And He Saith unto them: Follow me

MATTHEW 4

FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND.

SIMON CALLED PETER, AND ANDREW HIS BROTHER, CASTING A NET INTO THE SEA: FOR THEY WERE FISHERS.

FISHERS OF MEN.

SYNAGOGUES, AND PREACHING THE GOSPEL OF THE KlNGDOM, AND HEALING ALL MANNER OF SICKNESS AND ALL MANNER OF DISEASE AMONG THE PEOPLE.

BROUGHT UNTO HIM ALL SICK PEOPLE THAT WERE TAKEN WITH DIVERS DISEASES AND TORMENTS, AND THOSE WHICH WERE POSSESSED WITH DEVILS AND THOSE WHICH WERE LUNATICK, AND THOSE THAT HAD THE PALSY; AND HE HEALED THEM.

GALILEE, AND FROM DECAPOLIS, AND FROM JERUSALEM, AND FROM JUDAEA, AND FROM BEYOND JORDAN.

ONCE A RABBI WAS ASKED to tell the whole Bible message in brief. He replied that the whole Bible message is very simple and short. It is God shouting to man:

"Enthrone me!"

This is what happened that morning in the River Jordan. Jesus disappeared, God was enenthroned. Jesus vacated the house, God entered. Either you can be or God can be; both cannot exist together. If you insist on existing, then drop the search for God; it is not going to be fulfilled. Then it is impossible, absolutely impossible. If you are there, then God cannot be: your very being, your very presence, is the hindrance. You disappear, and God is. He has always been there.

Man can live as a part, separated from the whole. Man can create around him ideas, dreams, ego, personality, and can think of himself as an island, unconnected with the whole, unrelated with the whole. Have you ever seen any relationship between you and the trees? Have you seen any relationship between you and the rocks, have you seen any relationship between you and the sea? If you don't see the relationship, then you can never come to know what God is.

God is nothing but the whole, the total, the one. If you exist as a separate part, you unnecessarily exist as a beggar, You could have been the whole. And even while you think that you are separate, you are not separate - that is just a thought in the mind. The thought is not befooling God, it is only befooling you.

The thought is just a barrier for your eyes to open.

That morning in the River Jordan when John the Baptist initiated Jesus, he killed Jesus utterly. Jesus disappeared. And in that moment of nothingness, a Buddha - what Buddha calls SUNYATA, emptiness.... The heavens opened and the spirit of God, like a dove, descended on Jesus, lighted on him.

This is just symbolic. Jesus died, God was enthroned. This is what they call in Zen a special transmission, outside the scriptures. No knowledge was given by John the Baptist to Jesus, no scripture was conveyed - not even a single word was uttered. No dependence on words or letters, just a direct pointing to the soul of man: seeing into one's nature - an attainment of Buddhahood.

This is what happened that day. Christians have missed that point: it was not knowledge that was transferred from John the Baptist to Jesus, it was a vision. It was not verbal, it was existential. It was more like knowing than knowledge.

Eyes were transferred: a new way of seeing the world and being in the world was transferred. A special transmission outside the scriptures.

That's why Jesus immediately felt one with God, but cut off from Jews. Jews are 'the people of the book'. The Bible doesn't mean anything else; it simply means 'the book'. Jews are the people of the book - the people who have believed in the scriptures tremendously, who have loved and relied on the scriptures for centuries.

Jesus became one with God, but immediately was cut off from his own tradition.

Then he tried in a thousand and one ways to remain part of the community, but it was impossible. He could not be part of the scriptures, could not be part of the tradition. Something of the beyond entered in him and when God enters, all scriptures become useless. When you yourself have come to know, all knowledge is rubbish.

That was the struggle between Jesus and the rabbis. They had knowledge, Jesus had knowing - and the two never meet. The man of knowing is rebellious: the man of knowing has his own eyes; he says whatsoever he sees. The man of knowledge is blind: he carries the scripture, he never looks around; he just goes on repeating the scripture. The man of knowledge is mechanical, he has no personal contact with reality.

Just a few days before. I was reading about a very highpowered New York psychiatrist. He was talking to one of his new patients and he told the patient, "I am very busy, in fact too busy. It will be good if you can help me. The first interview is always one-sided: you will be telling me all that you want to tell me.

If I can get it down and look at it, and study it later on at my own convenience, it will be a great help. So here is the tape recorder. I will leave the tape recorder - put the machine on and talk to the tape recorder. Whatsoever you have to say....

Say all that you would like to say to me and then later on I will listen to it." The psychiatrist asked, "Are you willing? " The man said, "Of course. It is perfectly alright."

The tape recorder was put on and the psychiatrist left, but after just two minutes he saw the man leaving the office. He ran after him, stopped him and said, "So soon? You could not have talked much to the tape recorder."

The man said, "Listen, I am also a very busy man. In fact more busy than you.

And you are not the first psychiatrist I have consulted. Go back to the consulting room and you will see, sitting just by the side of your tape recorder, my small dictaphone - talking to the tape recorder."

Knowledge is just like this. Nobody is present: dictaphones talking to tape recorders. You mind is just a tape recorder and scriptures are old dictaphones - an old medium, but still the same. Somebody has said something: it is recorded there. Then you read it and it becomes recorded in your own tape recorder, but there is no personal touch.

Knowing is personal, knowledge mechanical. Through a mechanical approach you can never come to discover the reality, the truth. It is going to be a dead affair. You will attain much information, but you will never attain to transformation. You may come to know many things, but you will never know the thing which needs to be known: the being that you are and the being that surrounds you - and that which surrounds you is the same as that which is within you.

A deep personal contact is needed. That morning in the River Jordan, Jesus came in personal contact with the divine. John the Baptist initiated him TO BE A NOTHING.

When you come to me, you are not coming to a man who knows much. You are coming to a man who has a lot of nothingness in him. I can share that nothingness with you. The day you are ready to share my nothingness, you are initiated.

You can be here in two ways. You can be a student. Then you will be related to me in a mechanical way, you will collect information from me - which was never meant to be done. You will start knowing many things from me. That is an addiction. The ego may feel stronger, but the soul will become more and more impoverished.

Or you can be a disciple here and not a student. Then you share in my nothingness. Then by and by you disappear completely. Then there is nobody inside you who knows - and that nobodiness is the only way to know. In that nothingness your heart is open, in that nothingness the island disappears and you become the continent. In that nothingness the separation disappears: you become the whole. Then the whole exists through you.

The rabbi was right who said, "God shouting to man: 'Enthrone Me!' " Jesus, Krishna, Christ, Mohammed, Lao Tzu, all are shouts of God to man: "Enthrone Me!"

FROM THAT TIME JESUS BEGAN TO PREACH...

Immediately: knowledge needs time, knowing is immediate. If I want to share my knowledge with you it will take time, but if I want to share my nothingness with you, time is not needed. Immediately, right here now, it is possible. Only your readiness is needed. Time is not a requirement at all, it can happen in a split second.

Whenever I read this gospel the thing that strikes me immediately is: the moment Jesus was baptized, and the heavens opened and the spirit of God descended like a dove, he moved out of the river, went to the bank - a crowd was gathering - and he started to preach. Before that he had never uttered a single word, before that he had not taught anything to anybody.

That's how it should be. A teacher can go on teaching without knowing, but not a Master. Teachers are many, Masters few. A Master is one who teaches through his knowing and a teacher is one who teaches through his knowledge.

A teacher prepares himself for years, then he can teach But a Master - in a single moment of courage, in a single moment of daring, in a single moment of death, in a single moment of jumping into the unknown - becomes capable of teaching.

Once you know, that very knowing wants to be shared; once you are blissful, that very blissfulness starts flowing, it starts seeking the heart. Once you are, you are already on the way to be shared by many.

Jesus moved out of the river:

FROM THAT TIME JESUS BEGAN TO PREACH, AND TO SAY, REPENT: FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND.

John the Baptist was saying the same thing. Jesus could have said the same thing just by hearing John the Baptist. He was a well-known preacher, great multitudes used visit him, great crowds used to wait and listen to him Everybody knew that his message was this: "Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus must have known about it, but he never uttered those words before.

To utter such great words without knowing is sacrilegious it is a betrayal. Never utter such great words unless yr know yourself, because you can destroy others'

minds. You can fill their minds with your rot. If you don't know a] you go on saying things to people.... As it has happenened all over the world.

Go and look at the priests in the churches and the temple and the mosques - they go on teaching and they go o preaching, not knowing anything whatsoever that they a saying. They are not aware of what they are doing at all - dictaphones! They have learned, but they have not know They have studied, but they don't have their own eyes; their own hearts are as dead as those to whom they are preaching. Their minds may be more cultivated, but their hearts are as ill as anybody else's.

Jesus never uttered these words before. Nobody knew abo this man Jesus before.

He remained in his father's workshop; he worked, he helped his father. Suddenly a new quality of man, fresh - an altogether new man - was born. Baptism is a birth.

From that very moment he BEGAN TO PREACH AND TO SAY REPENT - because now he can utter those words wi authority. Now they are no longer John the Baptist's word he is repeating, now they are his own. He has repented ar he has come to know what they mean. Now they are n futile, parrot-like words; they are pregnant, alive. He has touched the reality of those words, he has come to see the mystery of them.

The actual word in Hebrew is TESHUVAH: repent. TESHUVAH.means 'return'

and TESHUVAH also means 'answer'. Both meanings are beautiful. To return to God is an answer to Him. This is one of the most beautiful things in Judaism, one of the greatest contributions of Judaism to the world. It has to be understood because without it you will never be able to understand Jesus.

Judaism is the only religion in the world which says that not only is man seeking God, but God is also seeking man Nobody else in the world believes that. There are Hindus, Mohammedans and other religions: they all believe man is seeking God. Judaism believes God is also seeking man. And this should be so if He is a father. This should be so. He is the whole, and if a part has gone astray, the whole - out of His compassion - must seek the part.

Judaism has a beauty of its own. Man seeking God is just like stumbling in darkness. Unless God is also seeking you, there seems to be no possibility of any meeting. How will you seek Him who is unknown? Where will you seek Him?

You don't know the address - where will you address your prayers? Where will you move, where will you go, what will you do? You can only stumble, cry and weep; tears can be your only prayer. A deep desire - but how to fulfill it? You can burn with it, but how to arrive? Judaism says: man can seek, but man cannot find unless God wills it so.

God is within reach, but not within grasp. You can spread your hands - He is within reach, but not within grasp. He comes within grasp because He is also seeking you. He can seek you immediately and directly. He knows exactly where you are. But He cannot seek you unless you are on the search. He can seek you only when you are searching, when you are doing everything that can be done, when you are not withholding anything, when your search is total. When your search is total, immediately heaven opens and the spirit of God descends in you.

He is waiting, waiting with a deep urge to meet you.

This should be so, because existence is a love affair. It is a hide-and-seek play, it is a game. The mother is playing with the child and hiding. The mother is waiting and if the child does not come, the mother will start seeking him. But God gives you total freedom: if you don't want to seek, He will not interfere; He will not be an intruder. If you want to seek, only then does He knock at your door.

If you have invited, only then does the guest come. The guest may be just waiting to knock on the door; only your invitation is needed. Otherwise He can wait for eternity, there is no hurry. God is not in any haste.

REPENT: FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND. It would have been absolutely different if the word was not translated as 'repent', if it was left to the original: 'return'. That is what Patanjali says in his yoga sutras - that PRATYAHAR is 'returning to oneself'. That is what Mahavir means when he says to move within-wards: PRATIKRAMAN, to go in.

The word TESHUVAH has a totally different meaning from repent. The moment you say 'repent' it seems that man is a sinner: a deep condemnation comes in. But if you say 'return', there is no question of sin, no condemnation enters. It simply says that you have gone far away, you have played too long - please come back.

The child has been playing outside and evening is descending. The sun is setting and the mother calls, "Please return." A totally different quality, a totally different connotation. There is no condemnation in it, just a deep love call:

"Return!"

Just listen to the sentence if I say: "Return ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." All condemnation, all sin, and the whole nonsense that has created guilt in man, disappears just by a single word translated rightly. A single word can be significant, but the whole of Christianity will disappear if you translate repent as 'return'. All churches, the Vatican - everything will disappear because they depend on repentance.

If it is a question of return - and you are not condemned and you have not committed any sin - then guilt disappears. And without guilt there cannot be churches, without guilt the priest cannot live. He exploits the guilt, he makes you feel guilty - that is his trade secret. Once you are made to feel guilty, you have to seek his help because he will ask for forgiveness for you, he will pray for you; he knows the way to pray. He is in a deeper relationship with God: he will defend you, he will persuade God for you, and he will show you how not to be a sinner again, how to be virtuous. He will give you the commandments: do this and don't do that.

All the churches of the world are founded on the word 'repentance'. If it is only a question of return, the priest is not needed; you can return home. It is not a question of condemnation: nobody is needed to purify you; you have never been wrong. You HAD gone a little farther away, but nothing is wrong in it. In fact it could not have been so if God were not willing for you to go so far. There must be something in it: that going far away must be a way of coming back. because when you have gone too far and then you come back home, for the first time you realize what home is.

It is said that travellers in foreign countries realize for the first time - as you must be realizing in Poona - how beautiful home is. It is difficult to realize when you are at home; everything is taken for granted. But when you go away, now everything is difficult. It is no longer home, you cannot take anything for granted. There are a thousand and one inconveniences, discomforts - and nobody is there to look after you; you have to look after yourself. Nobody cares; you move in an alien world, a stranger.

In contrast, suddenly for the first time, the home, the meaning of the home, arises. First it was just a house to live in; now it is a home. Now you know that houses are different from homes. A house is just a house; a home is not just a house, it is something plus. Plus love. Maybe it is needed that man should go a little astray - off the track, into the wilderness - so that, in contrast, coming back to home becomes significant, meaningful.

I say 'return'; I don't say 'repent'. Jesus never said 'repent'. He would laugh at the word, because the whole thing is corrupted by the word. Churches know well no that the word is a wrong translation, but they still insist on it because it has become their foundation. 'To return' is so simple: it depends on you and your God; no mediatator is needed, no agent is needed. FROM THAT TIME JESUS BEGAN TO PREACH, AND TO SAY, RETURN: FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND.

Another meaning of the Hebrew word TESHUVAH 'answer'. Your return is your answer. Answer to what Answer to the shout: "Enthrone me!"; answer to the question God has been asking you: "Come back home."

This is again a very beautiful contribution of Judaism. Every religion has contributed something original. Judaism says: "God asks the question; man answers." Other religions say that man asks the question and God answers.

Judaism says, "No, God asks the question; man answers."

The moment you answer, that is the return. The moment the child says, "Yes, I am coming," he is already on th way. Have you heard the question? If you have not heard it yet, how will you be able to answer?

People come to me and they say, "Where is God? " I say, "Forget about God - have you heard the question?

They say, "What question?"

"The question that God asks! " If you have not heard the question, you cannot know where God is. The moment you hear the question the direction is clear - the moment you hear the question that arises deepest in your being, at the deepest core, and becomes; constant haunting in the heart: who are you, why are you here, why do you go on existing? For what?

If the question has arisen in the heart, you will know God is, because who is asking this question? YOU cannot ask it. You are unconsciousness, a deep sleep - - you cannot ask. Somewhere deeper within you God is asking the question, "Who are you?" If you have heard the question, you know the direction. And the answer can only be: "Return back. Follow that direction, move back."

But your questions are false. You have not heard them; somebody else has taught them to you. Your questions are false, and then your answer becomes false. You learn the question from others, you learn the answer from others, and you remain phoney.

The word 'phoney' comes from 'telephone'. Have you ever observed that listening to a man directly - listening to your wife or husband or friend directly, face-to-face - is a reality because personal contact is there, but listening to him on the phone everything becomes phoney? One never knows who is there - whether the person is really there or if it is a tape recorder, a dictaphone. Nobody knows. And the sound seems to be coming not from the heart, but from the mechanism.

Have you sometimes watched people...? I have watched a few people, I know a few people, who will put their specs on whenever they phone. I was worried:

"What is the matter? The person is not there, so who are you trying to see?" Just a deep urge to see the person. A deep urge - otherwise the thing seems to be phoney. But this is how the mind has become corrupted.

I went with a friend once to visit the Taj Mahal. He is a good photographer - and he had no time to see the Taj Mahal, he was seeing it through the camera lens. I told him, "We have come here to see the Taj Mahal."

He said, "Forget about it. It is so beautiful that I will take pictures and see them at home! " But those pictures are available everywhere - what is the need to come to the Taj Mahal? The direct vision is lost.

Mulla Nasrudin's first child was born. I went to see him The Mulla was sitting with the boy, a small boy - beautiful. I said, "How beautiful! " He said, "This is nothing - you should see the photagraphs!"

Phoney.... Everything becomes more and more indirect. Then it loses the touch of reality, the concreteness, the clarity. The it goes far away, far away.

The answer can be true only if the question has bee really heard. Every day I come across somebody or other who says, "I want to meditate, I want to search, but nothing happens." He is complaining as if existence has not beer just to him - "Nothing happens." But I look into his eyes his desire is phoney. In the first place he never wanted to meditate, he has come as part of a crowd. Somebody els was coming, a friend was coming, and he followed. Or ht had a holiday and he thought, "Let's go and see." Now nothing is happening.

Nothing can happen because meditation, God and prayer are not questions of technique. You can learn the technique, bu nothing will happen unless the question has been heard first unless it has become a deep desire in you, for which you caL_ stake your life - unless it has become a question of life and death, unless it penetrates to the very center of your being, unless it becomes a thorn in the heart, unless it becomes a deep anguish and pain. If the question is heard, then the answer....

We can translate this sentence in two ways: FROM THAT TIME JESUS BEGAN TO PREACH, AND TO SAY, REPENT: FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND. Either we can translate it, "RETURN: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," or "ANSWER: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

And the kingdom of heaven is always at hand, it is its nature. It has nothing to do with Jesus' time: it is true right now, exactly as it was then. It was true before Jesus and it will always be true.

The kingdom of God is ALWAYS at hand - just grope. His hand has always been seeking you, but your hand is not groping. You answer, you return, and He is available. All that you need is available, only you are not ready to move towards it. You are afraid to lose something which you don't have, and because of that fear you cannot attain to that which has always been yours to take.

AND JESUS, WALKING BY THE SEA OF GALILEE, SAW TWO BRETHREN, SIMON CALLED PETER, AND ANDREW HIS BROTHER, CASTING A NET INTO THE SEA: FOR THEY WERE FISHERS.

AND HE SAITH UNTO THEM, FOLLOW ME, AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN.

AND THEY STRAIGHTWAY LEFT THEIR NETS, AND FOLLOWED HIM.

This will come many times in Jesus' life. You will be surprised at the quality of people in whom and with whom he was moving. Simple people: farmers, villagers, fishermen, carpenters, but real people, not phoney.

People who live with nature are real because with nature you have to be real, otherwise nature won't yield to you. With nature you have to be alive, otherwise you will not be able to cope with it. The more surrounded you are with unnatural things, the more unnatural you become. If you just live surrounded by mechanisms, you will become a mechanism yourself.

It is said that a man is known by his company. I say to you: a man is MADE by his company. If you live surrounded by mechanical gadgets, as modern man is living, by and by you become unreal. If you live with nature - with trees and rocks and the sea and the stars and the clouds and the sun - you cannot be unreal, you cannot be phoney. You HAVE to be real because when you are encountering nature, nature creates something in you which is natural.

Responding to nature continuously, you become natural.

A man who lives with nature is always trusting. A farmer who goes on sowing seeds has to trust. If he doubts, he will never sow the seeds - because there are a thousand and one doubts possible: whether this year the earth is going to do the same as it did last year or not. And who knows? - the earth may have changed its mind. Who knows if the rains are going to rain or not? Who knows about the sun - whether it will rise tomorrow morning or not? Sitting in your easy chair surrounded by your books you can doubt, there is nothing at stake, but if a farmer working in the field with the earth doubts, he is lost; if a fisherman doubts, he is lost.

Living with nature, trust arises. Trust is natural to man just like health is natural; doubt is unnatural just like disease is unnatural. A child is born trusting. I'm not talking about the modern child - maybe a modern child is not born trusting because he is born in a climate of skepticism.

I was reading a story one day: A mother was telling a story to her daughter - the daughter was restless, it was getting late, and the mother was telling her a bedtime story to put her to sleep. The mother said. "There was a princess - very charming, beautiful... and very wise, very loving. The whole court of the king loved and respected her. She was very kind, particularly to animals.

One day she came across a frog in the courtyard. She became afraid that somebody might tread on him, so she brought the frog into her bedroom. And in the morning she was surprised: the frog had turned into a beautiful prince! And the prince asked her hand in marriage."

At this point the mother looked at her daughter and felt, that she was completely skeptical. Her eyes, her manner, her face - everything was saying, "No, I cannot believe it." Complete incredulity was on her face. So the mother said, "What? - don't you believe it? " The girl said, "No... and I'll bet the princess' mother didn't either! " Today's climate is one of skepticism. Even a child is doubtful - doubting, skeptical. In the old days, even old men were trusting; the whole climate was one of trust, faith. They were healthy people.

Watch yourself - whenever you doubt, something shrinks in you; you become small and tiny. You become hard, you become dead, and you are no longer flowing - frozen. Whenever trust arises, you are again flowing. The blocks are melting and you expand, you become vast. Whenever you trust, you reach a peak of being alive, and whenever you doubt, you fall into death.

Because modern man is lacking in trust, drugs have started to have so much appeal for him. There seems to be no other way to have the feeling of an expanded being and consciousness. Drugs are chemical methods to feel, for a few moments or a few hours, an expansion of consciousness. Trust gives it to you easily and freely. Trust gives it to you not for a few moments - it becomes an eternal quality in you. And trust has no side-effects!

If you ask me, I will tell you: trust is the only reliable drug if you want expansion of consciousness - and those who have never known what expansion of consciousness is, have not lived yet. Consciousness can expand and can go on expanding, waves of bliss going to the very corners of existence, expanding with the infinity of existence. When you expand you become part of the whole; when you shrink you become an island.

Those people were really simple, trusting:

AND JESUS, WALKING BY THE SEA OF GALILEE, SAW TWO BRETHREN, SIMON CALLED PETER, AND ANDREW HIS BROTHER, CASTING A NET INTO THE SEA: FOR THEY WERE FISHERS.

AND HE SAITH UNTO THEM, FOLLOW ME, AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN.

Nothing is strange about his saying this. The strange thing is:

AND THEY STRAIGHTWAY LEFT THEIR NETS, AND FOLLOWED HIM.

Such deep trust. Not for even a single moment did they doubt, for not even a single moment did they say, "What do you mean - fishers of men? " Not for a single moment did they ask, "Who are you? By what authority do you speak?"

No, it was not needed because they were simple fishermen. They must have looked at Jesus: his very presence was the authority.

If you have eyes of trust, nobody can deceive you. You are deceived because of your doubt, and then you think that you need more doubt, otherwise people are going to deceive you more. Then you are deceived more and a vicious circle is created. You doubt so that you will not be deceived but you are deceived because of your doubt.

If you trust, nobody can deceive you. What do I mean when I say: if you trust, nobody can deceive you? Is your trust going to prevent somebody from deceiving you? No, but when you trust you have eyes to see: the deceiver will be revealed immediately - naked.

I would like you to remember this as a criterion: that a man who trusts cannot be deceived. If he is deceived then he must have some doubts within himself because only when the eyes are full of clouds of doubt are you not able to see.

When you are capable of seeing and your vision is clear, the very presence of the person says whether he is a deceiver or not.

They must have looked. The sun must have been rising on the sea, they were ready to throw their net into the sea. They must have looked back at this man:

"What manner of man is this Jesus?"

In that silent morning they must have felt the presence of this man Jesus. The presence was conviction; the presence was the proof. They threw away their nets, they straightway followed this man. In a single moment their whole life was turned completely upside down. In a single moment of vision they were converted.

Jesus says: "Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. How long will you go on throwing your nets into the sea? How long are you going to just catch fish? I will make you fishers of men." And he did make them.

It was almost unbelievable in those days - it is almost unbelievable even now - how Jesus transformed ordinary people into extraordinary people. Buddha transformed Mahakashyap, Sariputta, Modgalayan, Anand, but the credit goes more to Mahakashyap, Sariputta, Anand and Modgalayan and less to Buddha because they were rare beings. If Mahavir transformed Gautam, Sudharana, the credit goes more to the disciples because they were rare beings.

But Jesus is tremendously powerful. Peter - a fisherman, uneducated - or Andrew or Matthew or Thomas or John - all poor, uneducated people who would have been lost in any crowd and you would not have been able to find them. They were just stones, ordinary pebbles on the way, and Jesus transformed them into Koh-i-noors.

Mahakashyap was a rare being in his own right; there is every possibility that even without Buddha he would have become a Buddha. It would have taken a little longer, maybe he would have taken a little more time, but it seems almost certain that he would have become a Buddha even without Buddha. But think of Simon called Peter or his brother Andrew. Nobody can conceive that without Jesus they could have become anything whatsoever.

He not only promised, he DID the miracle. FOLLOW ME AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN - and more men have certainly been caught in the net Jesus has thrown into the sea of humanity than in any other net. Half of the world is caught in the net. All the apostles, all twelve of the apostles, were very ordinary, uneducated, common people, and upon them he built the whole structure.

Peter, Simon called Peter - Jesus has made him the very rock on which the whole of Christianity stands. The word 'Peter' means 'rock'. On Peter's rock the whole of Christianity stands and is supported by him. Yes, Jesus did make them fishers of men - and not only fishers of men. He delivered more than he promised: he made them fishers of God. AND THEY STRAIGHTWAY LEFT THEIR NETS, AND FOLLOWED HIM.

When Mahakashyap came to Buddha, he argued. When Mahakashyap came to Buddha he had five thousand of his own disciples, he was a great teacher in his own name. When Sariputta came he had thousands of disciples of his own, he was a great scholar. For years he waited and argued. They were not men of trust, they were men of doubt and skepticism - very cultured minds, cultivated minds, geniuses in a way.

But Jesus worked with ordinary mud and transformed it into gold. You cannot find a greater alchemist than Jesus. AND THEY STRAIGHTWAY LEFT THEIR NETS, AND FOLLOWED HIM - this is the miracle.

People went to Mahavir and argued, people went to Buddha and argued, because the whole Indian continent has been arguing for millennia. People have become trained here; they are born with philosophies. People come to me, very ordinary people, but they never come down below the level of BRAHMA, the ultimate. They talk about BRAHMA; it has become part of their blood.

But Jesus worked with very simple people. His VERY PRESENCE was the proof.

In religion: presence is first, proof is second. In philosophy: proof is first, presence is second. Sariputta would open his eyes to Buddha only when Buddha had proved himself, argued for himself, when he had defeated Sariputta and his mind totally. Then he would open his eyes. Proof was first, presence was second.

But with Jesus and the people he worked with - they were not theologians, they were not philosophers, not 'argumentators' - no. They were simple people, ordinary people of nature, just like trees and rocks and rivers. For them presence is first, proof is later. In fact, presence is the proof. They fell in love - that's the only way to express it rightly. They looked at Jesus: they fell in love. When you fall in love, you follow. Then there is no question, then you simply follow, because your heart knows better than your mind can prove. Your heart has felt something, something of the mysterium, something of God. Your heart has felt the presence, something which is not of this earth. That is enough. You have tasted something... you simply follow. AND THEY STRAIGHTWAY LEFT THEIR NETS, AND FOLLOWED HIM.

AND JESUS WENT ABOUT ALL GALILEE, TEACHING IN THEIR SYNAGOGUES, AND PREACHING THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM, AND HEALING ALL MANNER OF SICKNESS AND ALL MANNER OF DISEASE AMONG THE PEOPLE.

This has to be understood in a totally new light - not the way Christians have been trying but in a totally new light, the new light that modern science has thrown on the phenomenon of disease.

A disease, any disease, first arises deep in the mind and then moves towards the body. It may take a long time to come to the body, it is a long distance. You are not aware of it when it is in the mind, you become aware of it only when it strikes hard at the roots of the body. You always feel the disease in the body, but it always originates in the mind.

You are not aware of it then, so you cannot do anything about it, but when it comes to the body then of course you start seeking a physician, some help. The physician, seeing it in the body, starts treating it in the body. It can be treated in the body - but then some other disease will arise, because the treatment has not gone to the very source. You have been changing the effect, but not the cause.

If it can be changed in the mind, then the disease will disappear from the body immediately. That's how modern research on hypnosis proves that every disease - at least in principle - can be transformed, changed, can be dropped, if the mind is changed. And the vice versa is also true: if the mind is convinced by hypnosis, then disease can be created also.

Just two or three days before, somebody sent me an article of deep significance.

One man - one physician, a doctor in California - has treated many patients with cancer just through the imagination. This is the first clue which opens the door.... And not one patient, many.

What he does is he simply tells them to imagine - -if they have cancer of the throat, he tells them to relax and imagine that the whole energy of their body is moving towards the throat, and the gland is being attacked by their energy. Just like arrows from everywhere, all over - moving towards the throat and attacking the disease. Within three, four or six weeks the gland simply disappears without leaving a trace behind. And cancer is thought to be incurable!

Cancer is a modern disease; it has come because of the stress, tension and anxiety of life. There has, in fact, been no cure for it up to now through the body. If cancer can be treated through the mind, then everything can be treated through the mind.

Jesus' miracles happened because the people were very trusting. Once it happened: he was walking and a woman - a very poor woman, afraid and apprehensive about whether Jesus would treat her or not, because he was always crowded by so many people - the woman thought to herself, "Just touch Jesus'

garment from behind." She did, and she was cured.

Jesus looked back and the woman started thanking him. She fell at his feet and was very grateful. He said, "Don't be grateful to me, be grateful to God. Your faith has healed you, not I."

The world was deep in trust; people were rooted in faith. Then just the idea that "If Jesus touches my eyes, they will be cured" - the very idea becomes the root cause of the cure. It is not that Jesus cures; if you are skeptical then Jesus can't help, then he will not be able to cure you.

I was reading a story. One day Jesus was running out of a town. A farmer working in his fields saw him running, so he inquired, "What is the matter?

Where are you going?"

But he was in such a hurry that he would not answer. So the farmer followed him, stopped him after a while, and said, "Please tell me, I have become too curious. If you don't tell me, then why you were running will haunt me again and again. Where are you going? From whom are you escaping?"

Jesus said, "From a fool."

The farmer started laughing. He said, "What are you saying? I know well that you have cured blind people, you have cured people who were almost dying - I have heard that you have cured people who were dead already! Can't you cure a fool? " Jesus said, "No. I tried, but I can't because he is a fool and he won't believe. I have cured all sorts of illnesses and I have never failed, but with this fool I have failed.

He goes on following me and he says, 'Cure me,' but I have tried every way that I know and everything fails. That's why I am escaping from the town."

A fool cannot be cured... and a fool cannot be hypnotized. Ordinarily, amongst the common masses, the idea is prevalent that very intelligent people cannot be hypnotized. That is absolutely wrong. Only fools cannot be hypnotized, idiots cannot be hypnotized, mad people cannot be hypnotized. The greater the intelligence, the more possibility there is of your going deep into hypnosis - because in hypnosis your trust is needed, the first requirement is your trust. The first requirement is your cooperation, and an idiot, a madman, cannot cooperate and cannot trust.

Jesus could do miracles. Those miracles were simple; they happened because people were trusting. If you can trust, then the mind starts functioning from within, spreads to the body and changes everything. But if you can't trust, then nothing can help.

Even ordinary medicine helps you because you trust it. There has been an observation that whenever a new medicine is invented it works very well for six months to two years - people are affected by it - but after six months, eight months, ten months, it doesn't work so well. Physicians have been worried - what happens?

Whenever a new medicine is invented you believe in it more than in an old medicine. Now you know the panacea is there "... and I will be helped by it." And you are helped! The trust in a new medicine, a new discovery, helps. They talk about it on TV, on the radio, in the newspapers, and a climate of trust and hope is there. But after a few months, when many people have taken it - and a few fools have also taken it, which cannot be helped - then a suspicion arises, because this man has taken the medicine and nothing happened. These fools then create an anti-climate, and after a while the medicine loses its effect.

Even more than medicine, the physician helps if you trust him. Have you watched that whenever you are ill and the doctor comes, if you trust the doctor then you feel relief just by his coming? He has not given any medicine up to now.

He has just been checking your body - blood pressure, this and that - and already you feel that fifty percent of the disease is gone. A man you can trust has come. Now there is no need to carry the burden on yourself. You can leave it to him and he will see to it. But if you don't trust the physician, he cannot do anything.

In medicine, they call a certain false medicine 'placebo'. It is just water - or something which has nothing to do with the illness - but if it is given to you by a physician you trust, it helps as much as the real medicine; there is no difference.

Mind is more powerful than matter; mind is more powerful than the body.

AND JESUS WENT ABOUT ALL GALILEE, TEACHING IN THEIR SYNAGOGUES, AND PREACHING THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM, AND HEALING ALL MANNER OF SICKNESS AND ALL MANNER OF DISEASE AMONG THE PEOPLE.

AND HIS FAME WENT THROUGHOUT ALL SYRIA: AND THEY BROUGHT UNTO HIM ALL SICK PEOPLE THAT WERE TAKEN WITH DIVERS DISEASES AND TORMENTS, AND THOSE WHICH WERE POSSESSED WITH DEVILS, AND THOSE WHICH WERE LUNATICK, AND THOSE THAT HAD THE PALSY; AND HE HEALED THEM.

AND THERE FOLLOWED HIM GREAT MULTITUDES OF PEOPLE FROM GALILEE, AND FROM DECAPOLIS, AND FROM JERUSALEM, AND FROM JUDAEA, AND FROM BEYOND JORDAN.

Jesus was less a teacher and more a healer. A healer not only of the body, not only of the mind, but of the soul also. He was a physician, a physician of the soul.

That's what every Master has to be.

You are divided within yourself, you are fragmentary, you are not whole. If you become whole, you will be healed. If the tensions for the future and the accumulated tensions of the past disappear from within you, you will be healed, your wounds will disappear. If you can be in the present you will be whole, fully alive, utterly alive, and a deep delight will happen to you.

Jesus is not a philosopher, teaching some dogma to people. He is a physician. not a philosopher. He is trying to teach trust and if trust happens, everything becomes possible. He goes on saying: "If you have faith, faith can move mountains." It may not be the mountains that exist outside, but the mountains of ignorance, the mountains of ugliness, the mountains of unconsciousness that exist within. He does not have a creed, a dogma. He is, rather, releasing a healing force through himself. His whole effort is to help you to return to God. That's why he said, "Don't be thankful towards me. Thank God."

Then, too, he says, "Your faith has healed you." Not even God can help to heal you - only your faith. His insistence is on faith. And remember the distinction between belief and faith: belief is in an idea; faith is in total reality, faith is a reverence for the whole. Belief is of the mind; faith is of your totality.

When you believe in God, you believe in the God of philosophers. When you believe in God, God is an idea, a doctrine. It can be proved or disproved and it will not transform you. But if you have faith, it has already transformed you. I will not say that it WILL transform you. If you have faith, it has ALREADY transformed you.

Faith knows no future, it is immediately effective. But faith is not of the head.

When you have faith, you have faith in your blood, in your bones, in your marrow, in your heart. In your whole being, you have faith. A man of faith is a man of God.

Jesus' whole effort is how to bring you back home. Yes, God is shouting through him: "Enthrone me! " If you have faith, you will become available and God will be enthroned in you. That is the only way of being blissful. Unless God is enthroned in you, you will remain a beggar, you will remain poor, you will remain ill. You will never be whole and healthy, and you will never know the ecstasy of existence. You will never be able to dance and laugh and sing, and just be.

Only if God is enthroned in you - that means if you are dethroned and God is enthroned. So there is this choice, the greatest choice that ever encounters man:

either to continue yourself on the throne... or dethrone yourself, and let God come in.