Questions & Answers

Question 2 [09 July, 1972 in pm]

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Many things may have to be considered: one, Jesus died for Christianity at the age of thirty-three. Remember this >>> for Christianity. Because, actually he did not die – he lived to be one hundred and twelve. But that is another story, not related with Christianity at all. and he died a fully Enlightened One like Buddha, Mahavir and Krishna. So this is the first thing to be understood.

Christianity has only this much to say, that he was seen resurrected after his crucifixion. For three days he was seen somewhere by some disciples and somewhere else by some other disciples, and then he disappeared. So one thing is certain: even Christianity thinks that whether he died or not on the cross, he was seen after the crucifixion for three days.

They think that he died on the cross and then was resurrected, but then they do not have anything to tell about what happened to this resurrected Jesus. The Bible is silent. What happened to this man who was seen? When did he die again? He must have died again because on the cross he did not die. So what happened to this man Jesus? The Bible is incomplete because Jesus disappeared from Israel.

In Kashmir, there is a shrine which is believed to be that of Jesus Christ – his tomb. He lived in Kashmir, in India, then he died when he was one hundred and twelve. At the time of the crucifixion he was just entering the moon center. On that very day he entered – on the very day of the crucifixion. So that is the next thing to understand.

Jesus in the Bible is not like Buddha, Mahavir or Lao Tzu. He is not! You cannot conceive of Buddha going into the temple and beating the money-lenders – you cannot conceive of it! But Jesus did it. He went into the temple; the annual festival was on. Many things were connected with this great temple of Jerusalem. There was a great money-lending business associated with it. Those moneylenders of this temple exploited the whole country. People would come for the annual gathering and other gatherings during the year, and they would obtain money at a high interest, but it was impossible to repay it. They would lose everything, and this temple was going on becoming richer and richer. It was a religious imperialism. The whole country was poor and suffering, but the money would come automatically to this temple.

Jesus entered one day with a whip in his hand. He overturned the money-lenders’ boards, then began to beat them. He created a chaos in the temple. You cannot conceive of Buddha doing this. Impossible!

Jesus was the first communist, and, really that is why Christianity could give birth to communism. Hinduism could not give birth to it, no other religion could give birth to it – impossible! Only Christianity! With Jesus it has a relevance. He was the first communist, and he was fiery and rebellious.

The very language he uses is totally different. He gets angry with such things that we cannot even believe it – such as a fig tree: he destroyed it because he and his disciples were hungry and the tree would not yield any fruit. He destroyed it! He has threatened in such language that Buddha could not utter. Those who are not going to believe in him and his Kingdom of God will be ”thrown into the fires of Hell” – the eternal fires of Hell – and they cannot come back.

Only the Christian Hell is eternal. Every other hell is just a temporary punishment. You go there, you suffer and you come back. But Jesus’ hell is eternal. This looks unjust, absolutely unjust. Whatsoever may be the sin, eternal punishment cannot be justified; it cannot be! And what are the sins? Bertrand Russell has written a book, ”Why I am Not a Christian,” and in that book one of the reasons he has told is this, that ”Jesus looks absurd”. Bertrand Russell says, ”If I confess all the sins that I have committed and all those sins which I have thought about but never committed, then too you cannot give me more than five years imprisonment.” Eternal punishment? Non-ending punishment? Jesus speaks the language of a revolutionary!

Revolutionaries always look to the other end – to the extreme. He says to a rich man – and you cannot conceive of a Buddha or a Mahavir saying it – that ”A camel can pass through a needle’s eye, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of my Father to the Kingdom of God.” He cannot pass! This is the seed of communism, the basic seed. Jesus was a revolutionary. He was concerned not only with spirituality, but with economics, with politics and everything. Really, had he been only a spiritual man he would not have been crucified. He was crucified because he became a danger to everything – to the whole social structure, to the status quo.

But he was not a revolutionary like Lenin or Mao. Of course, Marx and Mao are inconceivable without there having been a Jesus in history. They belong to this same Jesus, the early Jesus, the Jesus who was crucified. He was a fiery man, rebellious, ready to destroy everything, but he was not simply a revolutionary. He was also a spiritual man. He was somehow a mixture of Mahavir and Mao. But the Mao was crucified and the Mahavir remained in the end.

The day Jesus was crucified was not only the day of crucifixion. It was a day of deep inner transformation also. The day he was crucified, Pilate, the Roman Governor, asked him, ”What is Truth?” Jesus remained silent. This was not like Jesus at all. It was more like a Zen Master. If you see the entire previous life of Jesus, this remaining silent when someone has asked, ”What is Truth?” was not Jesus-like at all. He was not that type of Master who would remain silent.

Why did he remain silent? What had happened? Why was he not speaking? Why was he at a loss? Why was he incapable of speaking? He was one of the greatest orators the world has ever produced – or we may say, even without hesitation, the greatest: his words are so penetrating. He was a man of words, not a man of silence. Why did he remain silent suddenly? He was just stepping, going to the cross. But Pilate asked him, ”What is Truth?” For his whole life he was defining only that; for his whole life he was talking only about Truth: that is why Pilate asked him. But he remained silent.

What had happened to the inner world of Jesus? It has never been rported because it is difficult to report what had happeend. And Christian theology has remained shallow, because the inner world of Jesus can only be interpreted in India and never anywhere else. Only India knows the inner changes, the inner tranformation of what happened.

What has happened suddenly? Jesus is on the verge of death. He is to be crucified. Now the whole revolution is meaningless. Whatsoever he has been saying is futile; whatsoever he has been living for is just coming to an end. Everything is finished, and because death is so near he must now move inwards. Time cannot be lost now! Not a single moment can be lost now! He must move in before he is crucified; he must complete the inner journey.

He has been on the inner journey, but he was also entangled with outer problems. And because of these outer problems, he could not move to that cool point which this Upanishad calls ”the moon point”. He has remained fiery, hot. In a way, he might have done it consciously.

There is a story:

Vivekananda achieved his first satori, his first glimpse of samadhi, and Ramakrishna said, ”Now I will keep this key with me; I am not going to give it to you. It will be given to you only three days before your death. Before you die, only three days before, this key will
be given back to you. Now no more glimpses of Samadhi.”

Vivekananda began to weep and he said, ”Why? I do not want anything. I do not want the whole kingdom of the world. Give me only my Samadhi. The one glimpse was so beautiful. I do not want anything more.”

Ramakrishna said, ”The world needs you and something has to be done. And if you move into Samadhi, then you will not be able to do anything. So do not be in a hurry. Samadhi will wait for you. Move into the world; give my message. And when the message is delivered, the key will be given back to you.”

Ramakrishna died, but these are not visible keys. And only three days before his death, was Vivekananda able to achieve Samadhi – only three days before! So it may have been a very conscious thing when Jesus did not move to the moon center right away, because once you move you become absolutely inactive.

One story more:

Jesus was initiated by John the Baptist. He was the disciple of John the Baptist who himself was a great revolutionary and a great spiritualist. He waited for Jesus for years together. On the day he initiated Jesus in the river Jordan, he said to Jesus, ”Now take over my work and I will disappear. It is enough.”

And from that day he was hardly ever seen again. He disappeared in the forest. In the inner language, he disappeared from the sun point to the moon point. He became silent. He had done the work and he had given the work to someone who would complete it.

Just on the day of crucifixion Jesus must have become aware that now the work he was doing was finished. He must have thought, ”There is no more possibility for it. I cannot do anything more now; I must move in. This opportunity must not be lost.” That is why, when Pilate asked him, ”What is Truth?” he remained silent. This is not Jesus-like. This is more like a Zen Master; this is more like Buddha. And because of this, the miracle happened which has remained an enigma for Christianity. Because of this, the miracle happened.

When he was moving to his cooler, coldest point, the moon point, he was crucified. And when for the first time someone comes to the moon center, his breathing stops, because that breathing too is an activity of the sun point. Everything becomes silent; everything is as if dead.

He moved inward to the moon point when he was crucified, and they thought he was dead when he was not. This was a mis-conception, a misunderstanding. Those who were crucifying him thought he was dead, but he was simply at the moon point where breathing stops. Then there is no outgoing, no ingoing breath. He was in the gap between breaths.

When one remains in the gap, it is such a deep balance that it is virtually death. But it was not death. So they, the crucifiers, the murderers of Jesus, they thought he was dead, so they allowed the disciples to bring the body down. As was the custom in the Jewish land, his body was to be preserved just in a nearby cave for three days and then delivered to the family. It is reported – and, again Christianity has only fragments – that when his body was being carried to the cave, his body was dashed against some stone and there was blood. If he had really been dead, blood would have been impossible. 

He was not dead. And when after three days the cave was opened, he was not there. The dead body had disappeared, and in these three days he was seen. Four or five people had seen him, but no one would believe them. They went to the village and said that he was resurrected, but no one would believe it.

So he escaped from Jerusalem. He came to Kashmir and remained there. But then this life was not the life of Jesus, but the life of Christ. Jesus was the sun point and Christ the moon point. And he remained totally silent: that is why there is no record. He would not talk, he would not give any message, he would not preach. Then he remained totally silent. Then he was not a revolutionary: he was just a Master living in his own silence, so then very few people would travel to him.

Those who became aware without any outer information about him, they would travel to him. And they were not few but many – few only in comparison to the world, but many in a way. And a whole village came to be established around him. The village is still called Bethlehem. In Kashmir, the village is still called Bethlehem after the birthplace of Jesus, and the tomb is preserved which is Jesus’ tomb.

I have said that Christianity is incomplete because it knows only the early Jesus and that, because of that, Christianity could give birth to communism. But Jesus himself died a fully Enlightened man – a full moon.