How can you understand the other when you are against him? Understanding is impossible. Understanding needs sympathy, understanding needs a participation. Understanding means listening to the other totally, only then understanding flowers. But if you are discussing something, debating, arguing, reasoning, you are not listening to the other, you only pretend that you are listening. Deep down you are preparing, deep down you have already moved to the next step – when the other stops, what you are going to say. You are getting ready how to refute him. You have not listened to him and you are trying to refute him!
Really, truth is not significant in a discussion, in a debate. So debate is never a communication, and it is impossible through debate to come to a communion. You can argue, and the more you argue…you fall apart. The more you argue, the bigger the gap is, it becomes an abyss; there can be no meeting ground. That’s why philosophers never meet, pundits never meet: they are great arguers. An abyss exists. They cannot meet with the other – impossible.
Only lovers can meet, but lovers cannot be in a debate – they can communicate. That’s why so much insistence in the East for shraddha – trust, faith. If you argue with your master the gap widens. Then it is better to move; then let this master be a night’s shelter, but move. Being with him will not lead you anywhere, the gap will widen. If you are argumentative, then the gap cannot be bridged. It is impossible. Trust means sympathy; trust means you are not arguing – you have come to listen, not to argue. You have come to understand, not to debate. You have not come to win; rather, you are ready to lose.
A real disciple is always in search of being defeated by the master. That is the greatest moment in the life of the disciple, when he is completely destroyed and defeated. Not that the master is going to win; he is going to be defeated, the disciple is going to be defeated. And when the disciple is there no more – completely defeated, disappeared – only then the gap is bridged, the abyss is gone, and the master can penetrate you.
Hence, it happened: Jesus was wandering all over his country, but all the disciples that he could gather were simple men, not a single educated person, not a single scholar. Not that there were not scholars; there were great scholars at that time. Jews were at the peak of their glory, that’s why they could produce such a son as Jesus. Jesus was the culmination. Jesus could happen – that shows that the Jews touched their peak. Never again would they reach to such a peak. There were great scholars, great debates were arranged. The Jewish synagogue was the seat of learning, a real university. People would travel from all over the country to discuss, to debate, to argue, to find; but it was an argument. Not a single scholar followed Jesus.
Really, all the scholars were unanimously agreed that this man should be destroyed. All the scholars, learned people, were ready to kill this man. Why? – because this man was against argument. He was pulling at their very base; the whole structure would fall down. This man was saying something against reason. He was talking about faith, he was talking about love, he was talking about how to create a bridge between two hearts.