"Time is not there outside you, it is the very functioning of your mind that creates time. A Jesus lives without time; you live in time. Hence, all the buddhas – Jesus is a buddha, an enlightened person – have been emphasizing, 'Be desireless! Then suddenly the gates of heaven are open for you.' But to be desireless you have to be here and now, because then there is no bridge to move into the future, to move anywhere; then there is no bridge. Desire is the bridge.

"Mind needs time, mind cannot exist without time. The more time you have, the more ground mind has to play, to fool around. Then it can make many, many desires and dreams, and live in those desires and dreams. Priests have always been talking as if heaven is in the future because only the future can be understood by the mind, and only because of that future can you be exploited. And you also feel at ease:

"I have heard that in a church the minister was praising the kingdom of God and he said, 'There are streets of gold and fields of emeralds!' And he praised as much as he could and then he asked, invited, 'Who would like to go there?' All the hands were raised except one old man's. The minister couldn't believe it. Why has this old man not raised his hand? He should be the first, because he is just nearing death.

"Then he condemned and painted a picture of hell, with all its ugliness, torture, pain, suffering, fire. Again he challenged, 'Now, who would like to go to the kingdom of God, to heaven?' All hands were raised, but that old man was still sitting without raising his hand.

"The minister was puzzled. He asked that old man, 'Don't you hear me? Are you deaf? Would you not like to go to the kingdom of God, to heaven?'

"The man said, 'Eventually, yes. But the way you are carrying on, it seems you want to carry off a load right now. Eventually yes, but right now, no!'

"If you are told, 'The kingdom of God is here and now,' you are not ready."