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they would all be fast asleep.
According to me this was his last teaching: to remain awake. But Christianity has completely forgotten about it. And I have not seen a single commentary by Christians on the implications of why Jesus was so insistently saying, "Be awake!" He was trying his hardest because once he was gone, there was every possibility they would all fall asleep, just as the whole of humanity is asleep, and they would start doing in their dreams things that are not to be done. But things that are not to be done can be prevented only when you are aware, alert.
His last teaching was awareness, but the disciples failed him -- not only those twelve intimate disciples failed him, for two thousand years all his disciples have failed him. The very word "awareness" has disappeared from the Christian idea of transforming human beings. Jesus was continually saying, "The end is very close." That was a device -- because if you feel that there is enough time, why not sleep a little more? What is the hurry? But if there is no time left at all, perhaps the shock of it may wake you up.
What was only a device to Jesus, to me is not a device. It is a reality. The world is going to end.
I have been giving you hope, because I have to do two things: on the one hand I have to make it clear to you that the world is coming to its final suicide; and on the other hand, I have to give you the hope that still there is a possibility at least for you to become awakened.
Your awakening is of tremendous importance; it has never been so important before -- neither with Jesus nor with Gautam Buddha -- because there was enough time. Time has run out. We are at the fag end of time.
To make you aware of the reality -- so that you can make some effort to remain awake, to make some effort to be more conscious and not to get lost in trivia -- is absolutely necessary. That's why my insistence will go on growing, because every day the end is approaching closer.
Man is so asleep he is almost in a coma, and all his actions are arising out of this state of coma -- otherwise, there is no necessity for the world to end. But we are carrying nuclear
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