A poor woman…but from where does this insult come? A deep fixation upon an eternal father, that “I am the only begotten son of God,” gives him this stupid idea to insult a poor woman who has just come to see her son. She had not seen him for many days. But he did not allow her into the crowd, and he did not go out of the crowd to meet her. He just shouted these words; that was the whole conversation. And Mary, with tears, went back home.
The implications of these fixations have many dimensions. People call their language the “mother tongue,” their country the “motherland.” Except Germany – Germany is rare in that it calls its country the “fatherland.” That shows a more male chauvinistic idea.
But why do people call their languages their mother tongues? I have heard one man explaining to me that the reason why the language is called mother tongue is because the child never hears the father; it is always the mother who speaks. The moment the father enters in the house he is silent; then the whole conversation is a monologue. Perhaps this may be the reason.
But deep down, we want to be surrounded by “mother earth” as a protection, as our nourishment. We are so much consoled by the idea that the sky is our father and the earth is our mother, and we are perfectly protected between the two.
All therapies will destroy these fixations, because these fixations are the roots of other stupid ideologies that you go on clinging to: the father race, the mother race, your superiority.
I have heard about two generals, one German, one English, talking to each other after the second world war about what has happened. The German was saying, “We had all the power in the world, more than any country ever had. We went on winning continuously for five years. Then suddenly, everything collapsed. What went wrong? What made you victorious?”
The English general laughed. He said, “You don’t understand. It is not just power that determines everything, it is God’s blessing. Before every attack, our armies went into prayer. Without prayer, we never attacked; that is the reason for our victory.”
The German said, “But we also did the same; we also prayed before every movement of the army, so this cannot be the cause.”
The English general insisted: “This is the cause. In what language were you praying?”
The German said, “Obviously, we were praying in German.” And the English general said, “Who has ever heard that God understands German?”
These kinds of stupid ideas are all over the world. In India, people think that the Sanskrit language is the only language God understands. That’s why he has written the Vedas in Sanskrit, because that is the only language he can write. But the same kind of idea Moses gave to the Jews: “You are the chosen people of God, and your scripture is the holy book. It is written by God himself.” Certainly he understands only one language, Hebrew. And you can go on asking around the world: everybody has this idea.