WORTHLESS CAPRICES

“The wise man is not affected by public opinion.”

One day Jesus heard murmurs and gossips from two groups of discontents provoking controversy among themselves: the intransigents and the permissive. The intransigents said: “John the Baptist is a true saint; lives in rigorous austerity, feeding on wild honey and grasshopper tree pods; but this prophet of Nazareth is a friend of good food and intoxicating wine; even feasts with tax collectors and sinners.”

The permissive, on the other hand, exulted and said: “This Jesus, yes, is a modern saint; eat and drink like us; lives among society; he does not live in the desert, nor is he possessed of the evil spirit of confinement like this, John.”

There was then a vehement discussion between the intransigent Pharisees and the permissive Sadducees about the person of Jesus and his way of life.

Hearing this quarrel, Jesus answered them with a parable that is both hilarious and witty. He said to them: “How can I make these people happy? They are like children sitting in a public square, forming two parties: the happy dancers and the weeping whining. Some say: We played the flute and you didn't dance. Others complained: We sang sad songs - and you did not weep. John came, who neither ate nor drank, and you said that he possessed the devil! Then I came, who eats and drinks, and you say, here's a glutton and a drunkard!”

It is not possible to content everyone. When one leads an austere, blameless life of contemplation, discontents the permissive; when it leads to a normal human life, it irritates the intransigents.

And Jesus concludes with somewhat enigmatic words: “However, wisdom is vindicated by its children.” Another evangelist says: “Wisdom is vindicated by its deeds.” That wisdom is justified by the indisputable proofs of the truth it represents.

Why this divergence of opinions?

It is because the whole way of profanes and analytical intellectualists thinking’s are like divergent lines, which do not meet. In contrast, the spiritual intuition of sages resembles parallel lines, which, according to geometry, are found only in the infinite.

When the wise intuit the Truth and act on its intuition, intellectualist scholars seldom comprehend it, for they operate in another dimension. The zero-dimension of the wise cannot be comprehended by the analytics, who live in the second or third dimension of the profane. The tyrannical ego is invariably three-dimensional; acts in obedience to its physical-mental-emotional nature; acts according to the categories of time-space-causality. The ego is like a prism, scattering the Truth's colourless light into the multicolour strip of facticities, which do not harmonize with each other; green does not approve the red, blue does not reconcile with yellow. The colourless light of Truth does not fight with other colours, but colours fight with each other. Or, in the genius of the Bhagavad Gita: “The ego is the worst enemy of the Self, but the Self is the best friend of the ego.”

The wisdom of Truth does not fight with the erudition of illusions - but these fight with that and fight each other.

The fool does not comprehend the wise - but the wise comprehend the fool.

The insipient egos disagree with the wise Self - but the wise Self comprehends the insipient egos.

The profane man likes to eat and drink well and abuses the pleasures of life.

The mystical man refuses these satisfactions and lives only in God.

Cosmic man, however, neither abuses like the profane nor refuses like the mystic; but simply enjoy the goods of life, for he regards them as means, but never as ends in themselves. He who abuses considers the goods of life as the supreme end. Anyone who refuses does not regard them as either end or means. He who uses the goods of life does not regard them as an end but as a means to a higher end.

Jesus was not a mystic, at least for the three years of his public life, much less a profane one. He was a cosmic man. He did not abuse nor refused but wisely used the goods offered by the Father.

And for this reason, he was not comprehended by either the profane or the supposed mystics of his time.