The fifth question:

Question 5

DO MIRACLES HAPPEN? WAS NOT CHRIST REALLY BORN TO A VIRGIN MARY?

I will simply tell you two stories.

There was no doubt about it -- Gloria was pregnant.

"Please feel free to use my telephone if you'd like to tell your husband," said the doctor.

"But doctor, I'm not married."

"Well then, you'd better tell your lover."

"But I've never had a lover!"

"All right. Then I must ask you to go home and tell your mother to get ready for the second coming of Christ."

And the second:

An innocent young woman told her doctor she was not feeling at all well lately. After examination the doctor told her she was pregnant.

"But that is impossible, I have never been with a man!"

The doctor patiently explained the facts of life to her in some detail.

"Well!" she said, "and that lousy First Aid Instructor told me it was artificial respiration."

Miracles don't happen. Miracles can't happen. Miracles are just the stupid desire in man's mind to have something special. They show only that stupid desire -- the desire for the sensational. These are ancient detective stories, nothing else. Christ is born to a Virgin Mary -- just ancient novels, fictions. Do you know that J. Krishnamurti only reads detective stories, nothing else?

One of his followers once came to me, and he said, "I am puzzled. Since I have come to know that Krishnamurti reads only detective novels and stories, I am very worried. And he goes on condemning the scriptures. And he says, 'I am fortunate that I have not read any scriptures of the world."'

I said to him, "You need not be worried, because I have been reading both -- the scriptures and the detective stories -- and I have not found any difference between them. They are the same. The detectives are modern, and the mythologies are ancient; they are just old styles of writing detective stories."

Just see, in the story of Christ you have all that a modern film needs -- a great sensation that he is born to a virgin woman, then he disappears for thirty years; where he is, nobody knows, it creates much curiosity; then suddenly he appears with twelve disciples. There are people who suspect he was gay. All men? Why does he go on carrying this boys' club with him? Now great suspicion.... And you know Jews -- they are the gayest people in the world, so who knows? Then suddenly one day a prostitute comes and he allows her very much intimacy -- now more suspicion. Magdalene suddenly appears, and the respectable people are against him: "This is not good -- a prophet moving with a prostitute. Two polarities, the prophet and the prostitute -- how are they together? That doesn't fit." But that creates more sensation. Then his own disciple, Judas, betrays him and sells him for only thirty rupees! And then he is crucified. Then Judas commits suicide. And then... things don't end. The latest, the last fiction, is that he is resurrected, he is seen by people. Now what more can you have in a sensational story? All is there.

These are created by the followers. Jesus is a simple man, very simple and very ordinary -- and that is his beauty -- absolutely non-pretentious, utterly at ease with life, a relaxed person. His only crime was that he was doing his own thing. His only crime was that he was not following some ancient rubbish, he was trying to do things in his own way. His only crime was that he was original, nothing else. But that is the real miracle! -- that he is original. All else is just meaningless, to satisfy the curiosities of the mediocre. Just withdraw these things from Jesus' life and you will not find any Christian in the world. Just withdraw.... He's crucified -- withdraw it; he is not crucified. He lives as a grocer for one hundred years and dies in his bed: ninety-nine percent of Christians will say, "Then, finished! What is the point in following this man? He died in bed. A prophet has to die on the cross." So if you want to be a prophet, remember, never die in the bed. In the bed, ordinary people die, very ordinary people. Extraordinary people have to find some new ways to die.

Just make things simple: Jesus falls in love with a woman, has children, twelve children. In those days twelve was not a big number. There was no birth control or anything, so he has twelve children, and his children's children, a big family, and he lives like a grandfather to be a hundred years old. All Christians will say, "Finished! This is not our man.

Or you come to find that Mary had a lover... maybe. Jesus is not born from Joseph; that is possible. She had a lover, and now to hide the whole story of having a lover.... Because prophets should not be born out of love. They should be born out of the deadlocks called wedlock. They should be born out of marriage, they should be traditional, respectable. Now the whole thing seems to be simple. Jesus seems to have a father who cannot be declared. Now the story is created, now it becomes a miracle. If you come to find some ancient scripture describing the lover of Mary, how many people would be ready to stand with Christ? He would become immediately rejected.

And that would have been far more beautiful, to be born out of a love-affair, not out of marriage -- because when a child is born out of love, the child has a deeper being. Marriage creates only superficial beings, because in marriage two bodies meet, two souls never meet. To me it seems to be perfectly right that Jesus is born out of some love-affair, in great passion, in great joy, in great devotion, in great love. A man like Christ should come out of love. But that would not look right to the Pope, to the Vatican, to the theologians and the priests. They stand with convention. Now this fabrication has to be done.

Miracles are there, but those are not the miracles about which the scriptures talk. The real miracle is that Jesus died on the cross with a prayer on his lips, saying to God, "Forgive these people because they don't know what they are doing to me." This is a miracle! -- not that he is resurrected; that is nothing. The real miracle is his being crucified, killed, destroyed, abused, people throwing tomatoes and banana peels on him, abusing in every way, spitting on him, and he says, "Father, forgive these people because they don't know what they are doing. They are unconscious, they are unaware, they are not awake. All that they are doing is in a kind of dream. Forgive them." THIS is miracle.

Jesus driving the money-changers from the temple is a miracle. A man of compassion, a man of love, is so enraged that he takes a whip in his hand and chases the money-changers out of the temple. This is miracle. Compassion can become such that even if it has to be anger, it is ready to go to that length -- this is miracle.

Walking on the water is not a miracle. Turning stones into bread is not a miracle. These are stories to satisfy the stupid, the mediocre.

But Christ dared to herald a new insight in human beings. He declared "God is love" -- that is miracle. The miracle is that he says, "You have been told before that if somebody takes one of your eyes out, take both of his. You have been told that. But I say unto you if somebody slaps you on one cheek, give him the other too." THIS is miracle.

Miracles are very silent phenomena. They don't look very miraculous, they don't even look like news. They are whisperings in the eternal silence. But those are real miracles. If you really want to know whether miracles happen or not....

Miracles happen, but you don't know what those miracles are. What you think of as miracles are just fabrications, but the stupid mind hankers for these things.

Spirituality has become too mixed with these things. It has to be cleaned of all this nonsense. But it attracts crowds. It can only attract the crowd-mind, and you all have something of the crowd-mind in you. That crowd-mind has to be dropped, only then will you be with me totally.

Just the other day I was talking and I was saying that this is all a kind of circus -- that people produce holy ash and wristwatches. And I looked at Ashoka: he became worried that I might mention Satya Sai Baba. He has been very interested in Satya Sai Baba and his miracles. When I was talking about this he simply bent his head down, he became very much afraid. I felt for him, and I didn't mention Satya Sai Baba. I said, "Forget it. This Ashoka will feel too bad, and he is a very new sannyasin to me, and I cannot be that hard, YET."

You all have that crowd-mind in you; that has to be dropped. With that crowd-mind you will remain mediocre.

Be original, be yourself, and look at life with intelligent eyes.