Why did Jesus touch their feet? He could have touched their heads, so why their feet? Feet are symbols of the lowly. In your body, they are the lowest part. Jesus touched their feet to show that God is there also; even in a thorn bush, in the lowliest, in the LOWEST depth God is there, because God is everywhere. In the darkest valley He is there. He is not only at the peaks, remember; in the valleys also, He is there. He is not only in the saints; in the sinners also, He is. When you pay respects, don't be bothered about whom to pay it to, because He is everywhere. You can touch the feet of a sinner and you have touched His feet, because there are no other feet. All feet, ALL feet are His. Jesus touched the feet of the disciples to show them that nothing is lowly. Everything is high, everything is superbly magnificent and everything is divine. Wherever you tread, you tread on God. Whatsoever you do, you do to God. Whomsoever you pay respect to or become angry with, you are doing it to God.

 

... HE POURETH WATER INTO A BASIN, AND BEGAN TO WASH THE DISCIPLES' FEET...

 

The feet are symbolic of the earth, they touch the earth; the head is symbolic of the sky, it touches the sky. The head and the feet -- the highest and the lowest, the above and the below -- are the same, because only one flows. You are in your feet as much as you are in your head. Don't forget the earth, you are rooted there; remember it. Jesus touched their feet, washed those feet.

 

THEN COMETH HE TO SIMON PETER, AND PETER SAITH UNTO HIM: LORD, DOST THOU WASH MY FEET?

 

It doesn’t look appropriate.’Dost thou wash MY feet? It is okay if I wash yours; you are our Lord, our Master.’ A question arises in the mind of the disciple Simon Peter: one who loves, one who has a little more faith than the others. Even to him a question arises, just a question,’Is it appropriate that the Master should touch my feet?’ A few didn’t say anything. They may not even have grasped the meaning of it, it was so sudden. They may even have missed. They may not have been present there; they may not have been able to understand what was happening.

 

Only Simon Peter, the man who was going to become the rock of Jesus’ church, raised a question:’Dost thou wash my feet?’ He had loved Jesus, he had respected him, but his faith was not yet total.’Man of little faith’ Jesus had called him. He had faith, but very little. If the faith had been total, then there would have been no longer any distinction between the Master and the disciple.

 

In Zen there are stories that sometimes the disciple would hit the Master, and the Master would laugh. They are stories of great love, they are stories of great faith and trust. They show that now the distinction is no more there; now nobody knows who is who. The Master is the absence of the ego, and when the disciple’s ego also disappears, there cannot be two absences.

 

For example: in your room there are two chairs; two chairs are present, two presences. You remove two chairs — now can you say that there are two absences because two chairs have been removed? No, there is only one absence; simply absence. You can remove a thousand chairs but the absence will not be of a thousand chairs; it will simply be absence. A Master is an absence, an emptiness; there is no ego in it. It is on the part of the disciple that they appear as two. From the side of the Master, because he is not there, there cannot be the other. When the’I’ disappears,’thou’ also disappears.

 

Peter loved him, respected him, but his love was not yet total. He was still present there; the disciple had not disappeared. The disciple asked,’Why? — you, and touching my feet?’ It didn’t look appropriate. Remember, in love there is nothing appropriate or not appropriate. In love, all distinctions disappear.

 

Just the other day somebody asked,’Can an enlightened man love an unenlightened man?’ He asked a very pertinent question. He said that it is said of Ramakrishna’s life that he would cry and weep for Vivekananda. Sometimes Vivekananda would not come to see him for a few days, so he would go to see him. He would find out where he was.’Is it possible,’ the questioner had asked,’that a man like Ramakrishna, in love, in such love that he cried and wept if Vivekananda did not come, went to where he was to search for him, and became very happy when Vivekananda came?’

 

The questioner had asked,’Osho, do you weep for somebody?’ I have so many Vivekanandas that if I start weeping, then there will be no time left. Hence, the difficulty. I cannot cry and weep, but I cry and weep for you because to me you are just potentialities of tremendous possibilities, seeds. Yes, Ramakrishna was deeply in love. And I tell you, only a Ramakrishna can be in deep love, ONLY a Ramakrishna. The unenlightened person can pretend that he loves, can deceive himself and others that he loves, but he cannot love. Love is the quality of enlightenment. It is the light that comes out of that inner lamp, that inner lamp of enlightenment. When that flame is burning inside, then the light flows outside. Wherever it falls, it is love.

 

Jesus loved these disciples. To say that Jesus loved or that Ramakrishna loved is really not a right way of saying it, because Jesus is not, a Ramakrishna is not — there is only love. When Jesus touched the feet of his disciples, love touched their feet. Not Jesus, remember, but love touched their feet. Ramakrishna went to seek and search where Vivekananda was, but Ramakrishna didn’t go anywhere. He was no more — where could he go? how could he go? who would go? — love went in search. When Ramakrishna cried and tears fell down, it was love crying. Even Vivekananda felt embarrassed when Ramakrishna would stand and start dancing when he came, or he would hug him. Even he used to feel embarrassed. Somehow it looked a little outlandish, eccentric. And this old man seemed to be crazy.

 

If psychoanalysts had been present there, they may have suspected homosexuality, because psychoanalysis tries to explain the flower through the fertilizer. Then, even the flower starts stinking; it smells of the fertilizer. But if you ask me such questions, I explain the fertilizer through the flower. Then, even the fertilizer has a fragrance in it. Jesus touched the feet, not of the fertilizer but of the flower, of the possibility.

 

Ramakrishna went in search. To ordinary people Vivekananda was just ordinary, but not for Ramakrishna. Something extraordinary was waiting there: it needed help, care; it needed attention, it needed love to explode into being. Jesus touched those disciples’ feet in deep reverence, in great hope. He touched their feet to show them,’You are not that which you think you are. You are that which you are seeking; you are my God.’

 

Those were only seeds, but Jesus could see the flowering. He touched their feet because of the possibility of the flowering — someday or other they would explode into beautiful flowers, they would blossom. He loved them, respected them for that. For him it was already a present phenomenon. They didn’t know, they were unaware, they were fast asleep. The seed is nothing but a flower, fast asleep and snoring. And what is a flower? — a seed that has discovered itself, a seed that has come to know itself, a seed that has become itself — that’s what a flower is.

 

Even a weed is not a weed; a weed is one who is on the path to discover itself. Even a weed has tremendous possibilities. You may not know that even wheat was once thought to be a weed; even wheat! Humanity discovered, by and by, that it was nourishment. Now you cannot think of wheat as a weed. And if you find some weeds in the garden, always be respectful — who knows? They are on the way; some day their capacities and possibilities will be discovered.

 

They were ordinary weeds, those disciples, very ordinary human beings, but not to Jesus. Jesus could look into their future. Their future was present to Jesus, and he touched the feet of that future. Even a man like Peter could not believe, could not see the appropriateness of it. But in love, there is nothing appropriate and not appropriate. In love, everything takes a totally different flavour. Then, everything is holy.

 

- Osho, “Come Follow To You Vol 4, #3″