If Jesus was like me and you, then the power dynamic between structured religion and the individual changes completely. This gets back to my first blog about freedom and each person's responsibility for their own spiritual evolution.Jesus was a Jew, but ‘became….a stranger’ to the Jews - evidenced by the fact that it was they of course who crucified him. (354) Osho asks why they couldn’t forgive him, why they still haven’t (the ‘Jesus phenomenon’ did severely split the Judaic ‘church’) Apparently Jesus’ sin was to let out ‘some secret’, an ‘alien teaching’ which precluded his absorption into that tradition. (354)
Jesus said over and again: 'I have come not to contradict the old scriptures, but to fulfill them'. As Osho points out, it is pretty clear he was not talking about the Judaic scriptures, which is why this particular statement has been confusing. He was in reality going against his own tradition, so which scriptures was he talking about? It soon became obvious that Jesus had not ‘come to fulfill the Old Testament’ because he contradicted it all the time. (355)
To understand this fully you have to appreciate the differences, compare the models for God espoused by Jesus and the Jewish religion. The Jewish model for God is fear, ‘fear is the base of the Old Testament’. The Jewish God is a severe father figure and ‘you should be God-fearing’. But Jesus says quite clearly that ‘God is love’. (357)
The two beliefs couldn’t be more different. I still remember Osho saying: there is only ‘love and fear’ and they can’t occupy the same space. What Jesus was saying was blasphemy to the Jews but was also one of the most liberating messages he could have delivered to the people. Why? Because it means we are all accepted, just as we are, perfect in our imperfection. It makes us all God.
When Osho declared ‘you are God’ and was symbolically crucified for saying it again in the twentieth century, this is what he was talking about. He was just reinforcing what Jesus said and the Vedantic scriptures said before that. But people who can’t see past their own egos simply project them onto others and in their ignorance interpret this as egoism and megalomania.
This is the crux of the matter. ‘Jews say, “God is the creator and this universe is the created, and the created can never become the creator…..this distance can never completely go, this space will remain. You can become closer….and closer to God, but you can ever become God”’. God is always over there, somewhere else, never here - maybe you, but never I.
‘But Vedanta says, “The God is the creation, there is no distinction between the God and the creation….The universe is not separate, it is one…..The Upanishads….say, the seers who have come to know this secret, they can say, “I am God”. And nobody thinks this is blasphemy - this is a truth’. (357)
This is the truth of Jesus' and Osho's teaching. This was the secret that Jesus shared with the people, the ‘alien teaching’ that got him crucified. Like Osho he was handing the power (back) to the people, and as history has repeatedly demonstrated, this is very dangerous for the establishment.
Rajneesh, The Mustard Seed (Discourses on the Sayings of Jesus from the Gospel According to Thomas), 1975, Rajneesh Found., Oregon
image: digitally altered, thanks & apologies to 'Patriot Boy' whoever you are.
