Sadhguru offers profound insights into the symbolism and meaning of three of Jesus’ core teachings.
Questioner: I have always been confused about Jesus’s words when he took bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, “Take and eat. This is my body.” What is your take on that?
Sadhguru: This breaking of the bread and saying, “This is my body,” reflects the crux of Yogic tradition – your father’s genes should be totally obliterated. That is why the system of Yoga flourished, and it has remained alive and vibrant. We do not break bread – we have other ways to do it. We are looking at how to change the fundamental energy.
If you do even simple physical Yoga like Surya Kriya every day for six months, you will be a different human being altogether. Once the fundamentals of your energy change, your chemistry, brain wiring, and genetics will alter themselves. If you do not create a genetic distance, the old cycles and patterns will take effect, whether you like it or not.
This is happening to many of you. When you were 18, you were a revolutionary. You looked at your mother and father, thinking, “No, I am not going to be like that.” But by the time you are 45, you walk, talk, and behave like your mother or father. This is because the energy body carries information. If we make fundamental changes to it, then the very way this information functions will be different. If you want to become an absolutely fresh life, you have to distance yourself. Once, when Jesus was giving a sermon, his mother came, and someone told him, “Your mother has come.” Jesus said, “Who is my mother?” because he was doing certain practices that washed off his genetic Karma, the karmic bond he had with his parents and forefathers.
Questioner: Jesus said that if someone slaps you, turn the other cheek. Is such a teaching relevant today?
Sadhguru: This is not a general teaching. Jesus was saying to his disciples, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” He is not telling that to the whole world. The way the man lived, he is not the kind to show the other cheek. He went into the temple and threw out all the business. He did not say, “Okay, you got one shop here, keep another shop there.” He went about destroying their business physically, with his bare hands.
He was telling his apostles, “If you want to carry my message, you must be like this. There should be no resistance in you. No matter what people do, do not deviate from your path.” Because these cultures are very dialectical, everything is said with an analogy. He was saying that if someone slaps you on one cheek and you try to slap him back, then you are deviating from your path of peace and love. Jesus was saying, “Just stick to your path, no matter what someone else does.” In other words, if you want to act in your life, you should not react. If you react, you will get enslaved to someone else.
Questioner: Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” How can we remain innocent like a child despite all the education we receive in today’s world?
Sadhguru: Innocence does not mean ignorance. Education was designed to take away your ignorance, not your innocence. Innocence means you have no forgone conclusion about anything. A child is like this to some extent, but their innocence comes from ignorance. Even after knowing all the complexities of life, if you have still not become enslaved to it, that is innocence.
I know all the dirty things that any human being can do on the planet. I am more exposed to it than anyone else, but I am not a part of it. This is innocence, but this is not ignorance. No one can push me around and take me for a ride. This distinction between innocence and ignorance has to be established, otherwise the ignorant people claim they are innocent.
How to become innocent? Only if you create a distance between who you are and what you have gathered, are you truly innocent. If there is a little space between you and the mind, and between you and the body, you are innocent. I may know everything about your life; I may know all the things that you have done, but I can still be with you as a human being; I can love you and be nice to you – that is innocence. To do something just for the joy of it, without calculating what I will get out of it – that is innocence. When there is no expectation in your action, that is innocence. If you simply do what needs to be done – that is innocence. If you drop the question, “What will I get out of it?” that is innocence. One who is innocent will become open to the Kingdom of God.
