THE TWENTIETH SAYING

HIS DISCIPLES SAID TO HIM: WHEN WILL THE REPOSE OF THE DEAD COME ABOUT AND WHEN WILL THE NEW WORLD COME?

HE SAID TO THEM: WHAT YOU EXPECT HAS COME, BUT YOU KNOW IT NOT.

HIS DISCIPLES SAID TO HIM: TWENTY-FOUR PROPHETS SPOKE IN ISRAEL AND THEY ALL SPOKE ABOUT THEE.

HE SAID TO THEM: YOU HAVE DISMISSED THE LIVING ONE WHO IS BEFORE YOU, AND YOU HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT THE DEAD.

JESUS SAID: I HAVE CAST FIRE UPON THE WORLD, AND SEE, I GUARD THE WORLD UNTIL IT IS AFIRE.

It has happened again and again: Jesus comes, but you don't recognize him; Buddha comes, but you don't recognize him. Why does this happen?... and then for centuries and centuries you think about Jesus and Buddha. Then religions are created, then great organizations are created for the one whom you never recognized when he was here. Why do you miss a living Christ? This has to be understood, because it must be something very deep-rooted in the mind, in the very nature of the mind. It is not an individual error, it is not a mistake committed by this man or that man. For millennia it has been committed by the human mind.

The mind has to be penetrated and understood. One thing: the mind has no present, it has only past and future. The present is so narrow that the mind cannot catch it. The moment the mind catches it, it has already become the past. So the mind can remember the past, can desire the future, but cannot see the present. The past is vast, the future also is vast; the present is so atomic, so subtle, that by the time you become aware, it is gone. And you are not so aware! A very great intensity of awareness is needed, only then will you be able to see the present. You have to be fully alert; if you are not totally alert, the present cannot be seen. You are already drunk with the past or with the future.

The other day it happened, Mulla Nasruddin came to see me. He hailed a taxi, entered it and said, "Driver, take me to Osho Commune."

The driver came out of the car very much annoyed because the taxi was standing before 17, Koregaon Park. He opened the door and said to Mulla Nasruddin, "Fellow, we have reached the Commune. Come out!"

Nasruddin said, "Okay, but don't drive so fast next time."

The mind is drunk. It cannot see the present, that which is before you. The mind is filled with dreams, desires. You don't have a presence. That's why Jesus is missed, Buddha is missed, Krishna is missed, and then for centuries you weep and cry, then for centuries you feel guilty. For centuries you think, pray, imagine, and when Jesus is there you miss. Jesus can be met only if you attain to a presence of mind, such a presence that has no past, that has no future. Only such a presence can look into the present, and then the present is eternal. But eternity is in depth, it is not a linear movement, it is not horizontal -- it is vertical.

The second thing to remember: you can understand the past, because to understand anything you need time to think, theorize, philosophize, systematize, argue. Then intellectually you can sort things out. But when a Jesus is present you cannot think -- you have no time to think. Mind needs time to think. It gropes in the dark. Somehow it creates a sort of understanding which is not understanding at all. If you have understanding, then you can look directly into a fact and the truth of the fact is revealed. If you don't have understanding, you have to think.

Remember, a man of understanding never thinks, he simply looks at the fact. The very look reveals. A man of non-understanding thinks. It is just like a blind man who wants to go out of this house: before he leaves the house he will have to think, "Where is the door, where is the staircase, where is the gate?" But a man with eyes, if he wants to go out, simply goes out. He never thinks, "Where is the door, where is the staircase, where is the gate?" Because he can look, there is no need to think.

If you are blind, then there is much need to think. Thinking is a substitute, it hides your blindness. A man who can see directly never thinks: Jesus is not a thinker, Aristotle is a thinker, Buddha is not a thinker, Hegel is a thinker. A man who is enlightened never thinks, he simply looks, he has the eyes to look. And the very look reveals where the way is, where the door is, where the gate is, and then he goes.

When Jesus is there the gate is open. But you are blind: there is every possibility that you will ask Jesus himself, "Where is the door? Where is the gate? Where should I go?"

There is a famous painting by William Hunt. When it was exhibited in London for the first time, critics raised a question. The painting is of Jesus, one of the most beautiful: Jesus is standing at a door. The door is closed and it seems that it has remained closed forever and forever, because weeds have grown near it; nobody has opened it, it seems, for centuries. It looks very ancient, tattered, and Jesus is standing at the door, and the painting is entitled "Behold, I stand at the door!" There is a knocker on the door, and Jesus has that knocker in his hand.

The painting is beautiful. But critics always look for some mistake; their whole mind moves to where something is lacking. They did find one mistake: a knocker is there on the door, but there is no handle. So they told Hunt, "The door is okay, Jesus is okay, but one thing you have missed: there is no handle on the door."

Hunt laughed and said, "This door opens inwards" -- Jesus is standing at the door of man, his heart. It cannot open outwards, so there is no need for a handle, there is only a knocker. It opens inwards, the door of the heart.

Jesus comes and knocks at your door... but you start thinking. You don't open the door; rather, you may even get scared and bolt it more: "Who knows what type of man is standing outside? Looks like a tramp! And who knows what he is going to do once you open the door?" Once you open the heart you become vulnerable; then you are not so secure and safe. And this man looks an absolute stranger. You cannot trust. That's why when Jesus comes to the door you miss.

First, you are blind, you cannot see, you can only think. Second, you are afraid, scared of the unknown. But about the past you are at ease, because enough time has passed, many people have thought, they have created theories, they have supplied all that is needed. Now you can just look at books -- books are dead. But you can think about Jesus and come to a conviction. And then there is no danger either, because even if you open your heart to a book, nothing is going to happen. So millions of Christians go on reading the Bible every day, Hindus go on reading the Gita every day, Buddhists go on reading Dhammapada every day. They repeat in a mechanical way, every day the same again and again. There is no danger because the book is not a fire.

But Jesus is a fire: once you open your heart you are going to be burned totally. Once that stranger enters into your heart, the unknown has penetrated into the known. Now your mind as it existed before cannot exist anymore; you cannot be the same again. A discontinuity has happened, the past is dead -- not even in dreams can it be reflected anymore; all that you had accumulated is gone. This man is going to burn you completely, this man is going to be a death. But you are scared because you don't know that after every death there is birth. The greater the death, the greater the birth -- the more total the death, the more total the birth. And this man is going to give you a total death.

You are afraid. Who is this who is afraid? It is precisely that one who is afraid within you who is not you. That is the ego, your accumulation of the past, your identity: you are a man of position, prestige, power, a man of knowledge, respectable. This ego is going to be shattered completely by this man. This ego says to you, "Be alert! Don't open the door so easily. Nobody knows who this man is. First make sure." And by the time you are sure, Jesus is gone, because he cannot wait at your door forever and forever. It is such a rare phenomenon: the penetration of the unknown into the known, the penetration of eternity into time. The meeting of a Jesus with you is such a rare phenomenon that it exists only in certain moments and then it is gone. You miss -- you don't have the presence of your mind.

I have heard, once it happened: A miser got fifty thousand rupees from the government, because he was traveling in a train and there was a wreck, and he made a claim. His bones were broken, there were many fractures, but he was very happy when he got fifty thousand rupees. He walked all over the town telling people the good news: "I have got fifty thousand rupees and my wife has got twenty-five thousand rupees!"

So one friend asked, "But was your wife also hurt, wounded, in the wreck?"

The miser said, "No! But even in that chaos when the train was in the wreck, in that accident, I had the presence of mind to kick her teeth. She was not hurt at all, but I had the presence of mind to kick her teeth. So she also got twenty-five thousand rupees."

In this world, sometimes you use presence of mind -- for wrong reasons of course. But when Jesus comes, Buddha comes, you never use presence of mind because it is dangerous. It is not going to give you something; rather, on the contrary, it is going to take everything that you have. You are not going to get twenty-five thousand rupees from the insurance or the government; on the contrary, all the treasury that you have accumulated will simply be washed out. So whenever a Jesus is there you never look at his eyes directly. You look this way and that, you look sideways, you never encounter him. Left and right your eyes move, past and future your mind moves... but just directly, immediately, you are cunning. You miss, because deep down you wanted to avoid.

Jesus is a discomfort. To meet him is inconvenient because he shatters your complete adjustment. He makes you aware that you have been absolutely wrong, he makes you feel that you have sinned, you have missed the mark. He makes you feel that your whole life has been a wastage, that you have not reached anywhere, that you have been standing on the same spot for millions of lives. Of course you feel uneasy before him, you start shaking and trembling deep inside. The only way is to avoid, and you are very cunning in avoiding. You avoid in such ways that even you cannot become aware that you are avoiding. Now try to understand these words.

HIS DISCIPLES SAID TO HIM: WHEN WILL THE REPOSE OF THE DEAD COME ABOUT, AND WHEN WILL THE NEW WORLD COME?

Jews have been waiting for centuries for the day when the dead should be resurrected, for the day when a new world order of peace, benediction, a divine order will be born. This world is ugly; as it is, it is like a nightmare. And the only way to tolerate it is to hope that someday this should not be so, the nightmare will end; someday this ugly world will disappear and a new world of beauty and truth and goodness will be born. This is a trick of the mind: this is intoxicating, this gives you hope, and hope is the most alcoholic beverage -- nothing can compare with it. If you can hope you can remain drunk forever and ever. This gives you a possibility to wait: "This world is not final, this ugliness is not final, this life is not real life. The real life is to come." This is what an irreligious man will think.

A religious man accepts whatsoever is, he is not waiting for something else to happen; he accepts this world as it is, this life as it is. He has a deep acceptance: he is grateful even for this, he is not complaining. He does not say, "This is ugly and this is bad and this is a nightmare." He says, "Whatsoever it is, it is beautiful. I accept it." And just through this acceptance he is born, he becomes a new man, and for him a new world is there. This is the way to get into the new world. If you simply wait, hoping that someday this world is going to change, it is never going to change -- it has always been so. Since Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden it has remained so.

In China there is a proverb: 'Progress' is the oldest word. Always, the human mind has been thinking that we are progressing. We are going nowhere, the world has remained the same. Details may change, but the substance remains the same; it is again and again a wheel, it moves on the same track.

A religious man is one who accepts this very moment -- whatsoever the case is -- and through that acceptance he is born anew, the dead is resurrected. This is a rebirth. And when your eyes are different the whole world is different, because the world is not the case, the way you look at it is the case. The way you look at it is the case, the way you approach it is the case -- your attitude is your world. This world is neutral: to a Buddha it looks like moksha, the ultimate beauty and ecstasy; to you it looks like a hell, the final, the seventh -- nothing can be worse than this. It depends on how you look at it.

When you are reborn, everything is reborn with you: the trees will be the same, and yet they will not be the same; the hills will be the same, and yet they will not be the same -- because you have changed. You are the center of your world, and when the center changes, periphery has to follow, because the world is just a shadow around you. If you change, the shadow changes. And those who are waiting and thinking that someday the shadow will change, they are fools.

Jews were waiting, as everybody is waiting, for a day to come when the world would be reborn and the dead would be resurrected; there would be peace, eternal peace, and life. So they asked Jesus:

WHEN WILL THE REPOSE OF THE DEAD COME ABOUT, AND WHEN WILL THE NEW WORLD COME?

They were asking about the future, and this is how you miss Jesus. Don't ask a Jesus about the future, because for a Jesus no future exists; the whole eternity is present for him. And for a Jesus no hope exists, because hope is a dream. For Jesus, only truth exists, not hope. Hope is a deception, hope is intoxicating; it gives your eyes such a drunkenness that because of that drunkenness you look at the world and everything is different. For Jesus, only truth, the 'facticity' of it -- bare, naked existence -- exists; he has no hopes about it. Not that he is in despair -- remember, despair is part of the hope.

If you hope in the future, despair will follow in the past. Despair is a shadow of hope: if you hope you will be frustrated. The more you hope the more frustrated you will be, because hope creates a dream and then it is not fulfilled. Jesus is not in despair, not in frustration. He never hopes, so everything is fulfilling; he never expects, so everything is as it should be; he never dreams, so there is no failure. Nothing can fail you if you are not after success, and nothing can frustrate you if you are not looking at the future. No! There is no misery if there is no dreaming.

Dreams bring misery; existence is pure ecstasy. Jesus lives here and now, that is the only existence for him. That's why I say it is very difficult for Jesus to meet you, because you are always in the future and he is always here and now. How to meet? The distance is vast!

There are two ways. One, Jesus should start dreaming like you -- which is impossible, because knowingly you cannot dream. Knowingly there is no possibility for dreaming, because if the knower is there the dream cannot come. The dream comes only when the knower is fast asleep. So Jesus cannot come to your level, that is impossible. Whatsoever he tries, it cannot be done. He would like, a Buddha would like, to come exactly where you are to meet you, but it is intrinsically impossible because he cannot fall asleep, he cannot become unconscious, he cannot fall into a dream, he cannot hope. Then where to meet? If he moves into a dream, into the future, then there can be a meeting. But that's not possible, that's impossible. The only possibility is that he should shake you awake.

So Jesus goes on saying to his disciples, "Awake, be alert! Watch, see, look!" He goes on saying, "Be mindful, have presence of mind here and now!" But even disciples ask about the future. They are not looking at Jesus, they are thinking of the future because they have suffered in the past. That is the balance: they have suffered in the past, they will be blissful in the future. This is the balance of their life, otherwise they will go insane.

In ancient days, every emperor had a wise man in his court, and a fool also. It looks absurd -- a wise man is needed, but why a fool? To give balance, otherwise the court would be unbalanced. And this is right.

It happened once: A great king had a wise man but not a fool. And things were going wrong, so a search was made and a man was found who was a perfect fool. Perfection is rare: to find a perfect wise man is rare, to find a perfect fool is still more rare. But perfection is beautiful wherever it is. Even a perfect fool has a quality in him that you cannot challenge -- perfection. Perfection has its own beauty, it gives a grace. If you want to see what a perfect fool is, read Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot.

A perfect fool was found. The king wanted to make a test to see whether he was really worthwhile. So he said to the fool, "Make a list of ten great fools in my court" -- there were one hundred members of the court -- "Make a list of ten persons, and put the names in order: the greatest fool first, and then the second and then the third...." And seven days' time was given.

The seventh day the king asked, "Have you made the list?"

The fool said, "Yes."

The king was curious. He said, "Who is the first?"

The fool said, "You!"

The king was annoyed and he said, "Why? You will have to give me an explanation."

The fool said, "Just yesterday, up to yesterday, I had not filled the first place. To one of your ministers you have given millions of rupees, and you have sent him to a faraway country to purchase big diamonds, pearls, and other precious stones. I tell you, that man is never going to come back. You trusted him -- you are a fool. Only a fool trusts."

The king said, "Okay. And if he comes, then?"

The fool said, "Then I will cross your name off and put his name instead."

In old courts it was a must, because he gave a balance. Your life is a continuous effort to keep a balance. If you move too much in one direction, balance is lost and there will be illness and disease. Dis-ease means that balance is lost; 'disease' -- the very word means imbalance. So when your past is ugly -- a long suffering, a tedious phenomenon, a boredom -- how will you balance it? You have to, otherwise you will go insane. You balance it by a beautiful future, you paint a romantic picture of the future; it gives a balance.

But Jesus needs no balance because he himself is balance. Jesus needs no wise man and no fool. Your past is like a wise man, because you have gained experience; you have gained wisdom through experience. Your future is like a fool: it dreams. If you don't have any future, what will happen? Suddenly you will go berserk. If you don't have any future you will go mad.

That's what is happening in the West, particularly in America. Because of the H-bomb, atomic energy, the future no longer exists. If America has become the land of hippies and beatniks and others, the reason is because America is more alert. They used the atom bomb in the second world war, and America is alert: the future no longer exists, and the past is just a long ugliness, a nightmare. What to do? The future is not there to fool around with, to dream and keep the balance: the hippie is born -- he has gone berserk, he is not in balance.

A Buddha is also born in a similar way but the method is different. A Jesus is also born in a similar way but the method is different: he simply throws the past, he stops thinking about the future, he stops remembering the past. Then, suddenly, he himself is the balance. You cannot unbalance a Jesus, no. You can unbalance anybody who is simply adjusted, but Jesus is not simply adjusted. An adjusted person can be unbalanced by any accident, but Jesus cannot be unbalanced, he cannot go mad, because the very base has changed. He does not live in the past, he does not live in the future.

The disciples ask Jesus about the future. How will the meeting be possible? How will they encounter him? And these are disciples -- what about the masses?

HE SAID TO THEM: WHAT YOU EXPECT HAS COME, BUT YOU KNOW IT NOT.

WHAT YOU EXPECT HAS COME.... The dead are resurrected, they have attained to repose. The new world has entered, it is already here, but you don't know. Jesus is speaking about himself: "I am the new world, I am the dead resurrected, I am the life, the very center of life -- and I am here, standing before you, and you know it not. You ask questions about the future and the future is here."

HE SAID TO THEM: WHAT YOU EXPECT HAS COME, BUT YOU KNOW IT NOT.

In eternity there is no future. The future is part of the present, but because of our narrowness of mind we cannot see the whole. We are just like a man who has been locked in a room and he looks through the keyhole: he cannot see the whole. Through the keyhole you cannot see the whole -- unless you have taken hashish! Otherwise, through the keyhole you cannot see the whole.

I will tell you one story. Once it happened that three men came to a city when the sun was setting. They tried in every way to reach it before sunset, they ran, because the doors would be closed; the moment the sun went down the doors would be closed, and the whole night they would have to remain outside the wall. And it was dangerous -- wild animals and murderers and everything. They ran, but they couldn't reach the city in time. When they reached it the doors were closed, the sun had set.

One of them started beating his heart and crying loudly so that the doorkeepers who were behind the wall might hear. He cried loudly, he beat on the door, his hands started bleeding, and he fell in a faint. Another started to search around the wall. There might be some other small door, a back door or some place through which he could enter, or a drainage system or something. The third was a hashish smoker: he simply smoked his hashish, then he looked through the keyhole and he said, "Behold! No need to go anywhere -- we can enter through the keyhole!"

That's what happens when you are on a drug trip. This happens: the keyhole seems to be so big that you feel you can even enter the kingdom of God through the keyhole. Nobody can enter the kingdom of God through a keyhole. You will remain outside, and when you come to your senses you will laugh about the whole thing.

Think of a man closed in a room who can look only through the keyhole: he cannot see the whole outside, he looks at a part. And imagine also that he moves his eye looking through the keyhole: then one tree comes into vision; he moves his eye, then another tree comes into vision. The first tree has gone out of existence; the first has become past and he thinks it has disappeared. The second tree has become present, and the third, which has not yet appeared, is in the future. He goes on moving his eye: then the second goes into the past and the third appears, and that man thinks -- and he thinks logically -- "That which I can no longer see is no more, and that which I cannot yet see does not exist yet. Only that which I see exists."

This is what we are doing. And this man will not think that his eye is moving across the keyhole, he will think trees are moving into existence and out of existence. This is what we are saying: we say time moves. Remember, time is not moving, only your mind moves. Where can time move? Have you ever thought? Where can the time move? ... Because movement needs time again: if your time is moving then another time will be needed, because movement needs time. You come to this house from your house, you take half an hour. You moved from one point to another -- time is needed. If your time is moving as we think time is moving -- like a river, going to the past, coming from the future -- then another time is needed in which this time should move. Then you will fall into an infinite regress: then the other time will be moving in some other time. No, that cannot be.

Time is not moving. Rather, on the contrary, your mind moves but you cannot see it. It is just like when you move in a train and the train is going fast and you see trees moving, going fast: you are moving in the opposite direction. If you are not allowed to look and observe you may have the feeling... and sometimes you do have the feeling, when your train starts moving and the other train is standing at the platform, suddenly you think the other train is moving.

For millions of years man has existed on the earth. The earth is moving but nobody became aware of it; everybody thought the sun was moving. And still -- science goes on saying it, but the language has not changed: we say 'sunrise', 'sunset'. The sun never rises, the sun never sets, but still we think as if it does. Even a scientist thinks in the same way. He knows the fact, but the thinking is so deep-rooted that he never thinks that the earth is moving. 'Earthrise', 'earthset' -- no, there are no such words; the sun still moves around the earth.

The same fallacy exists about time. Time is not moving, it is eternal. Only your mind moves, and when it moves you have a narrow slit: that which comes before it is the present, that which goes out of it is the past, that which has not come into it is the future. But where can the present move?

The whole thing is absurd if you think about it. How can the present move suddenly into nonexistence? How can existence become nonexistence? The past is nowhere to be found, it has become nonexistence. And how can the future, which is nonexistential, come into existence? It looks absolutely absurd. Existence remains existence, nonexistence remains nonexistence -- only your mind moves. And you cannot see the whole, that's why division is created.

Jesus lives in the whole. That's why he says: WHAT YOU EXPECT HAS COME, BUT YOU KNOW IT NOT. And not only has it come now, what you have been expecting has always been here. That's why Jesus says in some other saying: "Before Abraham was, I am; I have always been here." Your mind says Jesus will come in the future. The same mind denied Jesus because it is impossible for the same mind to have any communication with the present. Hence Jews said, "This is not the right man we are waiting for."

And no one is ever going to be the right man. Whosoever comes will be the wrong man, because it is not a question of man, his being right and wrong; the question is of mind, living in the future, investing in the future. And when Jesus has come, there is no future -- then all your dreams drop. Jesus becomes a destroyer of your dreams, and you have invested so much in them that it is difficult, it is very difficult.

One doctor was saying to a drunkard, "You stop now, otherwise your hearing will go, you will not be able to hear."

The drunkard said, "I am not going to stop, because the stuff that I am hearing is not so good as the stuff I am drinking. Even if hearing goes, nothing is lost, because the stuff that I am hearing is not worthwhile."

You have invested so much in the future that the stuff that you are dreaming has become so valuable. It gives you balance against the past, it gives you motivation to move and act, it helps you to run. In fact, it helps you and your ego to be there at all. It is difficult to drop it. So whenever a Jesus comes he will say, "I am here!" And you will say, "No, the wrong man!" The right man never comes, not because he never comes but because you cannot allow him to be the right man. If you once allow that Jesus is Christ, then you have to change immediately. You cannot continue the old pattern, the old style of life has to be thrown. You will have to die and be reborn.

HE SAID TO THEM: WHAT YOU EXPECT HAS COME, BUT YOU KNOW IT NOT. HIS DISCIPLES SAID TO HIM -- again the same obsession, again they said -- TWENTY-FOUR PROPHETS SPOKE IN ISRAEL AND THEY ALL SPOKE ABOUT THEE.

This number twenty-four is very meaningful, because Hindus think there are twenty-four avatars, Jainas think there are twenty-four tirthankaras -- 'ford-makers' -- Buddhists think there are twenty-four Buddhas, and Jews think there are twenty-four prophets.

Why twenty-four? Why not more or less? Why do they all agree about it? In this world, everything exists in a particular quantity; even wisdom, that too has a particular quantity. And that quantity is such that when one man becomes enlightened it is difficult for others to become enlightened immediately. The whole light is absorbed in that man. You can live in his shadow, he will try and help you in every way, but it becomes difficult.

Hence the phenomenon: Buddha dies, and many disciples become enlightened when he dies. Mahavira dies, and many disciples become enlightened after he is no more. The same phenomenon as under a very big tree where small plants cannot survive. A particular quantity exists, and when somebody is like a Christ he absorbs the whole quantity. He is so vast that from everywhere small quantities disappear. He becomes the whole light. Hence, much mathematics has gone into it, and all those who have been calculating the phenomenon have come up with the number twenty-four. In one mahakalpa, from one creation to one annihilation, twenty-four are the possibilities, twenty-four persons can reach the highest peak.

The disciples said to Jesus: TWENTY-FOUR PROPHETS SPOKE IN ISRAEL AND THEY ALL SPOKE ABOUT THEE. And they all said, "We are only the newsbringers. The real one is to come, the final, the ultimate is to come. We bring you only the news." That is the difference between a prophet and a Christ. A Christ is the culmination of all aspirations, of all longings, of all the dreams, of all that has been thought about the other world; a Christ is the culminating point, he is the peak, the Everest. A prophet indicates, he points the way, he gives you the news that the one is coming; a prophet is a messenger. Twenty-four prophets had declared that the Christ was coming, the omega point, where the whole of humanity and the whole consciousness of humanity would come to a peak.

HIS DISCIPLES SAID TO HIM: TWENTY-FOUR PROPHETS SPOKE IN ISRAEL AND THEY ALL SPOKE ABOUT THEE.

HE SAID TO THEM: YOU HAVE DISMISSED THE LIVING ONE WHO IS BEFORE YOU, AND YOU HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT THE DEAD.

"Why bring these twenty-four prophets in? You are not looking at me! You are still talking about those twenty-four prophets who are dead. They talked about me, you talk about them -- and I am here. They missed me because they were looking in the future, you miss me because you are looking at the past, and I am here!"

JESUS SAID: I HAVE CAST FIRE UPON THE WORLD, AND SEE, I GUARD THE WORLD UNTIL IT IS AFIRE.

This has to be understood very deeply, very consciously. It is very easy to talk about the dead, because you are dead; you have the same quality, you have a similarity to the dead. It is very difficult to look at Jesus because then you have to be alive. Only the same can feel the same, the similar is needed to know. How can you know light if you are darkness? How can you know love, how can you know life if you are not that? Jesus is missed because you are not alive. You live a dull, dead life. Your life is at its minimum, and Jesus exists at its maximum. You exist as the alpha and he exists as the omega. You are just the A and he is the Z, he is the final culmination.

You go on talking, even before him you go on talking nonsense. It would have been better if the disciples had been silent, it would have been better if they had just remained with him, but they were asking foolish questions. These questions can be answered by a scholar, no need to go to a Jesus. And scholars are always available, they are cheap, there is never any scarcity of them. A Jesus only happens sometimes -- at the culminating point of human growth he happens; when the circle comes to its peak he happens. He is rare, and you are asking foolish questions, childish curiosities like: TWENTY-FOUR PROPHETS SPOKE IN ISRAEL AND THEY ALL SPOKE ABOUT THEE.

Jesus simply rejects the whole thing. He says, "Foolish! Don't ask foolish questions. YOU HAVE DISMISSED THE LIVING ONE... in asking the very question... YOU HAVE DISMISSED THE LIVING ONE."

How can one ask a question before a Jesus? One should look, one should drink him, one should eat him, one should allow him to enter one's deepest core, the innermost part of your being. One should melt in him, and allow him to melt into you.

And you are asking questions! And you are asking about prophets! They have spoken, now you want confirmation from Jesus. You want a certificate from Jesus, a signature that he also says, "Yes, they spoke about me!" Can't you see Jesus directly? Do you need a certificate? If Jesus is not enough, what will the certificate do? Even if Jesus says, and he has been saying continuously, "I am the one for whom you were waiting," you go on asking foolish questions again and again. Somewhere deep down there is doubt, and the question arises out of doubt. The disciple who is asking must be looking at Jesus at that time to see how he responds.

And this is the trick of the mind. If Jesus says, "Yes, I am the one whom all the prophets have declared is coming," then you will think those prophets have also said that one who is the real one will not claim, he will not say, "I am the one." And if Jesus says, "No, I am not that one," then you will go and you will say, "He himself says that he is not the one."

Look at the trick of the mind, how you want to escape from him. People ask, "Have you realized?" If you say, "Yes," they will say, "In the Upanishads it is said that one who says, 'I have realized,' has not realized." If you say, "No," they will say, "Then it is okay. Then we must go and seek someone who has realized. Why waste time with you?"

The mind is in search of how to avoid, and the question is foolish -- that's why Jesus is not answering it. And the question is a trick. In a subtle way, Jesus is saying something else and the disciples are asking something else. He is not answering directly because if he answers directly, whatsoever he says you will leave him.

You are ready to leave him any moment. It is a wonder you have not left him already, why you go on lingering. Maybe it is the vagueness of his answers, maybe it is his not saying yes or no. Maybe it is because the way he is speaking you cannot understand and you have not yet decided what to do. If he says, "Yes, I am the one," you become suspicious: "How can one who has realized say, 'I am the one?'"

Said Jesus to them: YOU HAVE DISMISSED THE LIVING ONE. "I am here and you talk about the prophets, the dead...."

YOU HAVE DISMISSED THE LIVING ONE WHO IS BEFORE YOU, AND YOU HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT THE DEAD.

This is continuously happening. If I say something, and you are a Hindu and that is written in your Gita, you nod your head: "Yes, right." You are not nodding to me, you have rejected the living one; you nod not to me, you nod to your Hinduism and your Gita. You say, "Yes, he must be right because it is written in the Gita." If I say something which is against the Gita you will not nod, you will say, "He must be wrong because it is not written in the Gita." If you look at the living one, then if I say something which is against the Gita, the Gita will be wrong, not me. If I say something which is written in the Gita, the Gita will be right because I say so.

But this is not the case. If you are a Jew, and if I say something, immediately your Jewish mind gets disturbed. Jews have remained disturbed all through these talks. They are here, many of them are here, and they are disturbed: they have written long letters to me -- thirty-page letters -- that this is not so, "You don't understand Jews!" If I say something which goes against your Jewish mind, immediately I am rejected, not the Jewish mind. If I say something which fits, you accept me -- but that is not acceptance, you are simply befooling yourself. If I confirm your mind, then you accept me. Your mind remains the center.

This is what Jesus is saying: YOU HAVE DISMISSED THE LIVING ONE. "Look at me, I am here! The sun has risen and you are talking about the night when somebody said that soon there would be a sun, but you are not looking at the sun: 'Soon there will be a morning and there will be a dawn, and the darkness will disappear.' You are still talking about those who lived in darkness. You talk about me, and I am here and you are not looking at me!" Very difficult to be alert! When the Hindu gets hurt, the Jew gets hurt, the Christian gets hurt, remember it is not you, it is just the conditioning. Put that conditioning aside.

Look how disciples and enemies are similar. They are not very different, there is no basic difference. Jews said to Jesus, "You are not that one who has been promised forever and ever, because those twenty-four prophets gave some signs to judge by. You are not that one, because we have a criterion from the dead to know the living one." They said, "We cannot believe in you. Prove it, because these are the signs: make a man who is dead alive, resurrect him!" And Jesus could not even save himself on the cross, so what will he do? How can he resurrect somebody else from death? He could not escape his own death. On the cross it was proved that he was not the promised one.

What have his disciples been doing? They believe that he cured the sick, they believe that he resurrected the dead, they believe that he didn't die on the cross, and that within three days of his death he was seen by a few people.

But both depend on the dead. The criterion is provided by the dead, as if Jesus just has to follow, just follow the twenty-four dead prophets who provided the criterion; as if he is not allowed to be spontaneous. If you say that he never did any miracle, Jews will be happy. They will say, "Yes, that's what we have been saying." And Christians will be unhappy, because once it is proved that he never did any miracle, then he is no longer a Christ.

Christ is not enough unto himself? As he is, he is not a light? As he is, he is not truth? As he is, he has not brought a grace, an unknown grace into this world? No, you have a criterion, he should fit your criterion. If he fits, or if you think he fits, then it is okay. If he does not fit, or if you think he does not fit, then he is no longer the right person. The whole thing seems to be the same: both are living with the dead -- the disciples and the enemies. Nobody is looking directly, immediately, at the phenomenon that is Jesus.

HE SAID TO THEM: YOU HAVE DISMISSED THE LIVING ONE WHO IS BEFORE YOU, AND YOU HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT THE DEAD.

JESUS SAID: I HAVE CAST FIRE UPON THE WORLD....

Why is he saying this? -- because the old prophets had said he would bring peace, eternal peace. He says: No!

I HAVE CAST FIRE UPON THE WORLD, AND SEE,

I GUARD THE WORLD UNTIL IT IS AFIRE... completely.

I have not brought any peace.

He contradicts, just to see whether the disciples nod or not; he contradicts to see what they say, how they react. He is not contradicting in fact, because the peace can come only after the fire has been there.

When the world is afire, and the old has been burned and gone dead, only then can the new arise. The new is always when the old is dead. The old must cease to be for the new to be, the dead must disappear for the live to appear. The known must go, must give space for the unknown to enter.

He is not contradicting, he cannot contradict; there is no possibility because the prophets were really talking about him -- but he contradicts the disciples. Many must have left him then because, "The old say he will bring peace, and this man says, 'I have brought fire.' He is just the opposite. We are already in much fire, why bring more fire? We are burning already, the world is already afire, aflame, in misery, in anxiety, in anguish. Why bring more fire? We need peace."

But remember, peace cannot come as you are, peace cannot exist for you. It is not a question of peace, it is a question of you: as you are, everything will disturb you; as you are, you will create anguish around you. Anguish is not some accident that happens to you, it is a growth. Just as leaves come on the trees, anxieties come into you -- they are part of you. You can cut the leaves, but that will not help, that will be just pruning, and instead of one leaf, four leaves will come; there will be more anxiety. Unless you are burned completely, unless you are no more, the anxiety will come.

Hindus, particularly Patanjali, have used two words for this transformation: one he calls sabeej samadhi, transformation with a seed; and one he calls nirbeej samadhi, transformation without a seed. And the first is nothing, sabeej samadhi is nothing, because the seed remains, it will sprout again and again and again; the seed is not burned. You carry the seed; there is no tree, but the tree will come because the seed is carried by you. You may have suppressed yourself completely, then the tree has disappeared; you have become a seed.

What is a seed? A compressed tree, compressed so much that you cannot see it. But give this seed an opportunity, a situation, the right soil, and the seed will sprout and the whole tree will be there. The seed carries the blueprint, a small seed carries the blueprint of the whole tree. In every detail the seed carries the blueprint: what type of leaves, what type of flowers, what color, the height, the age -- everything is carried in the seed. If you can read the seed, you can make a picture of how the whole tree is going to be.

The tree is just an unfoldment of the seed. Whatsoever you are is not the question; the question is what type of seed you carry within you. Whatsoever you are is just an unfoldment of the seed. You can go on changing the branches and cutting here and there, but those will all be modifications; you may decorate yourself, but you will not change. And you can decorate your hell, but it cannot become heaven.

Patanjali uses another word, nirbeej samadhi. He says that unless seedless samadhi is attained, nothing is attained -- unless the seed is burned completely so all misery, anguish, anxiety is gone because the blueprint has been burned. This is what Jesus means.

He says: I HAVE CAST FIRE UPON THE WORLD.... "I bring fire to burn you. I am not here to console you, I am not here to solace you. I am here to destroy you because your seed is wrong." The seed must be burned, and when your seed is burned, when you become empty, only then can the seed of the divine get into your womb. Then a new flowering, a new blossoming happens.

I HAVE CAST FIRE UPON THE WORLD, AND SEE, I GUARD THE WORLD UNTIL IT IS AFIRE.

And this is a promise. He says, "I will guard it, I will remain here until the whole world is afire."

Whenever a man becomes a Christ or a Buddha, he never disappears. Only you disappear, because you are not there, you are just an appearance. You come and go, you are a form. You are just like a wave in the sea: you have no substance in you, you are not crystallized. You come and go just like a dream comes and goes. Every night you come and every morning you disappear. Millions of times you come and millions of times you disappear. But whenever a Christ happens.... What does it mean to be a Christ? It means one who has attained the substantial: who is no longer the form but who has attained the formless, which cannot disappear; who is no longer the wave, who has become the ocean; who cannot disappear.

A Buddha remains, a Christ remains, he remains in existence. That is what is meant by: I GUARD THE WORLD UNTIL IT IS AFIRE -- "I will be here." But you couldn't see him when he was in the body, so how will you be able to see him when he is not in the body? And look at the strange phenomenon: many Christians see him with their eyes closed, praying, they see a vision -- and the nearest disciples could not see him when he was present. What is happening?

These Christs which you see in your prayers are just your imaginations, hallucinations, projections. You have created them, it is your mind. That's why a Christian sees Christ, a Jew can never see Christ, and a Hindu -- impossible even to think of it! A Hindu sees Krishna, he has his own points of imagination, objects of imagination. A Jaina can never see Krishna, Mahavira will come into his visions. What is happening? Your mind is imagining. You can play with imagination. This is autohypnotic and it is very pleasant. It is very pleasant, you have created a Christ in you. You feel very happy, but the happiness is just like that of a nice dream. In the morning you feel very happy because you had a very nice dream. But even if it is nice, it is a dream and useless.

Why is Jesus missed? When he is present, he himself says, "You don't look at the living one." And then when he is dead, millions of people close their eyes and see him and enjoy him, the same people who crucified him when he was here in the body. The same people go on imagining and thinking about him -- because this imagination is not a fire, it is a consolation. It consoles you: "I have seen Christ."

People come to me and they say, "I have seen Christ," and they look at me so that I should say, "Yes, you have seen him." Then they go away very happy -- children playing with toys. If I say, "This is foolishness, drop all this imagination!" they feel very unhappy, they never come back to me. Why go to such a man who destroys, destroys your nice dreams?

Christ, when alive, you miss; how can you meet him when he is not there in the body? But again the same phenomenon comes into existence: now Christians talk about Jesus as they were talking in front of Jesus about twenty-four prophets. Now he is dead. Now you talk about the dead and you miss the living one.

It happened that a Christian came to a Zen monk. He brought the Bible with him and he told the monk, "I would like to read a few sentences from Jesus." And the man to whom he had come was himself a living master.

The master laughed and he said, "Okay."

So he read a few sentences from the Sermon on the Mount. After just two or three sentences, the master said, "Okay, the man who said these words was an enlightened one." The man was very happy because Christ had been recognized, and he wanted to read more. He again started reading. The master said, "Yes, very good. Whosoever said these words was an enlightened one."

The Christian thanked the master and went back, completely happy that Jesus had been recognized by a Buddhist -- completely missing, because this man was a Christ himself. And the master had tried twice, thrice: twice, thrice he had said, "Okay!" He was saying, "Keep your book closed. Enough! I have tasted. I say, yes, this man was an enlightened one."

If this man had really been interested in truth, hearing this he would have looked at the master, because he would have wanted to know: "Who is saying that the man who uttered these words was an enlightened one?" He would have thrown the book. "Why be worried about the dead? Look at this man!" But he went with his book. He must have gone to fellow Christians and he must have said, "Jesus was really an enlightened one. I went to a Buddhist... it is very difficult for a Buddhist to recognize Jesus. This man is very great, he recognized him."

You seek recognition for the dead from the living one. Remember this, because you may be doing the same.