The question is from Ma Deva Chintana. She has been a nun. She has suffered enough by being a nun, and suffered for sins she has never committed.

To be a nun is a kind of masochism, a kind of self-torture inflicted upon oneself in the name of Jesus, in the name of Buddha– only the names differ, the torture is the same. And when you are torturing yourself, your relationship with Jesus or Buddha or Mahavir is going to be pathological. Relationship is healthy only when there is joy, when there is celebration, when there is full acceptance of life and all that it brings. When there is denial, rejection, and you are cutting your vital parts, and you are destroying yourself, the relationship is not really a relationship. You are in love with your misery, and you call your misery Jesus. Never be in love with your misery. If you are in love with your misery, then wherever you are you will be in hell. To be healthy means to be in love with joy. Even if sometimes misery happens, it is unnatural. It has to be lived, but it is accidental, it is not natural. Joy is natural.

Around Christ all kinds of pathological people have gathered together down the ages. In fact they are not in love with Jesus, they are in love with the cross. That’s why I call Christianity ’crossianity’. It has nothing to do with Christ– Christ is just a symbol– the real thing is the cross, the death, the suffering that Jesus went through. You are in love with that. But mind is very cunning; it can always rationalise its prejudices. It can always find arguments, reasons to support its own prejudices.

Now, about poor Chintana... I feel sorry for her, and she is in a kind of turmoil here. It is bound to be so. Here, the whole message is ’Alleluia’; the whole message is of ecstasy, love, joy; ’celebration’ is the key-word here. And for many years she has been a nun, so her whole past is against the present. But if she goes on thinking that she has been in love with Jesus, then it will be very difficult for her to drop her misery, because how to drop Jesus? And Jesus is so beautiful, how can one gather courage to drop Jesus? There is no need either.

I am bringing you a healthy Jesus. I am bringing you the real Jesus. The real Jesus was never on the cross, only the body was on the cross. The real Jesus never died, the real Jesus cannot die. You cannot die, nothing ever dies. That which dies was not really part of you. The non-essential dies, the essential continues. Nobody can kill you– I mean you, not your body. Your body can be killed. But you are so much identified with the body that when you see Jesus on the cross, you think Jesus is on the cross. Not for a single moment was Jesus on the cross. He cannot be– he knows himself. There is no way to crucify him.

That is the hidden meaning of the phenomenon of resurrection: He resurrects because, in the first place, he has never died. If he had died, then there would have been no possibility of resurrection. Only the body, the outermost shell, has been killed. But because of this– this cross, this death, this suffering, this martyrhood– Christianity became obsessed with death, became very morbid about death. And people are very much afraid of death, frightened, scared. The more afraid they are, the more frightened they are, the more the cross becomes very significant.

A Krishna playing his flute does not look real. Who can play the flute in this ugly life, on this miserable earth where people are killing each other, exploiting, oppressing? Where human beings exist only in the dictionary, in the language? Just the other day I was reading about Adolf Hitler’s concentration camps. In one concentration camp forty-five lakh people were killed, murdered, gassed. But they made good profit out of it. That was the real thing in it. The hair was sold, the bones were sold to the glue factories, the eyes were sold, everything was sold. Papers have been found, correspondence has been found in which factories were haggling over the price. And the officers... they were haggling about human being’s hair– how much they were going to ask. ’When they are killed, how much are you ready to pay for their bones...?’ Hitler was doing business with death, through death. It was a good going concern. They were giving almost nothing for the prisoners to eat. It was very cheap, and within two weeks the prisoner would be gone. Just two weeks they had to wait. So the cost was very low and the price was very good. The hair was going to the wig-makers, the bones were going to the glue factories, and so on and so forth.

How can one play the flute here where Adolf Hitlers exist, where Hiroshimas happen? Krishna looks like a dream. Christ looks very real. But let me tell you that Christ was also playing on his flute when he was on the cross. The flute continues– it makes no difference whether in life or in death. The flute is eternal. Let me tell you that Krishna is more real! And the Christ that you have created is more or less a figment of your mind. You don’t know the real Christ.

So listening to me, it is going to be difficult for you, because I will be revealing a totally different Christ that you are not acquainted with. You have a Christ preached by the priests to you. You have a Christ painted by the Vatican. You have the Christ visualised by so many hysterical saints.

There has been a long tradition of pathology in Christianity. The Christians say Jesus never laughed. Now this is utter nonsense! I say to you that Christ laughed his whole life; only he can laugh. Who else? But Christians say he never laughed. They want to depict him very sad, very burdened. They project their sadness onto Jesus, they project their misery onto Jesus. Jesus becomes a screen, and you go on projecting your mind onto him.

Jesus laughed, enjoyed, loved. If you go into the Gospels without your prejudices, you will find it. How can you think otherwise about a man who was having parties, eating well, moving with women, drinking– yes, wine was not unknown to him, he loved it. He was a very very happy man. A man who drinks, eats well, loves eating, loves friends. It is impossible to conceive that he never laughed.

But Christians have depicted Jesus according to their own projection. The projection is of their misery. And then Jesus becomes just an excuse to be sad, to be miserable. That’s why in the church there is no laughter, no joy, no celebration. Churches have become graveyards. And it is not accidental that the cross has become the symbol. It should not be the symbol.

I can understand your difficulties, particularly Chintana’s difficulties. She says: 'What am I to do with the Jesus I thought I knew and loved for so long?'

You have not known Jesus. Through me there is a possibility to know Jesus. If you are courageous enough, you can know Jesus for the first time. Because you can know Jesus only through a man who has attained to Christ-consciousness, not otherwise. A Krishna can be known only through a man who has attained to Krishna-consciousness. And they are the same thing: Krishna-consciousness, Christ-consciousness, Buddha-consciousness– the transcendental.

You cannot understand Jesus through a priest. He himself has not known. He has read, he has thought, he has contemplated, he has speculated, philosophised. Yes, he has a very cultivated mind, he knows the scripture; but to know the scripture is not to know Jesus. To know Jesus you will have to know your innermost nothingness. Without knowing it you cannot make anybody else acquainted with Jesus.

You have an opportunity here to come in contact with the reality that was there two thousand years before. The window is open again and you can enter– you can have a glimpse at least. But if you go on carrying your ideas about Jesus, then it will be difficult. Then, rather than entering through me and coming to know Jesus, you will start condemning me and you will remain surrounded by your own ideas. And you can always find reasons.

It happened in Montreal– it can happen only in Montreal. Two nice looking men were walking down the street, hand in hand. There was a married couple in front of them, arguing. One of the men squeezed the other’s hand and said ’See, dear, I told you mixed marriages don’t work.’

You can always find the argument. Now the marriage between a man and a woman is a ’mixed marriage’. ’How can it work? Marriage between a man and man can work, it is homogeneous.’ The homosexual can find that argument. If you have a certain prejudice in the mind you can always find support. The world is so big that it supports all kinds of things.

And what can your idea of God, or Christ, or Krishna be? You don’t know even yourself, Chintana. Not knowing yourself, how can you know Jesus? And whatsoever you know is going to be wrong. It will be guesswork more or less, and guesswork done in immense ignorance. It is like painting a picture of Jesus on a dark night when there is no light. And you have never seen him, and you have never touched colours, and you don’t know how to paint, and the night is dark and not even a single candle is there. And you go on painting, and you don’t know how to paint, and you don’t know how to keep the brush in your hand, and you don’t know how to mix the colours, and you cannot see which colour is which– the night is so dark. And you go on painting. And in the morning when you see, you say ’This is Jesus.’

It is all guesswork in deep ignorance. Whatsoever man has thought of God is just guesswork. If you are honest you will not be interested in any guesswork. God cannot be guessed at– he can be known, but not guessed at. How can you guess at God? How can you imagine God? There is no way to do it. And whatsoever you do is going to be wrong. The best way is not to guess but to drop all prejudices that you have been taught and conditioned for. Become a pure nothingness, a mirror, that’s what meditation is all about. In that nothingness your eyes open for the first time. You start seeing that which is.

Two goldfish were swimming around and around in a glass bowl. One announced crankily that he had become an atheist.
’Fine, fine’ scoffed the other. ’Now just explain to me who changed the water in this bowl?’

Now a goldfish in a bowl thinks that God changes the water. Your guesswork about God cannot be more than that. That’s why people say– if you say to them there is no God– they will say ’What are you talking about? Then who created the world? Who changed the water?’ Stupid ideas, because God is not the cause, and the world is not the effect.

God has not created the world. If he has created this world, then that is enough proof that he is absolutely mad: that will prove only this, nothing else. God has not created the world. God is not really a creator. It will be far better to say that God is the world. God is not the creator but the creativity. The flower opening is God. Not that God is standing there and opening it– not separate from the flower and forcing the petals open. God is the flowering. The star shining in the night... not that God is pouring oil into it, or some fuel, and running it and managing it somehow; God is that light. Not that God has created you; you are that.
The Upanishads say 'Tat Tvam Asi': thou art that. They are far closer to the truth.

In the East we have always depicted God as a dancer, not as a creator– God as Nataraj, the Master Dancer. Why? There is something immensely meaningful in that concept. God is not the painter, because when the painter does a painting, the painting becomes separate from the painter. When the painter has finished with the painting, the painting has its own existence. The painter may die, the painting can live. And when the painter has finished the painting, it may be a beautiful painting, but it is dead because the painter cannot put his breath into it. That is not possible. He cannot pour his vitality into it, his life into it. The painting may be beautiful but a painting is a painting– it is dead.

God is not a painter, God is not a potter; God is a dancer. What is the meaning of it? In dance, the dancer and the dance are one, they can never be separated. That is the beauty of the dancer. The poet is separate from the poetry, the potter is separate from his pottery, the painter is separate from his painting, the sculptor is different, separate from his creation, and so on and so forth. Only the dancer is not separate. The dancer is the dance. And when the dancer is really in the dance, there is no dancer in him, all disappears. It is just pure, vibrant energy, it is just pure energy dancing. There is no ego in it. The dance comes to perfection when the dancer dissolves into it. But the moment dance stops... then you cannot find dance anywhere, it is not separate from the dancer. And one thing more: the dance cannot exist separate from the dancer, and the dancer too cannot exist separate from the dance. When you say that this is a dancer, and if he is not dancing, your description is not right. A dancer is only a dancer while in dance, otherwise he is no more a dancer. Then it is a linguistic fallacy that you go on calling him a dancer– because ’Yesterday he was dancing.’ Then yesterday he was a dancer. Or ’Tomorrow he will dance again.’ Then tomorrow he will be a dancer again. But right now if he is not dancing, then he must be somebody else. If he is walking, he is a walker; if he is running, he is a runner; if he is sitting, he is a sitter– but not a dancer. Dancer and dance exist together. In fact, they are not separate.

God is not the creator of the world. God is its creativity, its very soul. He is in the trees, and in the rocks, in you, in me– he is everywhere, he is all. But to know this God you will have to drop guessing. Because when he is inside you what is the point of guessing? Why don’t you go in? Why don’t you close your eyes and travel inwards? Come to a point where no thought exists and you will know what God is. And to know God is to become Christ. And by becoming Christ, you will know what Christ is. By tasting Christhood, you will know what Christ is.

How can you have any idea of Jesus? That idea will be Catholic, will be Protestant, will be this or that. That will be your idea, and your idea is the barrier– beware of it. All your ideas have to disappear. Your mind has to cease for Christ to be. So it will look very paradoxical. I am saying if you are not a Christian, not a Hindu, not a Jain, not a Buddhist, then only will you know what truth is. By being a Christian, how can you know Christ? Your very Christianity will be a barrier. By being a Buddhist you cannot know Buddha. Your ideology will function as a wall, a China Wall.

Drop all ideologies, and don’t be a nun. She is no more a nun, she has become a sannyasin now, but deep inside she still is. When she comes to me, I can see two personalities together, split. When she comes to me, a part of her being is with me– she has taken the jump and become a sannyasin– but I can see the Christian is still there and very strong. And there is every fear that when she goes back to Australia, she may again get into the old nonsense. I am not yet certain about her, because the Christian is very strong there. She has devoted her life in a certain way, she has lived in a certain way with very wrong notions. Anti-life she has been, and now I am trying to bring her back to life.

I am calling to her just as Jesus called to Lazarus ’Come out, Lazarus!’– and he was dead. But Lazarus was a beautiful man– he came out! People always think Jesus did the miracle. My idea is that Lazarus did the miracle. Anybody can call... that is not the point! The point is that Lazarus came out, and he had been dead for four days, and nobody believed that it is possible now. When Lazarus died, Jesus was not in that town. But he was a follower, and Lazarus’s two sisters were Jesus’ followers, so those two sisters sent a message. ’Come as immediately as possible. Your beloved disciple is dead. You can save him, you can still bring him back.’

Jesus came in his own leisurely way– not with the American rush. He came easily, the way he was to come. Four days he took. He was not very far, maybe just in the neighbourhood, the other village. He came. The sisters had become very very depressed. And when he came, the body had started stinking. They had put it in a cave, because the message had come that Jesus was coming, ’So wait. Don’t bury the body, keep it.’ When Jesus came, those two sisters started crying and weeping and they said ’You are late... too late! Now what can be done? The body has started deteriorating. It is stinking! Nobody can go near the body. Now it is so difficult. How to bury it? because nobody wants to go into the cave and take the body out. Even from outside it is stinking!’ Jesus said ’Don’t be worried. Let me go to the cave.’ They went, and the whole town gathered, and the body must have been stinking because Jesus also did not enter. He called from the outside. Is this a way to call? Somebody is dead and just from the outside you are calling ’Lazarus, come out!’? Lazarus was a miracle man. He came out! He said ’Yes sir, I am here.’

This is a parable, this is not a historical fact. This is how the Master calls the disciple– out of your death, out of your stinking cave where you are just rotting and rotting and deteriorating, every day deteriorating. He calls you out of your death. And so I call to Chintana, ’Come out of your mind!’ Because mind is death, because mind is time. If you live in the mind, you live in death. If you drop the mind, you live in eternity, deathlessness. And that’s what religion is all about. Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism– these are just names for the same process.

A great opportunity is here. Chintana can drop her life-negative attitudes. To be a nun means to be against life. And to be against life means to be against God, because life is God. To be against love is to be against God. To be against your body is to be against God, because it is God’s body. It is his temple, his shrine; he has chosen to reside in it. Don’t destroy it, don’t be against it.

My approach is absolutely life-affirmative. And I call this religious approach ’yes-saying’– saying yes to all. Jesus was able to say yes even to death, and you are not even able to say yes to your life. Learn first to say yes to life, then one day that pinnacle, that consummation, that fulfilment also happens when you can say yes to death too– because you have learned to say yes, and you have enjoyed saying yes, and you have seen how beautiful it is to go on saying yes.

Remember, the ego always says no. The no is the way of the ego. That’s why when children start saying no, know well they are starting becoming egoistic. At a certain stage the child starts saying no, and starts enjoying saying no. Whatsoever you say, he says ’No!’ No-saying comes easily at a certain stage. Why does he say no?– because he has to create the ego. And only through the no is the ego created. Say 'no' more, and more ego is created. Say 'yes' more, and ego starts dispersing. If you have uttered a deep yes to your total life– with no reservations then the ego disappears. In that yes is your prayer. But first one has to learn to say yes to life, only then can you say yes to death. How will you be able to say yes to death if you cannot even say yes to life and joy?

Never be a nun, and never be a so-called monk. These are ugly states, pathological, neurotic, hysterical. But why has this been chosen down the ages? There is a certain trick in it, a strategy. The nun is taught to say no to her body, no to her sex, no to her love, no to all relationships, so all doors are closed. She cannot say yes to any life-experience. Then, naturally, her yes-saying heart feels very suffocated, prevented from every door and window. In that state of suffocation she starts saying yes to Christ, because one has to say yes. But this is a pathological yes, this is not real. It is coercion, it is violence.

Do you follow me? When you don’t say yes to anything, it is as if you are in a desert. You are lost and you cannot see any oasis anywhere, and for days you have been thirsty and thirsty and thirsty. And the thirst becomes absolute. Then you can even drink your own urine. People are known to have done that. They can drink the urine of the camel. They can kill the camel and drink the water that he reserves in his body. Nauseating! But it can be done. When there is no possibility of any other water, and you are thirsty, and the thirst goes on becoming fiery, intense, then you can drink anything– the dirtiest water, and you can drink it as if it were the water of life. You need not be a Morarji Desai.

➜ Morarji Desai was premier van India van 1977 tot 1979. Hij stond bekend om zijn openlijke pleidooi voor het drinken van eigen urine. Hij noemde dit 'urine therapy'. In interviews vertelde hij dat hij dagelijks zijn eigen urine dronk en dit zag als een belangrijke reden voor zijn gezondheid en lange leven — hij werd 99 jaar oud.

You can drink your urine without being a Morarji Desai if you are in a desert. And then you will understand his idea that urine is ’the water of life’– but only in a desert... unless you are neurotic. Now he is trying to do two things in India. One he has started: that is prohibition. First the country has to go through prohibition. And the next step– logical step– will be to start forcing people to drink their urine, because that is the water of life. You need not be a Morarji Desai. If you are lost in a desert you will start drinking anything. When you are hungry and you cannot get food, you will eat anything. Then you will not and cannot be very choosy. You cannot say ’Where is the menu?’– those things will look like nonsense. If you are hungry in a desert, you don’t ask for the menu. Whatsoever is available– whatsoever, and you will jump on it.

That is the trick. Say 'no' to sex, so that you are sex-starved– sex goes on accumulating in you. You want to love somebody and that is not possible. Love is not possible. You cannot love any human being– that door is closed. And your love-capacity is just like a thirst: it goes on accumulating. You start loving Christ, and then it is pathological. Nuns have been known to report that Christ comes in the night and makes love to them, that he comes and fondles their breasts. Nuns have been known to have become pregnant because Christ made love to them. Of course their pregnancy was nothing but hot air, but the stomach... It was found to be a false pregnancy. But the idea... These are pathological states.

When your love is starved, naturally only one direction is left open. It is as if all the doors are closed, only one hole is left open, and the house is on fire. Then you will not think of propriety, you will not think if it is proper to get out of the house through this hole. You will get out of the house. Any hole will do. This is the situation that has been created for monks and nuns. Starve their love, and their love has to become focused on Jesus. But this is coercion. This is not conversion. This is not transformation. This is a very ugly state of affairs.

My own approach is just the opposite. I say: Make love as much as possible. Make a celebration as much as possible. Let Jesus enter from joy. You love a woman, you love a man, you love so deeply that one day suddenly you start feeling the depth of the man or the woman. And that depth will be the door of Jesus, or Krishna– or whatsoever name you want to give to it. Love deeply, so deeply that the body of the beloved disappears, that the mind of the beloved disappears, that even the self disappears. Love so deeply, go so deeply into each other, that one day you are just two skies, utterly clean and virgin, interpenetrating each other. In that very moment you will know that your beloved has become the door. Celebrate. Let God come through celebration, and then you will have a health, a wholeness. I call that holy. Nuns and monks are unholy people. They need psychiatric treatment; their minds are not in harmony. They cannot be in harmony because they have taken such an ugly course, unnatural, perverted.

So listening to me, this question is going to come to you again and again. Let it be very clear from the beginning. I am bringing to you a totally new Jesus, a far truer Jesus than the Vatican has given to you. And I want Jesus to come to you through life, through love, through light– not through perversion, not through repression.