Washing feet... washing minds?

This year

Holy week and Holi week are the same.

Both are spring festivals.

renewal, birth, spring, colour, salvation,

and the hope that there's something beyond death

First be reconciled

Thoughts on Maundy Thursday

Jesus has been very much misunderstood.

Even in his time.

He was not telling people just to drop their masks.
He was saying, “I have brought you an alchemy, so that your real face can be beautiful.
Why carry this mask? Why this weight? I give you a higher law that needs no fear. It needs no greed. It needs no enforcement from the outside. My law rises in you because of understanding, not because of fear.”

Moses is a must, but Moses must go also.
Moses has dome his work; he has prepared the ground.
When Jesus appears, Moses’ work is fulfilled.
But the Jews – the priests, the scribes, the literate and powerful people -- were angry. It was very difficult to uncling themselves from the past.

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar
And there rememberest
That thy brother hath ought against thee;
Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way;
First be reconciled to thy brother,
And then come and offer thy gift.

Jesus says that if you come to the temple or the Church with flowers
And with money for the collection
And with bread for the blessing
And remember that somebody is angry at you
That you have angered somebody
Then first it is necessary to go back and be reconciled to your brother.
And all are brothers here, because the Father is one.

The point is,
It’s not important whether you are angry at somebody.
The point is you remember that your friend, your brother, your sister
Is angry at you.


Prayer can only be done when you are tuned.
And Jesus says a very psychologically valid thing.
If, while before the altar, you remember that you have angered somebody, and somebody is still carrying a wound because of you – somebody is angry somewhere,
Then go and help that person to heal
Bring things to a reconciliation.

A beautiful way to celebrate the passover tonight

The law-abiding fear true Love

To me, the season of Lent is not about Law

It’s not about penance and mortification
It’s not about not eating meat and not going to the movies.
It’s about reconciliation and love.

To the Jews, especially the priests, and the politicians,
It appeared that Jesus would just destroy the law.
So they were angry. And they were right!
In a sense, the law would be destroyed, because a higher law would be coming in.
The lower law would have to go.

Law depends on fear. Law depends on greed. Law punishes you.
The central idea of Law is justice, but justice is not enough.
Justice is crude and hard and violent.
Somebody murders, then the law murders him.
Justice has no spirituality in it, it is mathematical.

You have killed somebody, then the law kills you.
But if killing is wrong, then how can the law be right?
The law itself is very much lacking, it depends on the same evil.

“Law is better than lawlessness, but compared to love, law itself is lawlessness.” -- Osho

Only compassion can allow your being to bloom.
Only compassion can help you come to your highest peak – not justice.

When Jesus started talking about love, the people who were law abiding became very much afraid.

They feared that if the law were dropped, the animal hiding inside of them would jump out, and would tear down the whole society.
They knew that their faces were only beautiful on the outside.
Deep down, great ugliness. Suppressed. Repressed.

When Jesus says, ‘Drop all masks’, they become afraid and angry.

‘This man is dangerous. He eats and drinks. He consorts with prostitutes. He eats with sinners and exploiters. This man has to be punished and destroyed before he destroys society”.

First be reconciled

[LENTEN THOUGHTS 1]

The period of Lent is regarded by ordinary Catholics
As a time for prayer and penance.
It’s a time for mortification, for ‘giving up’ pleasures
Like sweets, or meat, or cinema, or even sex.
Lent is forty days of prayer and abstinence.

The real meaning of Lent is metanoia
The Greek word for renewal.
To become new.

Most Catholics view Lent as something to be enforced.
A stern law to be enforced within the family and in the community.
Some Christians are so scandalized, so shocked
If a priest or a nun is seen to be eating Meat on a Friday
Or having a glass of beer during Lent.

But Metanoia means to make things new.
Not to enforce the law of Moses.
But to bring forth the love of that Jesus preached.
Osho once said “Law is enforced love; Love is a spontaneous law.”

Moses gave commandments.
Jesus gave insight into these commandments.
One can follow the commandments, can ‘observe the Lenten practice’
On a formal, superficial level.

One can become a righteous person, a puritan, a moralist for 40 days
And deep down nothing changes.
The old darkness is still there.
The old unconsciousness is still there.
Nothing has really changed, I’m just wearing this beautiful mask.
Now there’s nothing wrong in wearing a beautiful mask – if you
Have an ugly face, wear a mask, it will at least save others from seeing you.
But the mask cannot change the ugly face.
You have to transform the face too.
Why be so hard on others, who perhaps do not choose to wear masks during Lent?

Moses gave a very crude discipline to society. Primitive.
He couldn’t have done better, there was no way.
Human consciousness in his time existed in a primitive way.
But Moses prepared the way, and Jesus was the fulfilment.
What Moses started, Jesus completes.
Moses laid the foundation. Jesus raised the whole temple.

Lent is not a law of discipline and punishment.
Lent is a time for love.