|
or you don't follow; there is no question of agreement or disagreement. You cannot disagree with Jesus Christ. Either you have faith or you don't.
But sannyas is not a dead, fixed dogma. It is an on-going process, a movement where I do not support faith, I do not support belief. I support reasoning, intelligence; I support doubt.
Naturally, coordinators are needed, because if twelve persons are there in an ashram or five thousand people in a commune, on each and every point there can be disagreement. The function of the coordinator is not to enforce a certain dogma but to bring every possible argument into the open.
Everybody has to be invited to bring his own opinion and then sort it out and unanimously decide what comes closer to truth. The coordinator is simply to make this arrangement so that people can come together with reasoning, not with belief, with their intelligence not crushed but enhanced. I would not like my sannyasins to be just believers.
One of the chaplains came to me in a jail in America. He must have been coming every Sunday to visit the jail, and he must have heard my name. He particularly came to me to give me a BIBLE. I said, "What is this?"
He said, "This is the word of God."
I said, "How did you come to know that this is the word of God? Has God told you?"
"No," he said, "it is written in THE BIBLE itself."
I said, "But it is also written in the KORAN, it is also written in the VEDAS, it is also written in the GITA. Then how are you going to choose which is the true word of God? They all claim that these are the words of God."
I said, "I will keep it -- you have brought it with such love -- but remember, this is not the word of God. And have you looked into the book? You are a chaplain; you must have studied it your whole life, passed examinations in theological colleges. Have you ever thought that at least five hundred pages in THE BIBLE are pornographic? Your God seems to be a pornographer."
He said, "Pornography? "
I said, "You can open the book anywhere and you will find pornography and nothing else. And it is not only the case with you; it is the case with
|
|
|