Moses brought law to the world, Jesus brings love. Moses is a must before Jesus can be possible. Law is enforced love; love is spontaneous law. Law is from the outside; love is from the inside. Law is without, love is within. Love can happen only when a certain order, a certain discipline, a certain law exists. Love cannot exist in the jungle. Moses civilises man, Jesus spiritualises man. That’s why Jesus says again and again ’I have come not to destroy, but to fulfil.’

Moses gives commandments, Jesus gives insight into those commandments. One can follow the commandments on a formal, superficial level. One can become a righteous person, a puritan, a moralist, and deep down nothing changes: all remains the same. The old darkness is still there, the old unconsciousness is still there. Nothing has really changed; you have just painted your surface. Now you are wearing a beautiful mask. Nothing wrong in wearing a beautiful mask– if you have an ugly face it is better not to show it to others. Why be so hard on others? If you have an ugly face, wear a mask– at least it will save others from seeing you. But the mask cannot change your ugly face. Never forget for a single moment that the mask is not your face. You have to transform your face too.

Moses gave a very crude discipline to society. He could not have done better, there was no way. Human consciousness existed in a very very primitive way. A little bit of civilisation was more than one could expect. But Moses prepared the way, and Jesus is the fulfilment. What Moses started, Jesus completes. Moses has laid the foundation, Jesus raises the whole temple. Those stones in the foundation have to be crude and ugly. Only on those crude and ugly stones can a beautiful marble temple be built.

Always remember this: that Jesus is not against Moses. But the Jews misunderstood him, because Moses talks about law and Jesus talks about love. To the Jews, particularly the priests, the politicians, it appeared that the law would be destroyed by Jesus; hence they were angry. And they were right too. The law would be destroyed in a sense, because a higher law would be coming in. The lower law would have to go. The lower has to cease for the higher to come.

Law depends on fear, law depends on greed, law punishes you. The central idea of law is justice, but justice is not enough, because justice is crude and hard, violent. Only compassion can allow your being to bloom, can help you come to your highest peak– not justice. Law is better than lawlessness, but compared to love, law itself is lawlessness– compared to love. It is relative, because law depends on the same evils against which it fights. Somebody murders, then the law murders him. Now, it is the same thing you are doing to the person that he has done to somebody else. It is not higher, although it is just. But it is not religious, it has no spirituality in it; it is mathematical. He has killed somebody... the law kills him. But if killing is wrong, then how can the law be right? If killing in itself is wrong, then the law is very much lacking. It depends on the same evil.

Remember it, when Jesus started talking about love, the people who had been law-abiding became very much afraid. Because they knew that if the law were dropped, then the animal hidden inside them would come up, and would tear down the whole society. They knew that their faces were only beautiful on the surface– deep down, great ugliness. And when Jesus said ’Drop all masks’, they became afraid, they became angry. ’This man is dangerous, this man has to be punished and destroyed before he destroys the whole society.’

But they misunderstood. Jesus was not saying just to drop the mask. He was saying ’I have brought you an alchemy, so that your real face can be beautiful. Why carry the mask? Why this weight? Why this false plastic thing? I can give you a higher law that needs no fear, that needs no greed, that needs no enforcement from the outside. But it arises in your being because of understanding, not because of fear.’ Remember, that is the difference: out of fear is law, out of understanding is love.

Moses is a must, but Moses must go also. Moses has done his work: he has prepared the ground. When Jesus appears, Moses’ work is fulfilled. But the Jews were angry. It is very difficult for people to uncling themselves from their past. Moses had become very very central to the Jewish mind. They thought Jesus was against Moses. And this has been so down the ages– the misunderstanding. Hindus thought in India that Buddha was against the Vedas– the same problem, exactly the same. Buddha is not against the Vedas– in a sense, yes, only in a sense. He is bringing something from the depth, and once that depth becomes available to you, the Vedas will not be needed. So he looks against: he makes the Vedas meaningless. And that is the whole purpose of Jesus: to fulfil Moses and still to make Moses meaningless. The new dispensation has come in.

Jesus was a man of love, of immense love. He loved this earth, he loved the smell of this earth. He loved the trees, he loved the people. He loved the creatures because that is the only way to love the creator. If you cannot praise the painting, how can you praise the painter? If you cannot praise the poetry, how can you praise the poet? Jesus is very affirmative, yea-saying. And he knows one very significant fact which he brings into his sayings again and again: that God is an abstraction; you cannot stand face to face with God. ’God’ is as much an abstraction as ’humanity’ is. Whenever you come across, you come across human beings, never across humanity. You meet this human being, that human being, but never humanity. You always come across the concrete. You will never come across the abstract God, because he will not have any face. He will be facelessness. You will not be able to recognise him.

Then where to find him? Look into each eye that you come across, look into each being that you come across. This is God in concrete form: God materialised. Everybody here is an incarnation of God– the rocks and the trees and the people and all. Love these people, love these trees, these stars, and through that love you will start feeling the immensity of being. But you will have to go through the small door of a particular being.

Jesus has been very much misunderstood. He was misunderstood by the Jews, and he was the climax of their intelligence for which they had waited for ages. And when he came he was rejected. And then he has been even more misunderstood by the Christians. A great yea-sayer has been converted into a no-sayer. Christians have depicted Jesus as very sad, with a long face, in great misery as if he is being tortured. This is false, this is not true about Jesus. It cannot be true about Jesus! Otherwise who else will laugh, and who else will love, and who else will celebrate? Jesus is a celebration of being, and the highest celebration possible. Remember it, then only will you be able to understand these sutras.

An immensely beautiful anecdote...

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

Jesus, dying on the cross... and he says ’Look beyond those trees. Can you see our house?’ He was immensely in love with this earth. That is the only way to be in love with God; there is no other way. If you deny existence, you are intrinsically denying God. If you say no to life, you have said no to God, because it is God’s life. And always remember God has no lips of his own; he kisses you through somebody else’s lips. He has no hands of his own; he embraces you through somebody else’s hands. He has no eyes of his own, because all eyes are his; he looks at you through somebody’s eyes. He sees you through somebody’s eyes and he is seen by your eyes, and he goes on seeing through your eyes too.

Quakers rightly say that God has nothing else but you; only you– that’s what God has. This insight has to penetrate deeply, only then will you be able to understand the sayings of Jesus; otherwise you will miss– as Christians have been missing down the ages. Let this become the very foundation stone: that life is God. And then things will become very very simple. Then you will have the right perspective.

Say ’yes’, and suddenly you feel a kind of prayer arising in you. Have you tried it? Sitting silently, doing nothing, start swaying in a kind of inner dance and start saying ’Yes... yes...’ Go into it. Let it come from your very heart. Let it spread over your whole being. Let it throb in your heartbeat, let it pulsate in your blood. Let it electrify you, this ’yes’, and you will be surprised: for the first time you have tasted what prayer is.

The English word ’yes’ can become a great mantra. It is. The very sound of it is yea-saying, the very sound of it creates an affirmation in the heart. Say no– try the polar opposite sometimes sitting silently, say ’no... no...’ Go into it. Let your whole being say no, and you will see the difference. When you say no you will be angry. When you go on saying no you will become enraged. When you go on saying no you will feel that you are cut from existence, separate, isolated, alienated the bridge has disappeared. And particularly the modern mind is a no-saying mind.

Descartes, the French philosopher, has said Cogito ergo sum: I think therefore I am. The modern mind says: I say 'No' therefore I am. It is a no-saying mind, it goes on saying no. ’No’ creates the ego. You cannot create the ego without saying no. You can create the ego only by saying no more and more. Ego separates, ego makes you irreligious, because ego takes you away from the whole, and you start thinking you are a whole unto yourself. You forget that you exist in an immense complexity, that you are part of a vast universe, that you are not an island– ’No man is an island...’ We are all parts of an infinite continent. Yes-saying bridges you with the continent. Yes-saying bridges you with God. Say yes more and you will become more religious. Let ’yes’ be your church, your temple.

And Jesus is a yes-sayer. Even on the cross, dying, he says ’Look beyond those trees. Can you see our house?’ and this is his last moment. But his love for existence, for life is still there, radiantly there. In the last moment he prays to God ’Father, forgive these people because they don’t know what they are doing.’ They knew exactly what they were doing. They knew they were killing. But that is not the point. When Jesus says ’They don’t know what they are doing’, he is saying ’They are so asleep, so confined in their egos, they have lost their eyes, Father. They don’t have any consciousness. I can see great darkness in their heart. Forgive them, they are not responsible.’

This is the voice of love. He is not condemning them. Ordinarily he would have prayed ’Destroy all these people. They are destroying your only begotten son. Kill them immediately, right now! Come like a thunderbolt! Shower like fire, burn them here and now! Show them what they are doing to your son!’ That may have been just, but that was not right for Jesus. Jesus does not exist at the level of justice, he exists at the level of compassion. Compassion forgives, justice punishes. And when you punish you create in the other’s mind great anger. He will watch for his own time to take revenge, and with a vengeance.

Only love creates reconciliation, because love does not create any chain. Anger, fear, violence, aggression, punishment– all create ugly chains. And one thing leads still into deeper darkness, into deeper gloom. Jesus’ whole message is ’Yes’. He says yes to his own death, accepts it, welcomes it, because this is the will of his God– ’Then let it be so.’ He relaxes into it. You are not relaxed even in life, and he relaxes into death too. That was the last test, and he passed through it victoriously. Death is the only criterion, the only touchstone, where a man is really known– what he is, of what mettle he is made. It is very easy to talk about love, it is difficult to love– because love is a cross. It is very easy to talk about compassion, but to be committed to compassion one has to lose all.

Just the other day I was reading this anecdote...

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

When death comes, then one forgets everything. For years they have been praying ’Lord, we are ready whenever you are ready.’ And now that the Lord is ready, Aunt Rose is not ready to go.

I have heard an old Sufi parable...

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

And for years he had been praying for death. In fact, he was not praying for death; he was not aware of what he was doing.

Jesus is fully aware, and yet for a moment he wavers. So what to say of other people? For a moment he wavers on the cross, and he says to God ’Why have you forsaken me? Why? What wrong have I committed? Why are you so far away? Why is this being done to me?’ For a single moment he wavers– even at that stage. So what to say about ordinary human beings. But he saw the point– he was a man of perception, great insight– and relaxed, and said ’Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. Do whatsoever you want to do. He effaced himself utterly. In that moment Jesus died and Christ was born.

To me, in that moment the resurrection happened, not after the crucifixion. In that moment the discontinuity happened: Jesus disappeared. The moment he said ’Thy will be done’– that is the death of Jesus, death of any sense of self... Jesus ceased at that moment; he became Christ. This is the real resurrection. The other thing may be just a parable– meaningful, but not historical; a myth– pregnant with great significance but not factual. But this is the real fact. Just a moment before he was wavering, afraid, trembling, and a moment later he settled and relaxed. He surrendered. That moment he was no more separate from God. When your will is separate from God, you are separate from God. When your will has been surrendered to God’s will, then you are not separate; then his will is the only will.

➜ Deze lezing is te lang voor 1 audiofragment.
➜ Hier eindigt deel 1. Ga naar Parel 793 voor deel 2.