Jesus has some harsh sayings that are incomprehensible unless we see them in the light of the harm that our emotional programs [the attitudes, behavioral patterns and identity developed in childhood] are doing. For example, Jesus said, "If your foot scandalizes you, cut it off." He wasn't recommending self-mutilation but was saying that if your emotional programs are so close to you that you love them as much as your own hand or foot or eye, get rid of them. They are programs for human misery that will never work.
— Thomas Keating, The Human Condition