There is only one way: choose the divine as the all; choose the divine as the whole; choose the divine everywhere in everything. Even if the Devil comes to face you, realize the divine in it. Then you have offered – and then the offering can be continuous with no break, with no gap, because now no gap is possible. That’s why the Upanishads don’t use the word God. They use That, because the moment you say God, the Devil is created. They don’t use any word really, they use just a finger. They say That, and this That is comprehending all – everything everywhere. So if you can conceive of the divine as the all, then you can offer. Otherwise the contrary will be created – you will offer to God and the offering will go to the Devil.
All the religions have faced the problem, the dichotomy – Christianity, Judaism or Mohammedanism. All the religions born out of India have accepted the dichotomy. They have accepted the God-and-the-Devil dichotomy. So if you see the history of these religions you will become aware of a very strange phenomenon. Jesus stands for God, but the Devil goes on tempting him also. Whatsoever Jesus stands for, his Church stands quite against it – diametrically against. So Christianity is least concerned with Christ. Rather, Christianity is his enemy, because whatsoever the Church has done, it cannot be said that it is God’s work. It can be said that it is the Devil’s work. But this had to be due to the law of reverse effect.
Once you accept the dichotomy, the opposite will be the result. Christ preaches love and the Church stands for hate. Christ says, “Don’t resist even evil,” but the whole history of the Church is a long war. So Nietzsche is right when he says, “The first and the last Christian died on the cross” – the last also! After Jesus there has been no Christian. But, really, St Paul and others are not so much responsible as they appear to be. The real responsibility goes to the ignorance concerning the law of reverse effect.
If you choose a part as divine and a part as non-divine or anti-divine, then the mind will move. The mind has its own tricks for moving. It can justify evil in the name of good, it can rationalize war for peace, it can kill and murder because of love. So the mind is very cunning and clever in moving to the opposite, and when it moves it gives you every reason to believe that “I am not moving.” So if you choose God as something apart from the world or anti the world, you will never be able to offer the mind. And a partial offering is no offering, this must also be remembered.
A partial offering is mathematically wrong. It is just like a partial circle – which is not a circle. A circle is a circle only when it is full, complete. You cannot call a partial circle a circle. It is not. Either offering is total or it is not. How can you offer partially? That is intrinsically impossible. How can you love partially? Either you love or not, no compromise is possible. No degrees of love are possible. Either it is there or it is not there. All else is just deception.
Offering is a total phenomenon. You give up, you surrender, but you cannot say, “I partly surrender.” What do you mean? A partial surrender means that you are still the master and can even take it back. The part which has remained behind can take it back, can say no tomorrow. So a total surrender is that in which nothing has been left behind; no withholding, so you cannot go back. There is no return possible, because then no one remains behind to go back. So the offering is total.