BLINDED BY THE LIGHT
When you are very close to a bright light, you get blinded, but those far away from where the light is not so close can still see. Therefore, a true prophet is never recognised in his own time or country.
All of these sages, these great men, these great masters, go through this. It is only after, when the brightness of the light is not there, face to face. Then the blindness goes, and then the disciples could see. They could genuinely see with the inner eye that my God, I have been with God, and I did not know it.
We go through this experience every day in ordinary things. In everyday things, we go through this experience. Every day, we fail to recognise. Even our teachers, when we were at school, none of us liked our teachers. We would say, “Oh, he is a so and so. He drives me too hard, or he spanked me or this or that.” Only later, when you grow up, you say, “Ah, you know what that man taught me was so great.”
I remember when I was a schoolboy. The school ended at half-past two; I think it was at that time. A quarter past two, all books and pens were put away. He used to sit at his desk, put his legs on one of the benches before him, and then talk. He used to speak of various things that had nothing to do with schoolwork. He used to talk about astronomy. He used to talk about science. He used to talk about physics and the scriptures. He just kept talking about this, that, and the other, and most of us thought, why does he not let us go home instead of listening to all this nonsense? But afterwards, how much it helped me. It stimulated my curiosity to know more of those things that seemed so trivial, unimportant, and irrelevant then.
TRUE TEACHING
At the moment, we might not know the worth of the master, and that could be pretty natural. To know the value of the master, for the disciples to know Christ, they should be very closely developed. They should be very near the stage of Christhood. Then only would they recognise? But then what is the sense of Christ having people near him that are Christ themselves? It would serve no purpose. He has to have those who lack the understanding, and as they keep on understanding, as their awareness grows, they will be able to share the awareness that has grown in them. That is how teachings are propagated from age to age. Otherwise, it is just an ordinary job.
Otherwise, it is just cleaning streets, making chairs and tables or doing the plumbing. It is just a job. Actual teaching always comes with sharing, sharing the awakening in us. That is true teaching.
The disciples of Jesus never had that awakening. Only afterwards, when the awakening took place, they started sharing it. A lot of it is twisted, and a lot of it is lost, but that is how we know today, in some form or the other, what Christianity is and what consciousness is. But we make a mistake in paying more attention to Jesus than to Christ. That mistake we make today because of our lack of awareness. We, too, are the disciples of that Christhood, but we fail to recognise that consciousness, and we only see the man, the Jesus, the form.
To become a true teacher, you share the awareness that develops in you, which takes time. When Jesus shed his body, then only was he recognised. He was the most despised man on earth. Everyone hated him: the rulers, his people, the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sanhedrins. – because everyone saw him from a different angle. The rulers thought that he was a rebel and that he was going to overthrow the Romans. The priests felt that he would destroy the church, and they would be out of their jobs, and they would lose all control over the people. People saw him according to their understanding.
ONLY MARY MAGDALENE KNEW WHO JESUS WAS
One person knew Jesus and was not talked about in a good light, and that was Mary Magdalene. She knew who Jesus was. She was the only person at that time who knew what Jesus was. He helped multitudes of people with all kinds of their problems. Yet they all deserted him. They all deserted him. People who had the most incredible experiences with him, the finest experiences, where were they when he was beset with all these problems of the temple and the emperor? Where were they then? Nowhere to be found, and when the rulers, because they were so uncertain of themselves, used the trick of whether he should be crucified or not, they voted for him to be crucified. The man who benefitted them so much. They said, “Yes, down with him.” And that “down with him,” that voice, that sound roared in the courtyards. People that he benefitted.
TO UNFOLD AWARENESS
That is how it works. For the good deeds are always forgotten. A man might do so much for you; your friend might do so much for you for many years. He sets you up in business, gets you settled down, or whatever the case. But one day, you quarrel with him or exchange hard words, and all the good things done so far are forgotten. The only thing that is remembered and breaks up the friendship is that little quarrel. That is a lack of awareness. For not being able to take the totality in at one glance, these things happen. And that is what we teach: to unfold. To unfold our inherent awareness so that there remains no foe and no friend. Because a friend can become a foe tomorrow, and a foe can become a friend. But there remains only this communication of Heart to Heart, with all its crudities, goodness, and badness. Yet the communication is there, and that communication is Love.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1981 – 24
