The Hard Teachings of Jesus

When I was writing my book, The Zen Teachings of Jesus, there was a passage in the Gospel of Matthew that I was having real difficulty understanding. It says:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”(Matthew 7: 7–8)

It sounds too easy for me. Can we really ask for whatever we want and it will be given to us? It wasn’t until years later that I get a new understanding by reading the writing of Rumi.

“There came one and knocked at the door of the Beloved.

And a voice answered and said, ‘Who is there?’

The lover replied, ‘It is I.’

‘Go hence,’ returned the voice;

‘there is no room within for thee and me.’

Then came the lover a second time and knocked and again the voice demanded,

‘Who is there?’

He answered, ‘It is thou.’

‘Enter,’ said the voice, ‘for I am within.” (Rumi, The Way of the Sufi)

The way to under the “Ask and it will be given to you” verse is that God is not something outside of or separate from yourself. Many of us have this antiquated view…