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1、Come Follow To You, Vol 2Reflections on Jesus of NazarethTalks given from 31/10/75 am to 10/11/75 amEnglish Discourse series11 ChaptersYear published:Originally the series was published as Come Follow Me, Vols 1 + 2. Later to be republished as four volumes under the title Come Follow To You.Come Fol
2、low To You, Vol 2Chapter #1Chapter title: When the bridegroom shall be taken away31 October 1975 am in Buddha HallArchive code: 7510310ShortTitle: FOLL201Audio: YesVideo: NoLength: 84 minsMATTHEW 914 THEN CAME TO HIM THE DISCIPLES OF JOHN, SAYING, WHY DO WE AND THE PHARISEES FAST OFT, BUT THY DISCIP
3、LES FAST NOT?15 AND JESUS SAID UNTO THEM, CAN THE CHILDREN OF THE BRIDECHAMBER MOURN, AS LONG AS THE BRIDEGROOM IS WITH THEM? BUT THE DAYS WILL COME, WHEN THE BRIDEGROOM SHALL BE TAKEN FROM THEM, AND THEN SHALL THEY FAST.16 No MAN PUTTETH A PIECE OF NEW CLOTH UNTO AN OLD GARMENT,FOR THAT WHICH IS PU
4、T IN TO FILL IT UP TAKETH FROM THE GARMENT, AND THE RENT IS MADE WORSE.17 NEITHER DO MEN PUT NEW WINE INTO OLD BOTTLES: ELSE THE BOTTLES BREAK,AND THE WINE RUNNETH OUT, AND THE BOTTLES PERISH: BUT THEY PUT NEW WINE INTO NEW BOTTLES, AND BOTH ARE PRESERVED.RELIGION CAN BE HEALTHY - as healthy as a ne
5、w born babe, as healthy as the songs of the birds in the morning, as healthy as a newly opening lotus. Or religion can be ill, diseased, dying - just like an old man: shrinking, sad, moving.into death.When religion is young, it has a fragrance - the fragrance of life, It has a song, it has a mystery
6、 around it. It has the quality of dance, joy, delight. It is a celebration. When religion is young, alive, fresh, religion is always a celebration. It is a feast. It is life-enhancing, life-affirmative.When religion is old, dying, or already dead - just a stinking corpse - then it is renunciation; t
7、hen it is not celebration. Then it is anti-life, then it is life-negating. Then it leaves the world, it leaves all that is alive. It starts being suicidal - it shrinks.Life expands, death is a shrinkage. When you are young, you are flowing in all directions. When you are old, you are frozen. You no
8、longer flow. You only grumble: you become hard, the flexibility is lost.When religion is young, alive, it is ordinary. It has nothing in it to fulfill the ego - it is very ordinary. In fact, in its very ordinariness, it is extraordinary. It is superb in being just ordinary. Life is enough when relig
9、ion is young; no other God is needed. Then life is God, life is divine.When religion becomes old and ill. Everything becomes old and ill, whatsoever is born has to die. Even a religion is born one day, lives for a while and then dies. But followers go on clinging to the dead body. Then the dead body
10、 kills the followers also: it becomes a source of illness, neurosis: it becomes an abnormality, a cancerous growth. When religion becomes ill or dead, it kills you; it is poisonous. This has to be understood from many directions.Firstly, people are more willing to be in a dead religion than to be in
11、 an alive one, because you have been taught to be afraid of life, of love, of happiness. Every child is brought up in the world with a conditioning: with a feeling that there is something wrong in being happy. A very vague feeling, but it is there. It influences your whole life, you think that there
12、 is something wrong in being happy. So whenever you feel happy, you feel guilty - as if you have been committing some wrong, as if you have been sinning.Only sinners seem to be happy, saints seem to be very sad. So whenever you are sad, everything is okay. You never feel guilty if you are sad - have
13、 you observed it? But if you are very happy, suddenly you try to hide it; nobody should know it. Why has this happened to the human mind?Every child is taught to be serious, somber, to be long faced. Every child is taught not to jump, not to run, not to shriek, not to be too delighted, not to laugh
14、loudly. Sit quietly - as if there is something wrong in energy expressing itself. Whenever the child is happy the family, the people around, all start teaching him, as if something has gone wrong. And when the child is not happy, when he is unhappy, everybody sympathizes with him.When the child is i
15、ll, everybody takes care of him; when he is healthy, everybody goes on stopping him: Dont do this, dont do that. When the child is Lying on the bed ill, the father comes, the mother comes, the relatives come. They are all very careful about him. By and by he starts learning that there is something b
16、asically wrong in energy, in happiness, in joy. In dancing, running around, shrieking with delight, there is something basically wrong. He gets the hint.And there is something basically good in being sad, ill. Whenever he is sad, he is appreciated, sympathized with. Whenever he is healthy, everybody
17、 seems to be against him; the whole world is against him. This creates a guilt, a deep guilt in the child, and that guilt follows him his whole life.If you go to see a saint and you see him laughing loudly, you will be shocked. You will be shocked - a saint, and laughing so loudly? A saint should be
18、 sad; you have a particular idea about the saint. It is okay to laugh in the pub, to laugh in the hotel - gamblers can do that - but to laugh in church? No, it is not allowed. One has to become serious when one goes to church; one has to become almost corpse-like.Because of this training. And the tr
19、aining has a vicious circle about it: you were trained by your parents, your parents were trained by their parents. Somewhere in the past, hidden deeply in unknown history, something went wrong.It may be that one who is happy cannot be forced to work because happiness is a play. Only sad people can
20、be forced to work. Thats why, when you work, you become sad; when you are on duty, you become sad. A holiday has a different quality to it. You can laugh, you can enjoy.Life was difficult in the past, man was in a constant struggle with nature. To survive was the only aim, and everybody had to work
21、hard. If you are happy, you would like to dance not work; if you are happy, you would like to sing, play a flute, and not go hunting. If you are happy, who bothers about duty and about the office? If you are happy you would like to rest and relax. That was dangerous.Thats why happiness was condemned
22、, laziness was condemned, rest was condemned. It has been taught, it is deep in your blood. that work is the goal of life. A good man is always working; a bad man seems to be always on holiday.Mulla Nasruddin has not worked for a long time, for years. One day he was sitting by my side. The day was v
23、ery sunny and he said, If I had been working somewhere, I would have taken a holiday today. And he has not been working for many days, for years! He is missing work because he cannot take a holiday. From where to take a holiday? He remembers the working only when it comes to taking a holiday.The who
24、le human mind has been trained for work. Thats why duty has been praised, playfulness condemned; business praised, gambling condemned. A gambler is playful; a businessman is serious. The businessman is respected; a gambler, simply condemned. He is thought to be below humanity.Religion is a totally d
25、ifferent dimension. There is every possibility that a gambler may enter in it, but a businessman is debarred. A drunkard may enter into religion. I am not saying that you should become drunkards; I am just emphasizing the quality of playfulness, the quality that can enjoy and be, and is not worried
26、about results. But a very serious man is debarred by his own seriousness.Jesus created trouble for himself. He was a religious man - healthy, young, vibrant with life. Life was his God. In the gospels, many times you come across scenes that depict him as sitting at the dining table - eating, drinkin
27、g. How could the Jews and the people, his people, believe that he was religious? Fasting should be done and he was always feasting, he was always creating a feast around him. Wherever he moved he created happiness. What type of religious man was he?His own relatives thought that he was a little besi
28、de himself, his own relatives thought that he was a little mad. And the society in which he lived thought that he was a glutton, a drunkard - he could be a sinner, but he could not be a saint.Thats why he was crucified outside the town. Jews had it as a law, they used to crucify in two ways: either
29、in town or outside the town. When a person who belonged to the society had done something wrong, then he was crucified in the town. But if somebody who had done wrong was, at the same time, an outsider, to symbolize the fact that he didnt belong to society, he was an outcast, he was crucified outsid
30、e the town.Jesus was crucified outside the town. Not only that: to emphasize the fact, two very dangerous criminals were crucified with him. On either side: two dangerous criminals. Right between these two he was crucified, just to emphasize the fact, to hit it hard in peoples minds, that he was jus
31、t a criminal, a dangerous man - not at all respectable, an outcast. He had to be cut down like a worm, not like a man. What had he done? What sin had he committed? The sin of being happy.Thats how I am condemned. People would have liked me if I was a sad man; they would have liked me if I was fastin
32、g and killing my body. They would have liked me if I was teaching to you some type of masochism - to be cruel to yourself. They would have liked me, they would have praised me like anything; they would have called me an avatar.But I teach you to be alive, I teach you to be happy. I give you only one
33、 gospel: the gospel of joy and love. That is a crime. That is creating a dangerous situation, that is corrupting people.Jesus committed the crime of being happy. That was his only crime, nothing else.Christians have been trying to change his face. They say he never laughed. Can you imagine a man who
34、 is always seen at dining tables, eating well, drinking - and not laughing? Impossible! But Christians have to create a respectable Christ, a Jesus who is not a criminal. They have painted his face. You cant find any picture of Jesus depicted by Christians, any statue of Jesus created by Christians,
35、 which is real or true. It is absolutely unreal. The man has been betrayed.Just the other night I was reading a poem. I liked it. I would like you to listen to it. It is a poem by Adrian Mitchell.The Liberated Christ Gives An InterviewI would have walked on the waterBut I wasnt fully insured.And the
36、 B.M.A. sent a writ my wayWith the very first leper I cured.I wouldve preached a golden sermonBut I didnt like the look of the mount.And I wouldve fed fifty thousandBut the press wasnt there to count.And the businessmen in the templeHad a team of coppers on the doorAnd if Id spent a year in the dese
37、rtI wouldve lost my pension for sure.I wouldve turned the water into wineBut they werent giving licenses.And I would have died and been crucifiedBut like - you know how it is.I am going to shave off my beard and cut my hairBuy myself some bullet-proof underwearI am the liberated ChristAnd I have got
38、 no blood to spare.Christians have made him totally different. He was not like that. He was a rebellious man, an extraordinary revolutionary. And he lived it, he lived his rebellion. He was not a theoretician: he lived it, he died for it. He loved life so much that he was ready to die for it. But he
39、 was not ready to be anti-life. That was his crime.Even with John the Baptist and his disciples there was trouble. John the Baptist was an old, traditional prophet. His disciples were ascetics: fasting, praying. They were anti-life. There was conflict between Jesus and the disciples of John the Bapt
40、ist. These sutras are about that conflict.THEN CAME TO HIM THE DISCIPLES OF JOHN THE BAPTIST, SAYING, WHY DO WE AND THE PHARISEES FAST OFT, BUT THY DISCIPLES FAST NOT?Why has fasting become so important? Why has brahmacharya, celibacy, become so important?There are two things on which life depends:
41、food and sex. If you are anti-life you will be against both food and sex, because they are the very base of life. Through food, you live: through sex, the coming generations will live.If you fast, you will die. If you become a celibate, you cut the passage for the future generations to come. If celi
42、bacy and fasting become absolute, life will disappear from earth. Those who are against life - they have praised fasting as a method, celibacy as a goal.The question is relevant: Why do we, the disciples of the Baptist, fast often, and the rabbis and the Pharisees do the same, but your disciples fas
43、t not?People come to me also. They say, Why dont you teach people to fast? I am always surprised. Why are people so much concerned with food? If you study Gandhis life, his whole life he is concerned with food: food and stomach. Eating and enema - these are continuously the two basic problems. Why i
44、s he so afraid of food?With food, a fear arises. The fear is of sex. If you eat well, sex energy will be created. And if you dont know how this energy can move upwards in your being, it will start moving downwards. If you dont know how this energy can move like fire, it will move like water. So with
45、 food, the fear of sex arises.Go and see. In India there are many saints, particularly Jains. Jains have a great number of saints who are continuously fasting. The fear is of sex, because if they eat well, energy is created. And if energy is there, what will you do with it? You cannot laugh, you can
46、not dance, you cannot love. What will you do with that energy? That energy will become a heavy load on you. It is better not to create it.Fasting is trying not to create energy. You live on a starvation level so a minimum of energy is created and that is used by your day-to-day work. You never have
47、any to spare. Even for a good laugh, you will need energy; for dancing, you will need energy. So live at the minimum - because if energy is at the maximum, then joy will burst forth.If you dont give sufficient water to a tree, if you dont give sufficient manure, food, to a tree, the tree may remain,
48、 but flowers will not come. Flowers come only when the tree has energy to spare. Flowers are a luxury: when the tree has enough - more than enough - and it wants to share, then flowers come and the fragrance is released.That is how the tree enjoys its energy. It has too much of it; it would like to
49、share it with the world. But when you dont have enough, how can you share? The tree may live, but it will not be really green. It will be almost dying - always on the verge of death.People have learned the trick: that if you fast, you can live a minimal life. Then there is less danger. Anger will not be possible, because