“It didn’t take long.

“One look in the eye of a sadhu and he knew that what he saw there, whatever it entailed, was what he needed to fully set him alight.”

Shard returned his steady gaze to the camera.

“Legend has it that very soon after his arrival in India…

“Jesus renounced the world.”

He paused – allowing time for his imaginary audience to digest the enormity of this suggestion.

“During this renunciation his mission on earth was revealed. What was his mission? It was to clearly record a message for posterity – not for the people of his time but for us – now – in the Regeneration.

“The message Jesus was chosen to record… for the benefit of some later generation… was the ancient art of renunciation.”

There was a gentle murmur of disquiet on the mountain.

“As it is to some of you now…”

Shard smiled warmly to the sadhus.

“This came as a great surprise to the Council of Mehants at that time as it has always been accepted that sadhus do not proselytize.

“Talk of taking the idea of renunciation out into the wider world sounded a little like heresy.”

The sadhus murmured in general agreement.

“So you can imagine the disquiet when suddenly, from out of the West, comes this young man, Jesus – a baby sadhu who had performed little or nothing by way of strictures – with the claim of a God given mission on earth to contemplate and eventually publish their traditional method of enlightenment – the method of realization through renunciation.

“Well…

“We all know what eventually happened to Jesus.

“In that stuffy, conservative little world, dominated as it was by Jews and

Lawyers, and… Jewish Lawyers…

Shard smiled almost indiscernibly –

“He was doomed.”

There was a hum of agreement.

“Amongst those following his story it was well understood that as soon as Jesus dared to reveal his vision of the Regeneration, he would be executed. The world was simply not ready. To you sadhus, and to all the informed observers back then, it was always merely a matter of time.”