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most important things to understand about the Indian mind, the so-called Indian religious mind. Even that mind can understand only the language of money. Mahavir renounced. The Jain scriptures go on relating how much he renounced: how many elephants, how many horses, how many chariots, how much gold, how many diamonds. They go on and on and on. Why? Why have these accounts been kept? And the reality is that he was never a very great king. the kingdom was very small, not more than a small district. And his father was not more than a collector of a district, not more than that. Because in Mahavir's time India was divided into two thousand kingdoms, so it could not be very great. And it is almost impossible that he had so many elephants and so many chariots and so much gold, it is exaggeration. But people understand only the language of money. They exaggerate, because that is the only way to prove that Mahavir was very great. Had he been the son of a carpenter, nobody would have ever bothered about him.
Jesus is a revolution in the world of religion. He is the first poor man who declared, "I am the son of God." He is the first poor man who dared to declare, "I am a prophet, a teerthankera, an avatar." Never before had such a thing happened in the history of man. He opened the way for many others to follow. Then Mohammed could declare, and then came Kabir, and Sena, and Nanak, and Dadu, and many more. Jesus opened the gate -- that even a poor man who had nothing to renounce, can renounce, because the real renunciation is not of wealth, but of the ego. The real renunciation is not of wealth, let me repeat it, but of the ego. It is not a question of renouncing what you have, it is a question of renouncing what you are. You can have much and you can renounce that. But if the ego continues -- and it can continue -- it can be fulfilled by having much, it can be fulfil]ed by renouncing much. And if the ego is there, you remain ordinary, you remain superficial.
AND THEY WERE OFFENDED IN HIM. Had he been an emperor's son, they would have fallen at his feet. But he was just an ordinary carpenter's son and everybody in the village knew about him.
BUT JESUS
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