I Say Unto You: Jesus: Son of God or Mystic?

by Osho, Osho International Foundation (Editor)

Overview

What if Jesus were not a supernatural being conceived by a virgin, but a real human being who had experienced the awakening of consciousness known as “enlightenment” in the East? This extraordinary line-by-line commentary on selected Gospels from Matthew and John tests the hypothesis that Jesus was a mystic, not a miracle worker of supernatural origin. Osho convincingly makes the case that the stories of Jesus' life were never meant to be a factual record of history, but rather are teaching parables designed to provide ongoing spiritual guidance for generations to come.

I Say Unto You introduces us to a dynamic, compassionate, intelligent, loving Jesus, who speaks in a plain and simple way that everyone can understand. This is not the long-faced, sad and tortured man often depicted down the centuries.

Osho looks with a crystal-clear perception at Jesus’ work, inviting us to see the parables and miracles as metaphors of the inner world. He gives insight into Jesus’ own search, and his journeys to the ancient mystery schools of Egypt, Kashmir, and Tibet that transformed him into one of the most evolved masters of the paths of love and meditation, with insights that are still relevant for today's world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780880509923
Publisher:	Osho International
Publication date:	12/10/2013
Series:	OSHO Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	250
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Osho is a contemporary mystic whose life and teachings have influenced millions of people of all ages, and from all walks of life. His often provocative and challenging teachings generate today more and more interest and his readership is dramatically expanding around the world in more than fifty languages. People can easily recognise the wisdom of his insights, and their relevance to our lives and to the issues we are facing today. The Sunday Times in London named Osho as one of the "1,000 Makers of the 20th Century". He is known around the world for his revolutionary contribution to meditation — the science of inner transformation — with the unique approach of his "OSHO Active Meditations" acknowledging the accelerated pace of contemporary life and bringing meditation into modern life

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt from Chapter 3

Moses brought law to the world; Jesus brings love. Moses is a must before Jesus can be possible. Law is enforced love; love is spontaneous law. Law is from the outside; love is from the inside. Law is without; love is within. Love can happen only when a certain order, a certain discipline, a certain law, exists. Love cannot exist in the jungle. Moses civilizes man; Jesus spiritualizes man. That’s why Jesus says again and again, “I have come not to destroy, but to fulfill.”

Moses gives commandments, Jesus gives insight into those commandments. One can follow the commandments on a formal, superficial level. One can become a righteous person, a puritan, a moralist, and deep down nothing changes: all remains the same. The old darkness is still there, the old unconsciousness is still there. Nothing has really changed; you have just painted your surface. Now you are wearing a beautiful mask. Nothing wrong in wearing a beautiful mask – if you have an ugly face it is better not to show it to others. Why be so hard on others? If you have an ugly face, wear a mask – at least it will save others from seeing you. But the mask cannot change your ugly face. Never forget for a single moment that the mask is not your face. You have to transform your face too.

Moses gave a very crude discipline to society. He could not have done better – there was no way. Human consciousness existed in a very, very primitive way. A little bit of civilization was more than one could expect. But Moses prepared the way, and Jesus is the fulfillment. What Moses started, Jesus completes. Moses has laid the foundation; Jesus raises the whole temple. Those stones in the foundation have to be crude and ugly. Only on those crude and ugly stones can a beautiful marble temple be built. Always remember this: Jesus is not against Moses. But the Jews misunderstood him, because Moses talks about law and Jesus talks about love.

To the Jews, particularly the priests, the politicians, it appeared that the law would be destroyed by Jesus; hence they were angry. And they were right too. The law would be destroyed in a sense, because a higher law would be coming in. The lower law would have to go. The lower has to cease for the higher to come.

Law depends on fear, law depends on greed, law punishes you. The central idea of law is justice, but justice is not enough, because justice is crude and hard, violent. Only compassion can allow your being to bloom, can help you come to your highest peak – not justice. Law is better than lawlessness, but compared to love, law itself is lawlessness – compared to love. It is relative, because law depends on the same evils against which it fights.

Somebody murders, then the law murders him. Now, it is the same thing you are doing to the person that he has done to somebody else. It is not higher, although it is just. But it is not religious, it has no spirituality in it; it is mathematical. He has killed somebody and the law kills him. But if killing is wrong, then how can the law be right? If killing in itself is wrong, then the law is very much lacking. It depends on the same evil – remember it.
When Jesus started talking about love, the people who had been law-abiding became very much afraid. Because they knew that if the law was dropped, then the animal hidden inside them would come up, and would tear down the whole society. They knew that their faces were only beautiful on the surface – deep down, great ugliness. And when Jesus said, “Drop all masks,” they became afraid, they became angry: “This man is dangerous, this man has to be punished and destroyed before he destroys the whole society.”

But they misunderstood. Jesus was not saying just to drop the mask. He was saying: “I have brought you an alchemy, so that your real face can be beautiful. Why carry the mask? Why this weight? Why this false plastic thing? I can give you a higher law that needs no fear, that needs no greed, that needs no enforcement from the outside but arises in your being because of understanding, not because of fear.” Remember, that is the difference: out of fear is law; out of understanding is love.

Moses is a must, but Moses must go also. Moses has done his work, he has prepared the ground. When Jesus appears, Moses’ work is fulfilled. But the Jews were angry. It is very difficult for people to stop clinging to their past. Moses had become very, very central to the Jewish mind. They thought Jesus was against Moses. And this has been so down the ages: the misunderstanding.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Chapter 1 Be a Nobody and Have All 1

Chapter 2 Come out of Your Mind 23

Chapter 3 First Be Reconciled 43

Chapter 4 Man Cannot Live without Meaning 71

Chapter 5 A Journey between Two Infinities 93

Chapter 6 Silence Belongs to the Universal 119

Chapter 7 Life Is Open Opportunity 143

Chapter 8 Live in Eternity 167

Chapter 9 The Phenomenon of Unconsciousness 191

Chapter 10 You Are a Mystery 217

About Osho 243

OSHO International Meditation Resort 244

More OSHO Books 246

For More Information 248