Question 3:

Was Jesus really born of a virgin mother?

 

 

ONE THING HAS TO BE UNDERSTOOD: the ancients used to talk in metaphors, the ancients used to talk in poetic ways - and that has been misunderstood very much. We talk in scientific ways; our language has gone totally different from the ancients. The difference is as much as when you think you think in concepts, but when you dream you cannot dream in concepts - you dream in pictures. And if you are a poet, a painter, you dream not in black and white but in colour.

 

Ordinary people dream in black and white - poets, painters, those who know what colour is, those who are really in tune with the world of colour, are very sensitive, they dream in colour.

 

But in dreams you don't use logical concepts: you use pictures. That's why you need a psychoanalyst to interpret your dream, because you have completely forgotten the language of metaphor.

 

For example: a man dreams continuously that in the night he becomes a bird and starts flying into the sky. And he is puzzled - why? What does this dream mean? When he is awake he cannot make any sense of it. He will have to go to the psychoanalyst. In fact, there is no need to go anywhere - it is so simple.

 

Becoming a bird in the dream is nothing but a translation of your ambitious desires into the language of pictures. You want to rise high - simple! And you can rise high only when you have wings. There is a great desire to rise high in the world. In the dream you become a bird; the dream is simply using a poetic language.

 

The dream is more ancient, more primitive. The ancients have used not logical concepts but pictorial concepts. And because of this, great misunderstanding is happening. We are trained to think scientifically, mathematically, historically. The ancients were not concerned at all about these things. Their thinking was not historical: their thinking was mythological.

 

For example, in the East we don't know when Rama was born; whether he was really born or not - even that is not certain. We have written such beautiful stories about Rama; if we could write such beautiful stories, could we not simply note his birth-date? Was it so impossible to note his birthdate?

 

We don't know when Krishna was really born. And there are many many others who look almost non-historical. Why did this happen? The people who could write the Vedas and the tremendously splendrous Upanishads, the people who could compose diamonds like the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, the Bible, why could they not write historically?

 

They were not concerned. They had a totally different approach towards life. History is mundane, history is very ordinary - it is the concern of the newspapers. Mythology is sacred; it is not the concern of the newspapers. It is not really something that belongs to time but something that penetrates from the beyond into time. It is something miraculous.

 

Go into a Jaina temple and you will be surprised: the twenty-four teerthankaras, their twenty-four great Masters, great enlightened people, you will see - they all look alike!

 

Now, not even two persons in the world are alike, so how can twenty-four persons be so alike, exactly alike? Even Jainas cannot make any distinction, unless they look at the symbol at the bottom. The symbols were made so that you can know who is Mahavira and who is Neminath and who is Parshwanath - just to know, symbols were made.

 

Otherwise, the statues are exactly the same.

 

You will see their ears are very long, touching their shoulders - ALL twenty-four teerthankaras. What happened? It is possible, once in a while, a man may have such long ears - but twenty-four persons all having long ears? same kind of nose, same kind of eyes, same kind of body?

 

We are not concerned with the historical persons. We are concerned with the essential; we are concerned with the inner. These twenty-four teerthankaras were certainly different in their body forms - somebody may have been tall and somebody may have been short, and somebody may have been white and somebody may have been dark - they must have all been different, that is absolutely certain, but we are not concerned about their differences. We are concerned about something which is essential, similar in all of them - - their meditativeness .

 

Why the long ears? It is a symbol - a symbol of the man who has the art of listening, a symbol of the art of listening - as if the man is all ears. He is capable of listening so silently that he has heard truth, he has heard the voice of God, the still small voice within.

 

This is my interpretation. Jainas have their own stupid explanations.

 

They say a teerthankara is always born with a long ear - as if a teerthankara is a donkey or something. That is just a stupid explanation. My explanation is this: that a teerthankara is one who has heard the truth; a teerthankara is one who is so silent that he has become all ears. For example, for a moment... and you can hear all - this crow crowing, the train passing by. When all is silent, you become all ears.

 

How to say it? And how to say it through marble? They did well: they have made very very long ears. It is very symbolic, but it is not historical.

 

You will see their eyes are half closed, half open. That is symbolic: they are neither out nor in; or, the outer and the inner, the difference between the outer and the inner, has disappeared; they have transcended both. These are the three possibilities: to be out - that means mind; to be in - that means meditation, DHYANA, and to be beyond both - that means samadhi, ecstasy. That is the ultimate.

 

Patanjali has three words for it: DHARANA, that means to be out; DHYANA, that means to be in; and samadhi, that means to be beyond both, to be transcendental. You will find those teerthankaras with half closed eyes. Not that they were always sitting like that with half closed eyes. Walking on the road, they must have opened their eyes. Sometimes sitting silently, they must have closed their eyes. That's why there is a great conflict between the two sects of the Jainas.

 

DIGAMBARAS think that their eyes were closed. SWETAMBARAS think their eyes were open. And both may be right! because sometimes they must have seen Mahavira with closed eyes and sometimes with open eyes. But the artist is far truer, who has sculpted Mahavira with half open, half closed eyes - just to give an indication that now the outer and the inner have disappeared, they have transcended.

 

REMEMBER THIS is THE CASE with all the religions. Now, 'virgin birth' has nothing to do with biological virginity; that is utter nonsense. Jesus is not born of a biological virgin mother, but then what is meant by saying that Mary was virgin? 'Virgin' simply means utterly pure, so pure that there is no sexuality in the mind. It is not a question of the body but a question of the mind - so pure that there is no idea of sexuality.

 

And at the deepest core everybody is a virgin. Virginity means purity of love. Jesus must have been born out of great love. Love is always virgin. Love transcends sex - that is the meaning of virginity.

 

But there are foolish people everywhere; they go on insisting that "No, he WAS born of a virgin mother." They make him a laughing-stock. And because of THEIR foolishness, a great parable, a great metaphor, loses all meaning.

 

A mother and her daughter came to the doctor's office. The mother asked the doctor to examine her daughter. "She has been having some strange symptoms and I am worried about her," the mother said.

 

The doctor examined the daughter carefully, then he announced, "Madam, I believe your daughter is pregnant."

 

The mother gasped. "That's nonsense!" she said. "Why, my little girl has nothing whatsoever to do with men." She turned to the girl, "You don't, do you, dear?"

 

"No, Mumsy," said the girl. "Why, you know that I have never so much as kissed a man."

 

The doctor looked from mother to daughter and back again, then silently he stood up and walked to the window. He started out; he continued staring until the mother felt compelled to ask, "Doctor, is there something wrong out there?"

 

"No, madam," said the doctor. "It is just that the last time anything like this happened, a star appeared in the East - and I was looking to see if another one was going to show up."

 

Mary must have been in tremendous love; that's why she is virgin. Mary must have been so deep in love that sex was not the point at all.

 

Remember, you can make love to a woman without any love in your heart - then it is pure sexuality, animality; it is prostitution. You can make love to a woman with no idea of sex, then love is just a pure communication of two energies, a sharing, a dance, a celebration. No idea of sex in the mind and you can make love to a woman, and the woman can make love to you not thinking of sex at all. The whole point is where your mind is. If you are thinking of sex, if your mind is obsessed with sex, you simply want to use the woman, the woman simply wants to use you, it is ugly. It has no aesthetics in it, no poetry in it. There is nothing of the beyond in it - it is very muddy.

 

But the same act.... Remember, the act will be the same: when two lovers make love and when a man goes to a prostitute biologically the act is the same, but spiritually there is a tremendous difference. The man who goes to the prostitute is thinking only of sex, and the lover when he makes love to the woman has no idea of sex. It is simply a communion, coming closer and closer. Then sex happens only as a gesture of communion. It is virgin.

 

That's my idea of virginity. The lover always remains virgin; the lover cannot lose his virginity. And Jesus, a man like Jesus, can only come out of great love. But please try to understand the language of the ancients. It is very simple to misunderstand, because centuries have passed, words have changed their meanings. And we have forgotten that the old days were not days of scientific language but of poetic language.

 

For example, in the Vedas it is said that the sun comes every morning riding on his chariot, a golden chariot - of course, it is a golden chariot. Where can you find more pure gold? Early morning, and the sun rising - it is a gold chariot! the light is golden. And the Vedas say the chariot has seven horses. Now, in Sanskrit, ASHVA, the word for 'horse'

 

has two meanings. One meaning is the horse, the other meaning is the ray.

 

Sanskrit is a poetic language; each word has many meanings. In a scientific language, each word has to have only one meaning. The scientific language has to be exact. A poetic language has to be ambiguous, vague, so that one can play with words, because poetry is a play with words. If everything is fixed, then poetry will never be born.

 

Everything has to be liquid.

 

So words in Sanskrit, or old languages - Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic - all have many meanings. In fact, the word AHSVA has eleven meanings: one is the horse, another is the ray. The sun has seven rays - it is said in a poetic way that the chariot has seven horses.

 

Now we know, each ray has seven colours; each ray has seven rays in it. This will be a scientific explanation, but the Vedas were not written by scientists but visionaries, poets.

 

Poets also stumble upon the same truths, but when they express them they are expressed in a different way. In fact, poets always arrive before the scientists ever arrive, because scientists move very cautiously and poets move in a drunken way. Poets don't care about logic; poets don't move in a logical, syllogistic way - they simply jump from one point to another. And they are not afraid to be laughed at, and they are not afraid even if people think they are mad. So they always discover things before scientists discover them - almost thousands of years before. Because the scientist moves so cautiously, so slowly, step by step... he has to look into details; he has to prove something. The poet has to prove nothing: he simply asserts. Nobody asks any proof. Whatsoever happens in his intuition, he simply goes on singing it. Nobody wants any consistency, nobody wants any objective proof, nobody wants him to go and prove it in a lab. Naturally, he goes on saying things long before the scientist comes to know about it.

 

These are poetic expressions. You will have to understand the language of the poets.

 

A newly-married couple decided to spend their honeymoon as guests in a farmhouse.

 

When they arrived, they instructed the farmer and his wife not to disturb them, and went straight to their room.

 

Two days passed and they had not yet emerged, even though the farmer's wife had repeatedly offered them their meals. After one week, the amazed and exasperated farmer demanded that they should open the door and take their meal.

 

At this the husband replied that food would not be necessary as they were living from the fruits of love.

 

"Fruits of love?! " exclaimed the farmer. "That is the problem: you had better stop throwing the skins out of the window - my chickens are eating them and two have died already! " Remember always to whom you are talking, from whom the words are reaching you. The people who wrote the gospels about Jesus were more poets than scientists; they were not logicians, they were lovers. And if you try to prove everything scientifically, all that will result will be: Christ will become an unhistorical figure. Because the story says a star arose in the East, and three wise men from the East followed the star, and the star guided them to the place where Jesus was born. Now, stars don't move that way. Stars go round and round; stars cannot go in a line. If you try to prove it, scientists will laugh at you.

 

And stars are not born that way either.

 

The birth of a star takes millions and millions of years. The stars that look so small to you are not so small . They are huge, very huge; you cannot even imagine their hugeness. The earth is nothing, just a dust particle compared to the stars. Our sun is sixty thousand times bigger than the earth, and our sun is a very mediocre star. There are stars which are a million times bigger than the sun; they look small because they are very very far away, so far away that the distance cannot be measured in miles.

 

Scientists had to discover a new way of measuring the distance - they call it 'light year'.

 

In one second, light travels one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles - in ONE second.

 

So, if you want to know what a light year is, you will have to figure it out: one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles multiplied by sixty, then it will be one minute; multiplied again by sixty, then it will be one hour; multiplied by twenty-four, then it will be one day; multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five days, then it will be one year. One light year means that is the distance that light travels at such tremendous speed. The closest star is four light years away from us - the closest! Then there are farther and farther stars.

 

Up to now, millions of stars have been discovered, and that is not the end of the story but only the beginning. Scientists say that there seems to be no possibility that we will ever be able to know the exact number - because the better instruments we evolve, more and more stars go on.... And this is going on and on and on. There is no end to it.

 

Stars are not born like that - just to show the three wise men the way. And who are these three wise men from the East? These are just symbols. And why from the East? Again a symbol.

 

One day somebody asked me, "Why was Jesus not born in America today?"

 

I said, "For two reasons: one, you cannot find a virgin in America; second, where will you find three wise men there?"

 

It will be very difficult - he had chosen a right time; there were still virgins and still wise people. Three wise people from the East means that the East has always been the source of all wisdom, as far as the inner world is concerned. Why three? To represent man's three dimensionality - a trinity, trimurti, three faces of God. That's why the number three.

 

And why did a star show them the way? Only something mysterious, intuitive... the star is not born there in the sky; the star is born in their being. They have felt a great attraction. How have you come here? - from thousands of miles away. A star is born in you; you have felt a stirring somewhere deep down in your unconscious, of which you yourself may not be aware. A star is born! And that has guided you and has brought you here. It is not a logical process; it is a very intuitive process. The star was not born in the outer sky but the inner sky. They intuitively felt that something of tremendous importance had happened. And whenever there is born a man like Jesus, seekers from everywhere start moving.

 

WHEN BUDDHA WAS BORN it is said a great sage, very old, one hundred and twenty years old, immediately rushed from the Himalayas. His disciples asked, "Where are you going?" He ran! They had not even seen him WALK, because he was very old. And he didn't answer them because there was no time; he said, "No time to answer."

 

And the disciples followed, and he went down onto the plains. Buddha was born just very close to the Himalayas, on the border of Nepal and India. He immediately reached the king's palace. The king could not believe his eyes, because this man was not known to go anywhere. For at least fifty years he had lived in one single cave. He must have been a man like me! I have made a cave of my own - of course, it is a twentieth century cave, air-conditioned - but I go on living there, year in, year out.

 

Buddha's father could not believe it. He touched his feet and he said, "Why have you come? What has happened?"

 

And he said, "I don't have much time, because my death is approaching. That's why I had to run. Where is your child? I have come to see him."

 

And Buddha was just ONE day old. The moment Buddha was born, this old man started running; it took twenty-four hours for him to reach the plains. The king could not believe it, because this old man was very famous, a Master of Masters - why should he become interested in his child?

 

The child was brought immediately, one-day-old Buddha was brought immediately. And that old man, one hundred and twenty years old, touched Buddha's feet and started crying. The father was puzzled, the mother was shocked - "Why is he crying? Is there something wrong?" They asked him, "Why are you crying? Isn't the child going to survive? Or is there some calamity? Say it clearly - why are you crying?"

 

He said, "No, I am not crying because of any calamity. I am crying out of joy because I have seen; and I am crying also because I will not be able to live to see the full flowering of this man. I have seen him only in the bud - but that too is too much, to see a Buddha in the bud. I am crying out of joy, because God is born to you! And I am also crying in misery because I will not be able to see him; my days are numbered. Soon I will be leaving my body. I will not be able to see what flowering he brings to the world, what fragrance he brings to the world. And I will not be able to see that he will turn the wheel of DHAMMA - the wheel of the ultimate law. And millions and millions of people will become enlightened because of him. He has brought a light; he has brought a revolution into world. That's also why I am crying.

 

"But don't you be worried - be happy, rejoice!"

 

Now, these are parables. It may not have happened historically, but history is not our concern at all. Our concern is something MORE important, something MORE essential, something MORE eternal. History is just a procession of events in time; even if it did not happen historically, that doesn't matter. The parable is beautiful: a one-hundred-and- twenty-year-old saint bowing down to one-day-old Buddha. Age does not matter.

 

Awareness has no age. Ordinary formalities have to be dropped. The old man touching the feet of a child, a one-day-old child; crying out of joy - those who understand will always cry out of joy whenever they see something of immense value happening in the world. But very few will be able to see - even the father had not seen, the mother had not seen. Only those who have eyes will be able to see.

 

The three wise men from the East had to travel thousands of miles to see, but the people of Jesus' own country could not see. Jesus' parents had to escape from Jerusalem; they had to escape to Egypt. And Jesus could not appear back in Jerusalem. After thirty years we hear of him again, and then too he could survive only three years. The people of his own country killed him; blind people killed the man who had eyes; mad people killed one of the sanest men.

 

Even parents... Jesus' parents were not aware of what had happened. Three men from the East were needed to recognize him. Only those who have learnt something of meditation will be able to recognize a Buddha. When you come across a Buddha it is not easy to recognize him. It is very easy to be antagonized, it is very easy to be angered; it is very easy to be offended by his presence, because his presence makes you feel so small that it offends. His presence makes you feel so empty that it humiliates - not that he means any humiliation, but it is because of your ego that you start feeling humiliated. Your mind wants to take revenge! That's why Socrates is poisoned, Mansoor is killed, Jesus is crucified - and it has always been so. Whenever there has been a Buddha, the society has been very very inimical towards him. Even in India, even in the East, the same thing happened.

 

Buddha lived here, preached here, transformed thousands of people into the world of light, but Buddhism disappeared from India; it was destroyed. After Buddha died, within five hundred years, the religion was uprooted from here. The brahmins did not like the idea; the pundits, the scholars, did not like the idea - it was dangerous to their profession.

 

If Buddha is right, then all the priests are wrong.

 

If I am right, then all the priests are wrong. If I am right, then millions will be offended, because my being in the right puts them into being in a wrong space. Naturally, they cannot forgive me.

 

But, remember, these beautiful metaphors have to be understood with great sympathy, with great intuitiveness, with love, poetry, not with logic; otherwise, you will destroy them, you will kill them. Sometimes beautiful metaphors have been used and the religions, the so-called religions, the followers, have killed them themselves.

 

It is said that whenever Mohammed moved in the desert, a cloud would move just over his head to shelter him. Now, to be in the Arabian deserts is to be in fire. It is not a historical fact. No cloud will move... even men don't understand Mohammed - how will the cloud, poor cloud, understand Mohammed? Men were after Mohammed; his whole life he was escaping from one town to another town; his whole life he was always in danger, his survival was always in danger. When men were not able to understand him, how could a poor cloud understand him? So it can't be historical. But still I love it - the metaphor is beautiful.

 

The metaphor simply says that clouds are far more intelligent than men; it simply says even clouds understood the beauty of the man and protected him, even against the law of nature. Wherever Mohammed was going they would go - even if the wind was not going there, the cloud would go on sheltering him. It simply shows the stupidity of man is so great that even a cloud is far more intelligent.

 

It is said whenever Buddha came and he moved, trees would bloom out of season, trees which had been dead for long would again start sprouting green leaves. Beautiful poetry, significant poetry, lovely poetry, to be meditated upon. I don't think it is historical, but it is still significant. It may not be a fact, but it is a truth.

 

Facts belong to the ordinary events. The fact is that Buddha's own cousin-brother, Devadatta, tried to kill him in many ways. Once when Buddha was meditating, he threw a rock at him from the top of a hill; a great rock started rolling downwards. This is a fact, that Devadatta tried to kill Buddha, because he could not believe it: "How can Buddha become enlightened? We have played together; we have always been together in our childhood; we were educated together. If I am not enlightened how is he enlightened?"

 

And he declared himself enlightened, although he was not. And he would have been accepted as enlightened - if Buddha had not been there. But the presence of Buddha...

 

how can you declare your unenlightened being in the presence of a Buddha? It was impossible. The only problem was: how to destroy Buddha?

 

He released a rock. But the story is: the rock came very close to Buddha, and then changed its course. That cannot be a fact - but it is a truth. Truth is a very much higher phenomenon.

 

Devadatta released a mad elephant to kill Buddha. The mad elephant came ferociously, but when he reached Buddha, he looked at the Buddha, he bowed down, touched his feet.... Now, that Devadatta released a mad elephant is a fact; the other thing is not a fact.

 

The other thing is poetry, sheer poetry~ but of immense truth.

 

Remember: scriptures talk about truth; they are not history books. History books talk about facts. That's why in history books you will find Alexander the Great, and Ivan the Terrible and Adolf Hitler, and all kinds of neurotics. But Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus, they are not part of the history books. For them we need a totally different approach. And it is good they are not part of history books - they are NOT part of history; they come from the beyond, they belong to the beyond. They are only for those who are ready to rise and soar to the beyond.

 

Meditate over this beautiful truth that Jesus is born of a virgin mother - but it is not a fact. It is certainly a truth: he is born of a mother who is utterly innocent. He is born of a mother who is in tremendous love - and love is virgin, and love is always virgin.

 

-Osho, “Philosophia Perennis, Vol. 2, Talk #5, Q3”