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The first thing about the question: a Master has no responsibility at all– responsibility as you understand the word. He is responsible, but he has no responsibility at all, it is not a duty. Duty becomes a burden, duty becomes a tension, duty creates concern, anxiety. A Master has no responsibility, although he is responsible. The difference is great.

When I say he is responsible, it simply means he is loving, he is compassionate. If you ask for help, the help will be given. But he has not taken it on his shoulders that he has to redeem you anyhow. It has not become a burden on him that you have to be redeemed. It is not his anxiety. He is available. If you ask, it shall be given; if you knock, the door shall be opened unto you; if you seek, you will find. If you are ready to partake, the Master will pour his whole being into you. But it is not a kind of responsibility. He is not a missionary. He is not after you! He is not bent upon redeeming you.

That’s why I say he has no responsibility. He is responsive. Whenever you are ready to take, you will always find him ready to give. But there is no anxiety in his mind. If you decide to be ignorant, it is perfectly your freedom. If you decide to remain in the world, if you decide to remain in the imprisonment, that’s perfectly your choice. It is not his ambition to free you. Nobody can free you against your own will; only you can free yourself. Yes, you can partake of all kinds of help that a Master makes available.

So the first thing: 'Does a master's responsibility towards his disciples cease upon the physical death of the master?'

Even while he was alive he was not burdened by any responsibility. But the disciple’s mind always creates such kinds of bondages. The disciple would like the Master to be responsible so that the Master becomes answerable, so that the disciple can claim. ’If I am not redeemed yet you are responsible!’ This is a trick of the disciple to protect himself and to throw the responsibility on the Master’s head. And then you can go on living the way you want to live, because what else can you do? You have accepted Jesus as your Master, now it is his responsibility.

This is not the way to become free. This is not the way towards nirvana or moksha. This is not the way towards liberation. You are playing tricks even with your Master. And the disciple would like that the Master remains in a kind of contract– even when he is dead he has to look after you. And what have you done? What have you done on your part? You have not done anything. In fact, you are trying to do everything to hinder, to obstruct. You are clinging to the prison, and the responsibility is the Master’s.

Don’t befool yourself. The question is from Chintana. She has been a nun and that mind goes on lingering around her. Christians have done that. Millions of Christians are thinking in their minds that they can do all kinds of things, whatsoever they want, and finally Jesus is going to redeem them. On the Day of Judgement he will be standing there, and he will call to all his Christians ’These are my children. Come and stand behind me.’ And all the Christians will be standing behind Christ, and will enter into heaven with flying flags. And all others will go into hell... obviously. Those who are not with Christ they will go to hell. And that is the idea of everybody. The Mohammedan thinks the same: that only those who are Mohammedans will be saved– the prophet will come and save them.

These are stupid ideas. If you go on living the way you are living, nobody can save you– no Jesus, no Mohammed. You will have to change your quality of life, you will have to change your vision, and then you are saved. You can learn the art of changing your vision from Jesus, from Mohammed, from Krishna, from Buddha; from any source you can learn how to change your vision. But you will have to learn the art and you will have to practise the art. Nobody else is going to transform you– nobody can do that. And that is beautiful that nobody can do it. If it were possible for somebody to transform your being, then you would have been a thing, not a person. Then you wouldn’t have any soul.

That is the difference: A thing can be made. You can make furniture out of wood, you can make a statue out of stone, but you cannot make a soul out of a man. You cannot create enlightenment out of a man. If somebody from the outside can do it, that will be very very insulting; it will be below human dignity. And what kind of freedom will it be which has been created by somebody else? If that somebody else changes his mind, then he can create your slavery again. It won’t be much of a freedom. Freedom is freedom only when you have attained it!

So the first thing to be understood is: Learn from Jesus, learn from me, learn from any other source that appeals to you. But remember, you are responsible for your life, nobody else is responsible. And don’t go on befooling and kidding yourself. Don’t go on believing in such beautiful dreams and consolations.

'Does a master's responsibility towards his disciples cease upon the physical death of the master?'

In the first place there has never been a responsiblity. The Master was sharing– not out of responsibility but out of compassion. He was sharing because he had so much that he had to share. He was not obliging you; he was sharing just as a flower shares its fragrance to the winds. What else can it do? Just like a raincloud shares its rains with the earth– what else can it do? When a Master has come home, has become full of light and fragrance, he has to share it. But it is not a responsibility.

That word ’responsiblity’ is not a beautiful word; it is not some kind of duty that he is fulfilling, it is his joy to share. And don’t throw your responsibility on anybody. Remain responsible for yourself, otherwise you will become lethargic, lousy, and you will become dull and dead. You will lose your vitality, because then you will be simply waiting. The Last Judgement Day will come and Jesus will save you. You have turned the whole life into an ugly affair.

Transform yourself. Learn from any source that appeals to you. Learn from all the sources. Become as rich as possible, but change your life, transform your life– and don’t wait for the Day of Judgement! There is no Day of Judgement. Each moment is the moment of judgement. Each moment we are facing our God, because each moment we are living our life. Let each moment be decisive. Let it be lived with art, awareness, skill.

What did Jesus mean when he said, 'And know that I am with you always, until the end of the world'?

He was perfectly right. He is with you until the end of the world, but are you with him?– that is the point. The sun is there, and it is there always, but if you are sitting with closed eyes, what does it matter whether the sun is there or not? You can sit inside your room with all the windows and doors closed, with a blindfold on your eyes– you will be living in darkness.

When Jesus says 'And know that I am with you always, until the end of the world' he is simply saying: Whenever you want you can partake of me. I am available. Once a being has become enlightened, he is available forever, forever. Because he has become part of foreverness, he has become part of eternity, he has become part of God! Where can he go?

Raman Maharshi was dying, and somebody started crying and said ’Bhagwan, are you really leaving us? Will you leave us?’ And Raman opened his eyes and he said ’What nonsense you are talking about! Where can I go?’ And closed his eyes and died.

The last words were ’Where can I go? I will be here!’ Raman has become part of that foreverness. Where can he go? He is part of eternity– nowness. If you are available you can drink of him. His fountain is flowing there.

But don’t think in terms of law and court, don’t think in terms that when you go to God you will make him feel guilty. You will say ’Look at this man Jesus. He has said that he will live forever with us, and we were stumbling in darkness and he never came. And we were committing this and that, and he never came to stop us. And we did many wrong things and he never prevented us.’

No, he cannot prevent you, he cannot change you. He is just like the sun, the light. Open your eyes and it is there, close your eyes and it is not there. And when Jesus says ’I will be there forever with you’ he does not mean ’I will be there in opposition to Buddha, I will be there in opposition to Krishna, I will he there in opposition to Moses.’ No. He simply means ’I will be there as part of Buddha, Krishna, Moses, Zarathustra.’ They have all disappeared as persons, they have become one-ness.

'With this assurance then, how come the infant church received Paul instead of Peter, whom Jesus appointed as the head of the church?'

I have never said that he appointed Peter as head of the church. He had simply said ’You will be the foundation’, not the head. He was not creating an organisation. He was not making Peter the head, the boss, the chief, the chairman, no. He was simply saying ’Peter– I call you Peter.’ ’Peter’ means rock. ’I call you Peter because you are rock-like, because you have attained to that consciousness which is rock-like. If on that consciousness one makes one’s house, it remains forever. You be the foundation.’ He is simply saying in a metaphor ’Let awareness be the foundation of my church.’

But, a nun is a nun, even if she is an ex-nun, even if she has become a sannyasin, that past is there. ’Head of the church’...! Peter was not the head. He was not meant to be the head, he was meant to be the foundation. A foundation disappears into the earth like roots. You cannot see the foundation– the foundation is invisible. So is awareness invisible.

And you ask ’Then how did it happen?’

The question is a complaint. She is saying that ’Christ says ”I will be with you, and I will remain responsible”– then how come he didn’t help his own church, the infant church, and allowed Paul to dominate it, instead of making Peter the head of it? Where is he, and what is he doing?’ He has committed a breach. He has betrayed, he has not been true to his word! He has not even helped his own church– and the church was infant. That’s why she makes it clear: ’infant church’, helpless. His help was needed!

'With this assurance then, how come the infant church received Paul instead of Peter, whom Jesus appointed as the head of the church?'

Paul was a politician. And politicians dominate everything. Paul was a dangerous fellow, murderous. First he was trying to destroy Christianity– he was against Jesus, the arch-enemy– he was going to the Holy Land to persecute Christians. And then, on the road towards the Holy Land, the miracle happened that he heard the voice of Jesus calling him ’Why? Why do you persecute me? What have I done to you?’

It came from his own unconscious. Let it be clear. It was not coming from Jesus. Jesus had never said, even to the real persecutors who were persecuting him when he was alive, ’Why do you persecute me?’ He wouldn’t come to Paul to say this on that lonely road. It was his own unconscious, because his conscious was full of hatred for Jesus, because he was full of enmity, jealousy, anger, rage.

The unconscious is always against the conscious; they move like polar opposites. If you love a man through the conscious, you hate the man through the unconscious. That’s why you love and hate the same man, the same woman. In the conscious, he was full of hatred, but in the unconscious there must have been love, because only then could the hatred exist. They exist together. Love never exists alone, and so does hate never exist alone; they always exist together.

If you ask psychoanalysts, they say ’Love-hate is one relationship.’ Lovehate is one word. Even the hyphen that joins them is not needed; they are one word. From one side it is love. from the other side it is hate. So in the conscious there was hate, in the unconscious was love. And when the hate was too much, extreme... the swing of the pendulum to the other side, and his unconscious said ’Why? Why are you persecuting me?’

The unconscious became the voice of Jesus. He fell on the ground; he could not believe. This was a miracle, and he was converted by this miracle. He turned and became a Christian. But he remained the same person. First he was trying to persecute Christians, then he started putting his energy into converting people to Christianity but the same energy, the same aggression. First he is there to destroy Christianity, now he is there to create Christianity. It is the same man.

And another miracle happened: he became a Christian and destroyed Christianity by becoming a Christian. He created the church– that was the best way to destroy it. If he had been on the same road, and if he had remained the same person hateful against Christ, there would not have been so much harm. Because this aggressive man, this violent man became a Christian and became a missionary; he started converting people and changed the whole quality of Christianity. Christianity is no more related to Christ. It is Pauline: it is related to Paul.

Chintana is asking ’Why didn’t Jesus interfere?’

Jesus never interferes. Buddha, Krishna or people like them never interfere. They give you total freedom. They give you as much freedom as God gives you. God never interferes. Even if you are going against God, he does not interfere. He can easily interfere– he can stop your breathing. When you are going to steal, he can stop your breathing. ’Come home and you breathe again. Go to steal and it stops.’ You are going to murder somebody, and you stop breathing. God can do that, but he never does it; he never interferes.

Freedom is respected. If people wanted to create a church, if people wanted to create a church which goes against Jesus, then let it be so– that is their own decision. If people want a Christianity like this, then let them have it. If they don’t want to choose the right, they have the choice to choose the wrong. Freedom is the ultimate value.