In one part, a rich man, a young man who had just inherited almost an empire, came to Jesus and asked him, “I would love to follow you, but what are the conditions?”

Jesus said to him, “The first thing to do is, go and distribute all that you possess to the poor.”

The man said, “All?”

Jesus said, “Yes. Give everything and come to me.”

The man was standing, he hesitated, and a giggle went through the crowd. And as the rich man disappeared into the crowd to hide his face, Jesus made his famous statement: “A camel may pass through the eye of the needle, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of God.”

In this way, poverty has been praised. And when you praise poverty you destroy the art of creating wealth, the art of creating more comforts, and you console the poor in his misery and in his poverty. And the man, the young man who has come, you ask too much of him too early. A master should not be in a hurry. He has just inherited an empire, and you ask him to distribute all…!

And he asked, “All? Do you mean all?”

If Jesus had said to him, “Distribute a part of it,” and as he would have come closer, “Distribute a little more,” as he would have become more intimate and more understanding, his whole empire would have been distributed. It is Jesus who is preventing him. He has come and he is ready – but asking too much when the time is not ripe shows a hurriedness.

I would not have asked him for anything. If he had come, he would have been welcome, and by and by, you would have helped him to disperse his empire.

In fact, before a person becomes alert and aware, you should not ask such impossible things. But all the religions have been asking impossible, unnatural things. That man must have gone with a guilt, with a feeling of inferiority that he did not have the guts. Now you have created a wound in him. Who is going to heal him?

People have looked at Jesus as if he is a healer. I say unto you, he has created more wounds in humanity than any other man. But those wounds are very psychological; they are not on your body, they are in your mind. And all the religions have done that.