Jesus loved, but he was not a politician. And Jesus never tried to change the society, remember. That was a misunderstanding on the part of the priests – that he was trying to change the society. He was not trying to change the society at all; he was trying to change the individual. And that, too, not according to his ideology, but according to the individual’s potentiality. There are a thousand and one instances….

Jesus never condemns, Jesus never creates any guilt, Jesus never says, “This is sin. Don’t do it.” He reveals what sin is, but he never says. He makes you understand what sin is, but he never gives you a dead dogma in the hand.

In life, dead dogmas are useless. Only an alive consciousness is useful, because every moment the sin and the virtue change: something that was a virtue in the morning may not be virtuous in the evening. It depends on you, on others, on circumstances. It is not a dead thing that you can carry with you. It is changing every moment. Unless you have a flexibility, a sensitivity to change with life, you will not be able to know what sin is, because every moment life goes on moving. Something was virtuous in a certain moment; the same thing can become a sin in another moment. So no dogma is possible.

Jesus gives a sensitivity to people; an awareness, a mindfulness, a meditation, so that they can feel their way, so that they can understand every situation and respond accordingly. If you go deeply into Jesus you will understand only one thing: that to act with awareness is virtue and to act with unawareness is sin. Sin is not a quality of any act, neither is virtue. Sin and virtue belong to the presence or absence of awareness. It is not what you do that is sin or virtue, it is how you do it: aware or unaware. It doesn’t depend on the action; it depends, deep down, on the consciousness – what quality you bring to it.

Jesus loved. That was one of his crimes – that he loved. A rabbi should preach, he should not love. A religious man should become an example, and induce and seduce people to follow his example. Jesus was not an example at all. In the ordinary sense, he was not creating any ideal of his own. He was simply helping people to be more prayerful, to be more mindful, to be more watchful. And he lived and loved, and he lived like a very ordinary man but with very extraordinary awareness. He lived like a Zen master. Jews could not understand him – or only later on, Hassids would have understood, but they came very late. They would have understood him; they would have understood him absolutely. He was a Hassidic master or a Zen master.

But his followers also misunderstood him: they thought that he is a politician and he has come to change the society. And his enemies also misunderstood him.

The same has happened again and again. I am here. I am not interested in society at all, not a bit. But the politicians go on thinking that I am planning some way or other, that I am a conspirator and I am planning something – in secret ways – to change the society or the government. It is difficult to convince them.