the television, that he was dead. So articles were written, editorials were written, phone-calls started coming, and there was much commotion. And he read everything, he really enjoyed it.

People are always good when you die, you become an angel immediately, because nobody thinks it worth saying anything against you when you are dead. When you are alive, nobody will say anything for you. Remember, when you are dead they will be happy -- at least you have done one good thing: you have died! Everybody was paying respects to this man, and this and that, and photographs had come into the newspapers -- he enjoyed it perfectly. And then he died, completely at ease that things were going to be beautiful.

Not only do you need others in your life, even in your death.... Think about your death: only two or three persons, your servants and a dog following you for the last goodbye -- nobody else; no newspapermen, no photographers, nothing -- even your friends are not there. And everybody is feeling very happy that the burden is gone. Just thinking about it, you will become sad. Even in death the need to be needed remains. What type of life is this? Just others' opinions are important, not you? Your existence doesn't mean anything?

When Jesus says: BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY... he means this: a man who has come to remain absolutely happy with himself, who can be alone on this earth and there will be no change of mood, the climate will not change. If the whole world disappears into a third world war -- it can happen any day -- and you are left alone, what will you do? Except to immediately commit suicide, what will you do? But a solitary can sit under a tree and become a buddha without the world. The solitary will be happy, and he will sing and he will dance and he will move -- his mood will not change. You cannot change the mood of a solitary, you cannot change his inner climate.

Jesus says: BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY AND ELECT.... And these are the elect people, because those who need a crowd will be thrown again and again into the crowd -- that is their need, that's their demand, that's their desire. God fulfills whatsoever you ask, and whatsoever you are is just a fulfillment of your past desires. Don't blame it on anybody else -- it is what you have been praying for. And remember, this is one of the dangerous things in the world: whatsoever you desire will be fulfilled.

Think before you desire a thing. There is every possibility it will be fulfilled -- and then you will suffer. That's what happens to a rich man: he was poor, then he desired riches, and desired and desired, and now it is fulfilled. Now he is unhappy, now he is crying and weeping and he says, "My whole life has gone accumulating worthless things, and I am unhappy!" But this was his desire. If you desire knowledge, it will be fulfilled: your head will become a great library, many scriptures. But then in the end you will weep and cry and scream, "Only words and words and words, and nothing substantial. And I have wasted my whole life."

Desire with full awareness, because every desire is bound to be fulfilled sometime or other. It may take a little more time because you are always standing in a queue; many others have desired before you, so it may take a little time. Sometimes your desire of this life may be fulfilled in another life, but desires are always fulfilled, this is one of the dangerous laws. So before you desire, think! Before you demand, think! Remember well that it is going to be fulfilled someday -- and then you will suffer.

A solitary becomes an elect; he is the chosen, the chosen one of God. Why? -- because a solitary never desires anything of this world. He does not need to, he has learned whatsoever was to be learned from this world; this school is finished, he has passed through it, transcended it. He has become like a high peak which remains alone in the sky -- he has become the elect, the Gourishankar, the Everest. A Buddha, a Jesus, they are high peaks, solitary peaks. That's their beauty: they exist alone.

The solitary is the elect. What has the solitary chosen? He has chosen only his own being. And when you choose your own being, you have chosen the being of the whole universe -- because your being and the universal being are not two things. When you choose yourself you have chosen God, and when you choose God, God has chosen you -- you have become the elect.

BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY AND ELECT, FOR YOU SHALL FIND THE KINGDOM; AND BECAUSE YOU COME FROM IT YOU SHALL GO THERE AGAIN.

A solitary, a sannyasin -- that's what 'sannyasin' means: a solitary being, a wanderer, absolutely happy in his aloneness. If somebody walks by his side it is okay, it is good. If somebody leaves, it is also okay, it is good. He never waits for anybody and he never looks back. Alone, he is whole. This 'beingness', this wholeness, makes you a circle, and the beginning and the end meet, the alpha and the omega meet. A solitary is not like a line. You are like a line -- your beginning and end will never meet. A solitary is like a circle -- his beginning and end meet. That's why Jesus says: ... BECAUSE YOU COME FROM IT YOU SHALL GO THERE AGAIN... you will become one with the source; you have become a circle.

There is another saying of Jesus: "When the beginning and the end have become one, you have become God." You may have seen a picture -- it is one of the oldest seals of the secret societies in Egypt -- of a snake eating its own tail. That's what the beginning and end meeting means, that's what rebirth means, that's what you becoming like children means: moving in a circle, back to the source; reaching there from where you have come.

Jesus said: IF THEY SAY TO YOU....'They' means the society, the crowd -- those who are not yet elected, those who are not chosen, those who are in constant need of being needed -- 'they'. If they say to you... and they will say, because they don't allow anybody to become a solitary. They will haunt you, they will try to press you back into the society. They will want you to come back to the prison -- they cannot believe how you escaped. And they will feel uncomfortable with you if you become a solitary one. Why? -- because your very presence makes them doubtful about their own existence; that is the discomfort.

Whenever a Jesus moves amidst you, you become uncomfortable, because if this man is right then you are wrong -- and this man walks in such a way that he looks right. If this man is right then what about you? The very movement of a Jesus in the society, and the whole society is in an earthquake -- because this man seems so happy, not needing anybody, not being needed, so solitary, so alone and so blissful; and you are almost neurotic, almost mad.

Something is wrong with you, not with this man. You will try in every way to prove that this man is wrong. There are books written against Jesus in which it is proved that this man was a psychological case, mental; there are books which prove that this man was neurotic. Who is writing these books? 'They' -- they are writing these books, because only if they can prove this man is wrong, neurotic, gone mad, are they at ease. But both cannot be right: if this man is right, then you are wrong.

But what is the need? If this man is neurotic, he is neurotic -- what is the need to prove it? Why be bothered? Why bother about him? No, it is because he gives you a doubt about yourself. That's why we have not welcomed such people, never! We have always rejected them when they were alive. We welcome them when they are dead, because then we can paint their faces in our own ways.

Look at the face of the Christian Jesus. It is not even a caricature, not even a cartoon -- it is absolutely false. Christians say Jesus never laughed, and I cannot see Jesus in any other posture than laughing. He must have been a laughter; whether you heard it or not is not the point, but he must have been like a laughing, bubbling spring, flowing all over. But the Christians have painted him as sad as possible. He looks neurotic as they have painted him; he looks so sad that to be in his company will be a burden. Just go in any Christian church and look at Jesus' portrait. Would you like to be with this man for one whole night, in one room? You will say, "This is okay, just this Sunday morning is enough." With this man the whole night? One will start trembling and be afraid. And he is so sad... you are already sad enough, why add more?

Christians have chosen the cross as their symbol, and they have missed the whole point. Jesus talked about the cross and he was crucified, but his meaning was totally different. They have chosen the cross because it shows suffering, and we have been suffering so much that we cannot believe in a laughing Christ. We can believe in a suffering Christ -- that is so similar to us, just like us, even more in suffering than us. We understand suffering; the language of sadness, suffering and death we understand. Life we don't understand. That's why there is a Christianity, but around Krishna there could not be any religion.

Hindus worship Krishna, but grudgingly -- because he is so contrary to your existence: playing on his flute, dancing with girls, always happy and laughing. He is so much against your existence that you cannot understand him. How can you understand dancing? You can understand death, you can understand crucifixion -- you cannot understand a flute and song.

Christianity spread like a fire all over the world, and there is not a single worshipper of Krishna. Those who think they are, they are not either, they also have difficulties with Krishna. They have to explain Krishna away in many ways. They cannot believe that this man was dancing with everybody's wife, or that he had sixteen thousand girlfriends. Impossible! There must be some other meaning. So they interpret Krishna in their own ways: that these sixteen thousand girlfriends are not real girlfriends, they are man's nervous system -- sixteen thousand nerves. But I tell you, this man had sixteen thousand girlfriends: and this man laughed and sang and danced -- he was ecstasy itself. And Jesus was the same; that's why I say his name, 'Christ', may have been derived from 'Krishna'.

Jesus was the same, he was not a sad man. But you cannot understand the language of laughter -- no, not yet. Your hearts are not yet ready for a dancing God; the world is not yet a home for a dancing God. Krishna seems impossible; Jesus seems to be almost the conclusion of your life. Crucifixion became the symbol, the cross became the symbol, but for Jesus the cross means something absolutely different, and I would like to tell you what it means to Christ.

The cross has two lines, simple lines: one line horizontal to the earth, another line vertical to the earth. That's how the cross is -- a crossroad, a crossing point. The horizontal line is time: past, present, future; A, B, C, moving in a line. You live on that line. The vertical line is eternity, the now. It is always present; there is no past to it, no future to it. It goes higher and higher and higher; it moves higher, not forward.

Time and eternity meet where Jesus is crucified; that moment where Jesus dies is the now. If you die in the now, you are reborn, you are resurrected. Then there is no death for you, because time disappears and you are eternal. The cross is a symbol of time and eternity meeting. And that point must be your death. It cannot be anything else, because when you disappear from the time-world you become part of eternity. And both cross.... Where do they cross? Here and now, at this moment they cross.

Now is the moment where the cross exists. But if you go on moving horizontally, in the future, then you miss. If you start moving from this very moment, vertically, you are on the cross; you will die as you are, and you will be reborn -- a new birth, absolutely new. And through that birth, no death exists, but life eternal. To Jesus, the cross was a time symbol: time and eternity crossing. But for Christianity it became a sad death symbol of suffering.

If Jesus had been in India and he had not gone to the Jews, and if we had painted the cross, then the cross would be the same but Jesus would be different. He would be just like Krishna: ecstatic, his face smiling, his whole being smiling, because this is the moment of ecstasy. When time disappears, you die to the world of time and you are reborn to the world of eternity -- at that moment you must be ecstatic. That is what Hindus have called samadhi.

But Christianity missed. It always happens so because Jesus alive is a discomfort, he is like a worm in the heart, biting you. You have to put yourself at ease. When he is dead, then you can arrange everything according to you; then you can paint Jesus according to you -- then he is nothing but your representative.

IF THEY SAY TO YOU -- and they will say -- 'FROM WHERE HAVE YOU ORIGINATED?' SAY TO THEM, 'WE HAVE COME FROM THE LIGHT, WHERE THE LIGHT ORIGINATED THROUGH ITSELF.'

We come from God, we are sons of God; we come from the source of all existence. And the source of all existence has no other source -- it is self-originating, it is self-creating. The father has no other father, the creator has no other creator to it -- the creator is a self-creating force. 'WE HAVE COME FROM THE LIGHT, WHERE THE LIGHT ORIGINATED THROUGH ITSELF.' IF THEY ASK YOU, 'WHAT IS THE SIGN OF YOUR FATHER IN YOU?'... They will ask -- they will ask, "Have you become enlightened? What is the sign? Have you come to know the father? Then what is the sign? Give us signs!" because they cannot look directly, they always look at signs -- they cannot penetrate directly to you. Even when a Buddha is there you ask for signs; even when a Jesus is there you ask for signs: "Show us some sign so that we can understand." And Jesus is there. Is he not sign enough? No, but that you cannot understand -- he transcends you.

People used to come to Jesus and they would ask, "Are you really the one who has been promised? Are you that chosen one?" And they were asking him. They must have been asking his disciples more because 'they' are always against the disciples. They are against the master, but they are against the disciples even more, because the disciples move amongst them more; they live with them, they have to live with them, and they will ask puzzling questions. They will ask, "What is the sign of the father in you? Make water into wine and we will understand. Or revive this man who is dead, or do something against nature!" Then they will understand.

What did Jesus say? Jesus did not say, "Do miracles and give them signs." What he says is one of the most beautiful things ever asserted. He says:

SAY TO THEM, 'IT IS A MOVEMENT AND A REST.' This is the sign of God in us: '... A MOVEMENT AND A REST.'

Very difficult to understand. What does he mean? He says, "We are moving and yet at rest. The contradiction has dissolved in us. Now we are a synthesis of all contradictions: we are talking and yet not, we talk and yet there is silence; we love, yet we don't love, because the need to be loved has disappeared. We are alone and yet amidst you, because you cannot disturb our loneliness. We are in the crowd, but not of the crowd, because the crowd never penetrates us. We live and move in this world, but we don't belong to this world -- we may be in it, but this world is not within us."

This is what Jesus says: 'IT IS A MOVEMENT AND A REST.' "Look at us: we move and yet there is no tension in the movement; we walk but at the center of our being there is no movement because there is no motivation to reach anywhere -- we have attained. This is the sign of the father. Look at us! There is no desire and yet we go on working. There is no motivation, yet we go on breathing and living. Look at us: the contradictions have dissolved. We walk, and yet do not; we live, and yet do not. You see us in time, and time has disappeared for us -- we have entered eternity." But this is the sign of a perfect master. If you want to see a perfect master, this is the sign: movement and rest.

It will be easy for you if a master is moving, serving people, changing the society, creating a great movement for some utopia. It will be easy for you to understand a Gandhi: continuous movement, activity -- political, social, religious and devoted to others. It will be easy, very easy, to see that Gandhi is a mahatma, a great soul. It is very easy, because there is only movement, and movement devoted to others. It is service: not moving for himself, moving for others, living for others. Or you can easily understand a man who has retired, renounced the world and moved to a Himalayan retreat -- does not speak, remains silent, does not move, does not do anything; no service, no social activity, no religious activity, no ritual -- he simply sits there in his silence. You can understand him also: he is at rest.

But both have chosen one polarity. They may be very good people -- there are good people -- but they are not perfect. They don't show the sign of the father, because perfection is the sign. They have to be like Jesus: moving, and yet silent.

Movement and rest: living in the world, not renouncing it -- and yet totally renounced. Where contradictions meet, the ultimate appears. If you choose one, you have missed, you have sinned, you have missed the mark. Don't choose! That's why Lao Tzu, Jesus and others say, "Don't choose!" Choose and you miss. Be choiceless -- let movement be there, and let rest be there, and let movement and rest rest together. Become a symphony, not a single note. A single note is simple, there is not much trouble.

I have heard about Mulla Nasruddin, that he had a violin, and he continuously created one note on it. The whole family became disturbed, the neighborhood became disturbed, and they said, "What type of music is this? If you are learning, then learn well. You go on creating one note continuously! It is so boring that even at midday the whole neighborhood falls asleep."

Nasruddin's wife said, "This is enough. For months and years we have been listening, we have never seen such a musician! What are you doing?"

Nasruddin said, "Others are trying to find their note, and I have found it. That's why they change: they are still on the way, trying to find the note. And I have found it, so now there is no need -- I have reached the goal."

A single note is simple, there is no need to learn much, it is uncomplicated. But a single note misses all that is beautiful, because the higher the complexity, the higher the beauty that appears. And God is the most complex: the whole world is in him, the whole universe meets in him. So what is the sign of your father? It can only be a synthesis, it can only be  a symphony, where all the notes have dissolved into one.

'MOVEMENT AND REST' is just symbolic. SAY TO THEM, 'IT IS A MOVEMENT AND A REST.'

Try to follow this, try to do it in your life. Extremes are easy to choose: you can move into activity and get lost in it, or you can renounce the activity and get lost in rest. But both will be choices -- you will be as far away from God as possible, because God has not rejected anything, he has not renounced anything.

He is in all, he is all. If you also become all, not renouncing, not rejecting, without any choice, a choiceless awareness, then you have the sign of the ultimate, the sign of God.

Beware of extremes! They are the dangerous paths from where one falls. Let both the extremes meet, then a new phenomenon arises -- more subtle, more delicate, more complex, but more beautiful.