But once that magnet disappears… The priest is the most cunning part of humanity – and clever. He is a businessman, he sees the opportunity of a great business. While Jesus is alive, it is dangerous to be with him. No businessman will come close to him – only gamblers may risk it and be with him. It is dangerous to be with him: he can be crucified, you can be crucified.

But once he is dead it is a great opportunity for business. Then a new kind of people start gathering around: they are the priests, the popes, the imams, the rabbis – learned, scholarly, argumentative, dogmatic. They create the dogma, the creed. They create the cult.

On the dead body of a religious person, a cult is created. Christianity is a cult.

Friedrich Nietzsche used to say… And I feel that he has the tremendous quality of seeing certain things which others go on missing. The man was mad, but sometimes mad people have a very sharp intelligence. Perhaps that is the reason that they go mad. Friedrich Nietzsche says, “The first and the last Christian died on the cross two thousand years ago. Since then there has been no Christian at all.” And he is absolutely right.

Jesus was the only Christian, although he never knew the word Christian. He knew only Aramaic, the language which he spoke, and a little bit of Hebrew, the language which the rabbis spoke. But he had no idea of Greek. The word Christ is a Greek word, and the word Christian comes out of Christ. Jesus never in his life heard the words Christ or Christian. The Hebrew word for Christ is messiah, so Jesus knew messiah.

But once he died… And it was very strange that when he was alive, overflowingly alive, and was ready to give, to share, to pour his being into their being, the people were avoiding him. But once he was dead, the priests were not going to miss the opportunity.

The priests immediately gather around the dead body of a Buddha, of a Jesus, of a Lao Tzu, and they immediately make the catechism. They start making a church on the dead body.

If Jesus comes back, the pope will be the first person to ask for his crucifixion again, because Jesus will disturb the whole business. That’s what he was doing the last time he was here.

Why were the rabbis angry? The business was going so well, everything was settled, everybody was satisfied and suddenly this man Jesus comes and starts disturbing people’s minds. He starts people thinking, inquiring, seeking. The establishment cannot tolerate such a person, because if you start seeking and searching, soon you will find that the establishment is standing on a dead body.