The disciples said to Jesus: Tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like.
He said to them: It is like a mustard seed – smaller than all seeds, but when it falls on the tilled earth it produces a large tree and becomes shelter for all the birds of heaven.
Jesus has used this mustard seed very often, for many reasons: one, the mustard seed is the smallest seed. God is invisible, smaller than the smallest, so how can you indicate him? The mustard seed is at the boundary of sight, the smallest thing; beyond that you will not be able to understand, because beyond is the invisible. The mustard seed is the boundary, the smallest thing in the world of the visible; you can see it but it is very small. If you go beyond you enter the world of the subtle, that which is smaller than the smallest. This mustard seed exists on the boundary.
And this mustard seed is not only the smallest visible thing, it also has a very mysterious quality: when it grows it becomes the biggest of plants. So it is a paradox: the seed is the smallest and the plant is the biggest.
There are things which are known only in their wholeness; you cannot dissect them. They are greater than their parts. This is the problem, a basic problem for those who are in search of truth: truth is greater than all the parts joined together. It is not just the sum of the parts; it is greater than the parts. A melody is not just the sum of all the notes, of all the sounds. No, it is something greater. When all the notes meet, a harmony is created, a harmony becomes manifest which was not there in single notes.
Osho is known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, with an approach to meditation that acknowledges the accelerated pace of contemporary life.
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