| |
you are -- maybe even more. Maybe the people who come to the priest believe a little, but the priest is always an unbeliever. He knows; he knows the whole trade and the secret. He knows that there is no God. He cannot say it because he has invested too much in it, he depends on it. Priests are the most unreligious people on the earth, and there is a reason -- because they know; the statue in the temple is just a stone, they know. They have seen rats and mice running over it, and they know that the statue cannot do anything; and they have prayed for you, and they know the prayer reaches nowhere -- but they go on pretending.
If you have come in contact with priests, there is every possibility you may become anti-religious. If you have not come in contact with priests, there is a possibility that someday the desire will arise -- because religion is a natural desire. If not corrupted by priests, everybody is born religious and everybody will find his way somehow. Just like rivers moving, now knowing where, but they reach to the ocean -- everybody will find his way to God if he is not hindered by priests and not prevented by religions. A really religious person will be religion-LESS.
And these priests are really very serious people. They even kill your desire to love, to celebrate; they kill all possibility of being happy. They promise that in heaven you will be happy, but not here; it is not allowed here. In fact, you have to be masochistic here, torture yourself, and then in heaven you will have your reward. Nobody knows about heaven. The real prophets, who are never priests -- a Buddha, a Jesus, a Mahavira -- the real prophets really teach to be delight-full herenow, this very moment; there is no need to postpone. Heaven is here... because heaven is not a geographical place, heaven is your attitude.
I came across a cartoon some years ago that I have never forgotten and over which I still chuckle. Two men are standing on a street corner across from a church. It is obviously Sunday noon and people are pouring out of the church -- cheering, laughing, arms in the air, some even dancing. In the middle of all this, they are carrying out their be-robed
|
|
|