Lazarus, come out!
YOU
HAVE heard the story of Lazarus — that is a story of man as such. It is said
Lazarus died. Jesus loved him very much. His sisters informed Jesus; by the
time the news reached him, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Jesus came
running. Everybody was crying and weeping, and he said, “Don’t weep, don’t cry!
Let me call him back to life!”
Nobody
could believe him. Lazarus is dead! And the sisters of Lazarus said, “He is now
stinking — he cannot come back. His body is deteriorating.”
But
Jesus went to the grave where the body was preserved for him to come. The stone
was pulled aside. In the dark cave Jesus called out, “Lazarus, come out! ” And
it is said he came out.
It
may not have happened that way; it may be just a parable — but it is a
beautiful parable about man. When I look into your eyes, that’s all I can say:
“Lazarus, come out!” You are dead and stinking. You are not yet alive. You are
born, but you need to be reborn. Your first birth has not been of much help. It
has brought you to a certain extent, but that is not enough. You have to go a
little further. The birth that has already happened to you is only physical —
you need a spiritual birth.
It
is said: One professor of Jerusalem university went to see Jesus. Of course, he
went in the night. His name was Nicodemus; he was a very rich, respectable man,
a great scholar, well known in the Jewish world. He was afraid to go to Jesus
in the daylight, because what will people think? He was known to be a great,
learned man, wise — what will they think? that he has gone to this carpenter’s
son to ask something? He was older than Jesus — could almost have been Jesus’
father. No, it was not possible for him to go in the daylight. Cunning and
clever, he went in the night when there was nobody else. And Jesus asked him,
“Why didn’t you come in the day?”
He
said, “I was afraid.”
Jesus
must have laughed. He said, “Nicodemus, for what have you come? What do you want
of me?”
He
said, “I would like to know how I can know God, how I can know the truth.”
Jesus
said, “You will have to be reborn.”
Nicodemus
could not understand. Jokingly he said, “What do you mean? Have I to enter
again into a woman’s womb? Are you joking or something? Are you kidding or
something?”
Jesus
said, “No, I mean it — I mean what I say. You have to be reborn. You are such a
coward. This is not life. You don’t have any courage. You will have to be
reborn! You will have to become a new man, because only that new man can come
to truth and realize it. Even to see me you have come in the night. How will
you be able to go and see the truth? How will you encounter God? You will have
to go naked. You will have to go in deep humility. You will have to drop all
your respectability, all your scholarship. You will have to drop your ego —
that’s what to be reborn means.”
The
first birth is only a physical birth; don’t be satisfied with it. It is
necessary but not enough. A second birth is needed. The first birth was through
your mother and father; the second birth is going to be out of the mind. You
have to slip out of the mind and that will be your rebirth — you will be
reborn.
And,
for the first time, trees will be greener than they are, and flowers will be
more beautiful than they are, and life will be more alive than you have ever
known it, because you can know it only to the extent that you are alive. You
cannot know life if you are not alive. Whatsoever you are, you know life only
up to that extent.
Osho
– “A Sudden Clash of Thunder”
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