All religions are doing that, it is nothing special to the Catholic Church. Hindus destroy the possibility of knowing Krishna, Buddhists destroy the possibility of knowing Buddha – because knowledge becomes more important than knowing, and knowledge is second-hand. Only knowing can help. And remember, let me repeat it again: Jesus is a stranger. He may be standing by your side but he is not there, he is somewhere else. You may be standing in front of Jesus but you are not there, you are somewhere else. You and Jesus never meet, because the planes are so different. You never criss-cross – you cannot! Unless you become something like Jesus, there is no possibility. And to become like Jesus needs great meditation, needs great intelligence – not a Catholic upbringing, not a Sunday religion, not foolish dogmas and creeds. Great intelligence, sensitivity, awareness….

People are fast asleep. Somebody is asleep as a Christian, and somebody is asleep as a Hindu. That doesn’t matter – sleep is sleep. A Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan – if all these three get too drunk, will there be any distinction, differentiation between their drunkenness The Hindu will behave as foolishly as the Mohammedan; and the Mohammedan will behave as stupidly as the Christian. Once they are drunk, they are drunk. And people are asleep. It makes no difference what kind of theology you have used as a pillow for your sleep. Whether the pillow is white or green or blue or red does not matter. Once you fall asleep, you fall asleep; the pillow becomes immaterial. Whether you are sleeping on the Bible, on the Gita, on the Koran does not make any difference; you are using a pillow. Somebody is using the Bible as the pillow, somebody else is using the Koran as the pillow. And you are snoring over your scriptures. And Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and Krishna remain strangers.

They do not belong to this world, that’s why Hindus call them avatars. Avatar means one who has come from beyond descended from the beyond, like a ray of light descends into darkness. It comes from the transcendental world, from the world of turiya – the fourth.

Jesus looks like you, but he is not like you. Don’t be deceived by the appearance. He is here on the earth, and not of it. He moves in the same world, the same market-place, the same people, rubs shoulders with you, holds your hand, looks into your eyes, but he does not belong to this world. He belongs to the other shore. He has risen, he has risen in God.

You can also rise, and only by rising will you be able to understand him; befriend him, otherwise he will remain an outsider.

Jesus is a lotus. You are still the mud. There cannot be any dialogue between the lotus and the mud – although the lotus is born out of the mud, although the mud is carrying many more lotuses than have become manifest. Many unmanifest lotuses are there in the mud, but the mud and the lotus are so different – strangers to each other. That is the situation. If you want to understand the lotus you will have to become a lotus. Only a lotus can have a dialogue with the lotus.

Never become a Christian. If you want to become something, become a christ. Never become a Buddhist. If you want to become something, become a buddha. Otherwise you will remain unaware of the reality of Jesus.

And because people feel uneasy – uneasy because they cannot comprehend Jesus – they create theories. Rather than transforming themselves, they load Jesus with theories, theories which can help them make him comprehensible. No theory can make him comprehensible. All theology is false.