I have heard about a priest who was teaching, and he came to talk about hell. He warmed up to the theme, and said, "There will be much fire, and you will be thrown into it. And there will be much trembling and gnashing of teeth."
And an old woman stood up and she said, "Sir, I have lost my teeth."
The priest said, "Don't be worried. False teeth will be provided."
They have made every arrangement to make you suffer — it comes out of a sadist's imagination. These people who have invented hell are dangerous.
And they have invented heaven also: heaven for themselves and for those who follow them, hell for those who don't follow them and don't believe in them.
But these are legal attitudes: the same attitude as punishment. And punishment has failed.
Crime cannot be stopped, it has not been stopped, by punishment. It goes on growing, because in fact the legal mind and the criminal mind are two aspects of the same coin; they are not different.
All legal minds are basically criminal, and all criminal minds can become good legal minds — they have the potentiality. They are not two separate worlds; they are part of one world.
Crime goes on increasing, and the law goes on becoming more and more complicated and complex.
By punishment man has not been changed; in fact, man has been more corrupted. Courts have not changed him; they have corrupted him more.
And neither the concepts of reward, heaven, respectability, have been of any help, because hell depends on fear, and heaven depends on greed.
Fear and greed, those are the problems. How can you change man through them? They are the diseases, and the legal mind goes on saying they are the medicines.
A totally different attitude is needed: the attitude of love.
If you search, you will come to know it is love, not knowledge, that joins you to existence; not riches, not power, not fame — it is love that joins you to existence. And whenever you feel love, you are tremendously happy, because more and more life becomes available to you.
Jesus, or a Buddha, both are like a honey-bee.
The honey-bee goes and finds beautiful flowers in a valley. She comes back, she dances a dance of ecstasy near her friends to tell them that she has found a beautiful valley full of flowers. Come, follow me.
A Jesus is just a honey-bee who has found the original source of life: a valley of beautiful flowers, flowers of eternity. He comes and dances near you to give you the message: Come, follow me.
If you try to understand and seek within you, you will find it is love that is the most significant, most essential thing in your being. Don't starve it.
Help it to grow, so that it can become a big tree; so that birds of heaven can take shelter in you; so that in your love, tired travellers on the path can rest; so that you can share your love; so that you can also become a honey-bee. In your ecstasy, you can also tell people to come and follow you.
Each and everyone has to become a Jesus one day, and don't be contented for less.
Unless you become a Jesus, you cannot be a Christian. If you are satisfied by being a Christian, you are fooling yourself. Be a Jesus — less than that is not worthwhile. And you can be, because in fact you are. Only a recognition… just a recognition.
OSHO