Religion has no History, It is Eternal

Question 1:

No record has been kept about the time of Krishna's birth and death. and there is a good reason for it.

We did not think it wise to keep a chronological record of those who, in our view, are not subject to birth and death, who are beyond both. A record is kept in the case of people who are born and who die, who are subject to the law of birth and death. There is no sense in writing the biography of those who transcend the limits of birth and death, of arrival and departure. Not that we were not capable of writing their biography - there was no difficulty to it - but such an attempt would go against the very spirit of Krishna's life. That is why we did not do it.

Countries in the East did not write the stories of their great men and women as is done in the West.

The West has been very particular about writing them, and there is a reason for this too. However, in this matter, the East has now been imitating the West, ever since it came under the latter's influence.

And that, too, is not without reason, Religions of the Judaic tradition, both Christianity and Mohammedanism, believe there is only one life, one incarnation given to us on this earth. All of life is confined to one birth and one death; it begins with birth and totally ends with death. There is no other life either before or after this one.

It is therefore not accidental that people who think that life completes its entire tenure in the brief interval between one birth and death should insist on keeping a record of it all. It is simply natural, But those who have known that life recurs again and again, that one is born and then dies count less numbers of times, that the chain of arrivals and departures is almost endless, see no point in writing its history. It is rather impossible to write about an event which extends from eternity to eternity, And moreover it would deny our own understanding of it. For this reason history was never written in the East. And it was a very deliberate omission, an omission that came with our understanding of reality. It is not that we lacked the ability to write history or that we did not possess a calendar. The oldest calendar of the world was produced here. So it is obvious we refrained from writing history knowingly.

You also want to know why an enlightened person cannot rightly say when Krishna was born.

An unenlightened person may tell you when Krishna was born, but an enlightened person cannot, because there is no connection whatsoever between enlightenment and time. Enlightenment begins where time ends. Enlightenment is non temporal; it has nothing to do with time. It is timeless.

Enlightenment means going beyond time to where the count of hours and minutes comes to an end, to where the world of changes ceases to be, to where only that is which is eternal, to where there is no past and no future, to where an eternal present abides.

Samadhi or enlightenment does not happen in the moment, it happens when the moment ceases to be.

Let alone telling Krishna's story, an enlightened person cannot even tell his own. He cannot say when he was born and when he is going to die, he can only say, "What is this question of birth and death? I was never born and I will never die." If you ask an awakened one what it is we call the river of time that comes and goes, that constantly moves from the past to the future, making a brief present, he will say, "Really, nothing comes and goes. What is, is. It is immovable and unchanging."

Time is a concept of an unenlightened mind.

Time as such is a product of the mind, and time ceases with the cessation of the mind.

Let us understand it from a few different angles. For various reasons we say time is the handiwork of the mind. Firstly, when you are happy time moves fast for you, and when you are unhappy it slows down. When you are with someone you love time seems to be on wings, and when you are with your enemy the clock seems to move at a snail's pace. So far as the clock is concerned it goes its own way whether you are happy or miserable, but the mind takes it differently in different situations. If someone in your family is on his deathbed the night seems to be too long, almost unending, as if another morning is not going to come. But the same night, in the company of a loved one, would pass so quickly, as if it were running a race. The clock remains the same in both situations. Chronological time is always the same, but psychological time is very different, and its measure depends on the changing states of the mind. But the movement of the clock indicating chronological time is unconcerned with you.

When someone asks Einstein to explain his theory of relativity, he is reported to have said, "It is very difficult to explain. There are hardly a dozen persons on this earth at the moment with whom I can discuss this theory, yet I will try to explain it to you through an illustration." By way of illustration Einstein always explained that time is a concept of the mind. He said if someone were made to sit by the side of a burning stove, time would pass for him in a different way than it would if he were sitting by the side of his beloved. Our pleasure and pain determine the measure of time.

Samadhi is beyond pleasure and pain. It is a state of bliss, and there is no time in bliss, neither long nor short. So no one who has achieved samadhi can say when Krishna was born and when he departed. All that one in the state of samadhi can say is that Krishna is, that his being is everlasting, eternal.

Not only Krishna's being, everybody's being is everlasting, eternal. All being is eternal.

Asleep in the night, you all dream, but you may not have observed that the state of time in a dream undergoes a radical change from what it is in your waking hours. A person dozes for only a minute and in that brief minute he dreams about something that would ordinarily take years to happen in the waking world. He dreams he has married a woman, that his wife has borne him children, that he is now busy with the marriages of his sons and daughters. Events that would take years are compressed into a tiny minute. When he tells us his whole dream after waking up, we refuse to believe how it could happen. But he says it is a hard fact. The mind undergoes a change in the dreaming state, and with it the concept of time changes.

And time stops altogether in the state of deep sleep, which is called the state of sushupti in Sanskrit.

When you wake up in the morning and report you had a deep sleep last night, this knowledge is not derived from the state of sleep itself, but from your awareness of the time of your going to bed in the night and of leaving it in the morning. But in case you are not aware of it, you cannot say how long you slept.

Recently I visited a woman who has been in a coma for the last nine months, and her physicians say that she will remain in the coma for three years and will also die in the coma. There is hardly any possibility of her regaining consciousness. But if by some chance she regains her consciousness after three long years, will she be able to say how long she has been in the coma? She will never know it on her own.

In deep sleep the mind goes to sleep, and so it has no awareness of time. And in samadhi the mind ceases to be. Samadhi is a state of no-mind.

So one cannot know through samadhi when Krishna was born and when he died.

Rinzai was a famous Zen monk. One fine morning, in the course of his lecture, he said that Buddha never happened. His listeners were stunned. They thought perhaps Rinzai had gone out of his mind, because he had been living in a Buddhist temple where he worshipped Buddha's idol and was a lover of Buddha. Sometimes he was even seen dancing before the statue of the Sakyamuni, and now the same person was saying, "Who says Buddha ever happened?"

His audience said, "Have you gone mad?"

Then Rinzai said, "Yes, I was mad for so long, because I believed that Buddha happened." One who happens in time will someday cease to happen. So there is no sense in saying about the eternal that it happens. That is why I say Buddha never happened, and all stories about him are lies."

But the listeners said, "How can you say that when the scriptures say that Buddha happened, that he walked on this earth, and that there are eyewitnesses to this event?"

But Rinzai insisted that Buddha never happened. "Maybe his shadow arose and walked. But Buddha? Never."

That which is now born and then dies, which now appears and then disappears, is nothing more than our shadow; we are not it. So, deliberately, no chronological records of Krishna's life were maintained.

Religion has no history. That which appears and disappears, comes and goes, begins and ends, has history; religion is eternal, without beginning and without end. Eternal means that which is everlasting, timeless. So religion cannot have a history, a record of events and dates. And no enlightened person can say when Krishna happened or did not happen It is not at all necessary, nor has it any relevance. If someone says it has, he only betrays his ignorance.

We were never born, nor are we ever going to die. We have been here since eternity. Only eternity is.

But we all keep track of time continuously, from morning to morning And we measure everything with the yardstick of time, which is natural and yet not true. It is an index of our poor understanding, and we cannot do better than our understanding. In this context I am reminded of a fable.

A frog from the ocean visited his friend living in a small well. The well-frog wanted to know what the ocean was like. The visiting frog said it was much too big to be known from such a small space as a well. The well frog jumped halfway across the well and said, "Is your ocean this big?"

The other frog said, "Excuse me, it is impossible to measure the vastness of the ocean by the tiny yardstick of a well."

Then the well-frog took a bigger jump, jumping from one end of the well to the other, and said, "This large?" But when the visiting frog shook his head his friend grew angry and said, "You seem to be crazy. No place on the whole earth can be bigger than my well. Yet I will try another way to know how large your ocean is." And then he made a round of the whole well and said, "It cannot be more than this."

But he still failed to convince the visitor who said again, "In comparison with the ocean this well is nowhere; it is too small to be a measure of the ocean."

The well-frog lost his temper and said to his visitor, "Get out of here! I cannot stand this nonsense.

Have you ever seen anything bigger than this well? Even the sky, which is said to be the largest space, is only as big as this well, no bigger. I have always watched it from here; it is no more than the well."

We all live in the well of time. Here everything appears and disappears, comes and goes. Here everything is fragmented something has become the past, something is future, and in between the past and future there is a tiny movement known as the present, which goes as soon as it comes.

And we want to know who happened in what moment. In some moment we experience ourselves imprisoned in some well and we want to know that moment and that well.

No, Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira and Krishna cannot be imprisoned in a moment. We do try to imprison them so, because we are attached to our limitations, to our fragments. The day people in the West grow in understanding, they will forget all about the time of Christ's birth and death. In this matter the understanding of the people of the East is much deeper. And it has given rise to a lot of misunderstanding in the West in regard to us. The way we look at things, the way we think and say things is such that the world cannot understand. When someone from the West wants to know about the lives of the tirthankaras he is astounded to hear that some of them lived for millions of years.

How can he accept it? It seems to be impossible. How can he believe that some of the tirthankaras were as high as the skies? It cannot be so.

It is not a matter of believing, it is a matter of understanding. If a well-frog wants to be bold enough to describe the measurement of an ocean, what will it say? It will say it is equal to hundreds of millions of wells combined. The well has to be its yardstick and there has to be a figure. So we represent the age of the eternal with a figure of a thousand million years. And to describe the magnitude of the infinite we say that while its feet are firmly rooted in the earth its head reaches the sky - even the sky is not the limit.

That is why those who knew decided to drop all measurements and did not write the history of religion.

Krishna is immeasurable, eternal. And he is inexpressible, beyond words.

Question 2:

It was possible to keep such a record and it depended on the people who lived with Krishna. The people living with Jesus kept a record of his life, Jesus himself did not do it. If you look at a saying of Jesus' you will understand what I mean.

When someone asked Jesus if Abraham happened before him, he said, "No, before Abraham was, I am." What does it mean? By saying it, Jesus denied time altogether. Abraham had happened thousands of years before Jesus, but Jesus says, "Before Abraham was, I am." The people who lived with Jesus had a concept of time, were time-oriented. They had not seen an ocean, they had only seen wells. So they thought Jesus was saying something mysterious, they failed to understand that Jesus denied time itself.

Someone asks Jesus, "What will be the special thing in your kingdom of God?" Jesus says, "There shall be time no longer." But again his disciples failed to understand him. Neither Jesus nor Krishna kept a record of their lives, it is the people around them who did it. Jesus did not have disciples like those who lived with Krishna. In this respect too, Krishna was remarkably fortunate. The disciples of Jesus were much too ordinary; they could not understand Jesus. That is why Jesus was crucified:

he became so inscrutable, so incomprehensible. We did not crucify Krishna or Buddha or Mahavira not because these people were less dangerous than Jesus. The only reason we did not kill them is that India has traveled a long way, in the course of which she has had to put up with any number of such dangerous people.

This country has been witness to a long line of extraordinary and unearthly people, many-splendored and divine. So gradually we learned to live with them. And consequently we came to have an understanding of the way they lived and functioned. The people of the time of Jesus and Mohammed did not have this understanding. Mohammed did not have disciples of the caliber of the disciples of Mahavira. The people who lived with Jesus did not have the insight of those who lived with Krishna.

That is what made the difference, and a big difference at that.

It should be clearly understood that neither Krishna nor Christ wrote anything. Whatever passed for their utterances was all recorded by those who heard them.

Christ comes to a village and a group of people gather around him. While he is talking to them someone from the rear of the crowd shouts, "His mother has arrived. Give her passage."

Jesus laughs and says, "Who is my mother? I was never born." But the historian appointed a date and wrote that Jesus was born on this date. Now this man says, "I was never born. How can I have a mother? I am eternal." But the historians who recorded this saying of his also recorded that he was born on such and such a date.

Those who wrote about Krishna were men of profound insight. They thought it would be doing injustice to Krishna, who says again and again that he is eternal and who tells Arjuna, "What I say to you has been said to many others in past millennia. And don't think that this is the last of it, I will continue to come and say it again and again. And you are mistaken to think that those before you here will die at your hands. They have been born and died countless times in the past and they will be here again and again in the future." It was for this reason a biography of Krishna was not recorded.

It would be hard for history to research and recover the lost records of Krishna's life, because they were deliberately allowed to be lost. Every effort has been made to suppress the chronological account of Krishna and persons like him. Nobody knows who wrote the Upanishads and who wrote the Vedas; their authors are all anonymous. Why? Their anonymity says it is God who is speaking through them and so they need not be mentioned.

But in the West they kept records, although time and again Jesus says, "Not I, but my father in heaven says it." But the chronicler writes that Jesus says it.

Therefore it is not a failing on the part of this country if it does not have a sense of history. It is so not for lack of an awareness of history, but because of a still higher awareness that we have, an awareness of the eternal. A higher awareness, by its very nature, denies the lower. We don't attach so much value to an event as to the spirit running through the event, to the soul of the event. So we did not care to notice what Krishna ate and drank, but we did take every care to notice the witness inside Krishna who was simply aware when Krishna ate and drank. We did not care to remember when Krishna was born, but we certainly remembered the spirit, the soul that came with his birth and departed with his death. We were much more concerned with the innermost spirit, with the soul, than with its material frame.

And as far as the soul is concerned! dates and years are not significant.

Question 3:

Those who attach importance to the gross body also attach importance to gross events. But it has no importance for those who know the body to be just a shadow. Krishna does not accept that he is his body that is visible to the eyes. Nor does Jesus accept it as himself. They deny they are bodies, so any account of their bodies will not comprise an account of them.

No statues of Buddha were made for a full five hundred years after his death, because Buddha had forbidden his disciples to do so. He had clearly said no statues of his physical body should be made. So his followers had no way to create idols of Buddha. For five hundred years they had to reconcile themselves with the bare picture of the bodhi tree under which their Bhagwan had attained to enlightenment. They did not even show Buddha sitting under the tree; just the empty space occupied by him was shown.

The physical body is nothing more than a shadow, so it is not necessary to keep its record. Those who kept such records did so because they had no idea of the subtle, of the unseen. The gross, the physical, the outer becomes meaningless for those who know the subtle, the inner, the soul. Do you keep any record of your dreams? Do you remember when you dreamed and what you dreamed about? You dream every day and forget them. Why? - because you know they are dreams.

The life of Krishna that is apparent to us, is nothing more than a shadow, a dream. Do we have a record of the dreams Jesus had? No, we don't. Maybe a day will come when people will ask for an account of Krishna's dreams. They will say if he ever happened to be on this earth, he must have dreamed, and if he did not, then the fact of his existence will be in doubt. If it happens in some future time that dreams become important to some community and they keep a record of their dreams, then those who have no such records will not be believed to have existed at all.

What we know as our gross life is nothing more than a dream in the eyes of Krishna, Christ and Mahavira. And if people living with them also understand it in the same way, then there is no need whatsoever to keep a record of such dreams. And it is for this reason we don't have a biography of Krishna. This absence of a biography speaks for itself: it says his time rightly understood Krishna.

I was saying that for five hundred years no statue, no picture of Buddha was made. If someone wanted to paint his picture, he painted a picture of the bodhi tree with Buddha's place under it left empty. Buddha was truly an empty space. His statues and pictures came into being after five hundred years, because by then all those people who had understood rightly that Buddha's gross life was nothing more than a dream had disappeared from the earth. And the people who came after them thought it necessary to create a biography of Buddha, detailing when he was born, when he died, what he did, what he looked like and how he spoke. These records of Buddha were created much later.

Those who knew did not keep a record, ignorant admirers of Buddha did it. Such data are the products of ignorant minds.

Moreover, what difference would it make if Krishna had not happened? It would make no difference.

What difference would it make in your life if he had really existed? None. But you will say it would really make a difference for you if he had not happened. But I say it would make no difference what soever. Whether Krishna existed or not is not the question. The real question is whether the innermost being, the spirit and soul that Krishna symbolizes, is possible or not possible. What we are really concerned with is whether a person like Krishna is possible or not. It is not important if Krishna actually happened or did not happen. What is significant is that a man like him is possible.

In case it is possible, then it does not matter if Krishna did not actually happen. And if it is settled that a man like him is not possible, then it won't have any meaning if he, in fact, had happened.

An enlightened person is not concerned with the question of Krishna's being historical or other wise.

If someone comes and tells me he is not an historical figure, I will say, "Then take it to be so; there's no harm in accepting this." It is an irrelevant question. What is relevant and significant is the inquiry whether a Krishna is possible or not possible, because if you come to realize he is possible your life will be transformed.

On the other hand, if you are a skeptic you will not believe it even if, some day, all records of the life of Krishna, written on ancient stones, are made available to you. In spite of these records you will say such a man is not possible, that you don't believe them.

I say such a man is possible. And because such a man is possible, I say that Krishna happened, that he can happen and that he is there. But it is his innermost being, his spirit, his soul that is supremely important.

We see only the body; we don't see the inner, that which lives inside the body. Hence we become deeply involved with the outer, with the body. Buddha is dying, and somebody asks him where he will be after his death. Buddha says, "I will be nowhere, because I have never been anywhere. I am not what you see me to be, I am what I see me to be." So the outer life is nothing more than a myth, a drama; it has no significance. And saying loudly and effectively that the outer has no significance whatsoever, we refused to write its history. And we are not going to write such a history in the future either.

But later on, this country's mind became weak and afraid. It became afraid that in contrast with Christ, who seems to be an historical figure, Krishna looked legendary and mythical. While there is pretty good evidence in support of Christ's being an historical figure, there is none in the case of Krishna. So this country has been demoralized. And our minds have now been influenced by the same considerations which guided the followers of Christ to preserve his history so we are raising such meaningless questions. It would be better if someday we again gathered courage to be able to tell the Christians it was very unfortunate that when a man like Christ happened among them, they busied themselves with collecting and recording the times of his birth and death. It was a sheer waste of time. It was not necessary to preserve such insignificant information about such a significant person.

Therefore I tell you not to be concerned about such small matters. This concern only shows the way your mind works: it shows that you give value to the physical body, to its birth and death, to its external incidents. But the body is just the periphery of life, the external. What is really significant is that which lies at its center - alone, untouched, free of all associations and attachments. The witnessing soul at the center is what is really, really significant.

When, at the moment of your death, you look back on your life you will see it is no different from dreams. If, even today, you look back on the life you have lived, you will wonder whether it was real or the stuff of dreams. How will you know if you have really lived it or just dreamed about it?

Chuang Tzu has made a profound joke about life as we know it. One fine morning he left his bed and called his disciples to him, saying he was faced with an intricate problem and wanted them to help solve it. All his monastery gathered round him and they were puzzled that their Master, who always helped solve problems for them, was now asking them to do the same for him. They had never thought Chuang Tzu could have a problem of his own. So they said, "How come you have a problem? We always thought you had gone beyond all life's problems and difficulties."

Chuang Tzu said, "The problem is such that it can well be called a problem of the beyond. Last night I dreamed I am a butterfly sipping at flowers in the garden."

The disciples said, "What is the problem in this dreamj Everybody dreams about something or the other.

Chuang Tzu said, "The problem does not end with the dream. When I woke up this morning I found that I am again Chuang Tzu. Now the question is, is the butterfly now dreaming it has become Chuang Tzu? If a man can dream he is a butterfly, there should be no difficulty in a butterfly dreaming it is a man. Now I want to know the reality, whether I dreamed last night or the butterfly is dreaming right now!"

Chuang Tzu's disciples said, "It is beyond our capacity to answer you. You have put us in a difficult situation. Up to now we have been certain that what we see in sleep is a dream and what we see while awake is reality. But now you have confused us totally."

Then Chuang Tzu said, "Don't you see that when you are dreaming in the night you forget all about what you have seen in the day, as you forget the dreams of the night when you go through the chores of the day And it is interesting to note that while you can remember something of your dreams during your waking hours, you cannot, while dreaming, remember anything of what you see or do in the daytime. If memory is the decisive factor, then the dreams of the night should be more real than the dreams of the day. If a man sleeps, and sleeps everlastingly, how can he ever know what he is dreaming is not real? Every dream appears to be so real while you are dreaming - not one dream appears to be unreal in a dream."

For men like Krishna, what we know as our life, what we know as our gross life, is nothing more than a bundle of dreams. And when those who lived with him came to understand Krishna rightly, they decided not to record the events of his outer life. And this decision was made with full awareness; there was nothing accidental or unconscious about it. And it is significant. Besides, it has a message for you completely avoid becoming involved with history. If you get involved with history you will miss that which is beyond all records, all history. You will miss the truth.

Question 4:

It was very necessary for Krishna to say it. The Sanskrit text of his saying is, SWADHARME NIDHANAM SHREYAH, PARDHARMO BHAYAWAHA. And we need to under stand it from various angles.

Here Krishna does not use the word dharma to mean the traditional religions like those of the Hindus, Christians and Mohammedans. The Sanskrit word dharma really means self-nature, one's innate nature, one's essential nature, and it is in this sense that Krishna divides it into the primal nature or the self-nature, and the alien nature, the nature other than one's own. It is a question of one's own individuality, one's own subjectivity being quite different from the individuality of others. It is a question of your being truly yourself and not imitating another, not trying to be like another person, whoever he may be. Krishna here says, "Be immaculately yourself. Follow your own true nature and don't follow and imitate any other." He says, "Don't follow a guru or guide. Be your own guide. Don't allow your individuality, your subjectivity to be dominated, dictated and smothered by anybody else.

In short, don't follow, don't imitate any other person."

Maybe the other person is going somewhere wherein lies his own individual, subjective destiny - which is his freedom - but it may turn out to be your bondage if you follow him. It is bound to turn into a bondage for you.

Mahavira's individuality is his own; it cannot be the individuality of any other person. The path of Christ cannot be a path for another. Why?

Wherever I go I can only go as myself; I can go the way I am. It is true that on reaching the destination my self, the "I" will disappear. But the day the "I" disappears, the other, the "he", will also disappear. And the state of nature or being that I will then attain is everlasting, eternal. This transcendent nature is impersonal and oceanic. But right now we are not like the ocean, we are like a river. And every river has to find its own way to the ocean. On reaching the ocean, of course, both the river and its path will disappear into the ocean.

Here Krishna is talking to a river and not to the ocean itself. Arjuna is still a river seeking a path to reach the ocean. And Krishna tells the river to go its own way and not to try to follow and imitate the ways of any other river. The other river has its own route, its own direction and its own movement.

And it will reach the ocean on its own, by its own path. In the same way you have to build your own path, your own direction and your own movement, and then you will certainly reach the ocean. If there is a river it will undoubtedly reach the ocean.

Remember that a river never moves on a ready-made path, it always creates its own path to the ocean. Life, too, does not follow a ready-made path; it cannot. Life is like a river, not like a railroad.

Of course, when you follow another, imitate another, there is always someone ready to supply you with a road map, a chart, which has to be phony and false. And the moment you take this journey you embark on a journey to suicide. Then you begin to destroy yourself and to impose an alien personality on yourself. If someone follows me he will have to destroy himself first. He will have to constantly keep me in his mind: he will do as I do, he will walk as I walk, he will live as I live. Then he will obliterate himself and try to become like me. But despite his best efforts to imitate me he can never become me; I will serve only as a facade, a mask for him. Deep down he will remain what he is: he will remain the one who imitates, he can never be the one he imitates. Whatever he does, the masquerader cannot become the masqueraded.

Krishna says it is better to die in one's own nature than to live in any other's nature, that imitation is destructive, suicidal. To live the way another lives is worse than death, it is a living death. And if one dies the way one is, it means one has found a new life for himself, new and sublime. If I can die the way I am, retaining my individuality, then my death becomes authentic, then it is my death.

But we all live borrowed lives. Even our own lives are not our own, real and authentic. We are all second hand and false people. Krishna stands for an authentic life, a life that is our own. To be authentic means to be an individual, to retain one's individuality. The word "individual" is significant.

It means indivisible, united and one.

There are people all around who are out to destroy your individuality, who are trying to enslave you and turn you into their camp-followers. It is their ego trip; it gratifies their ego to know so many people follow them. The larger the number of followers, the greater is their ego. Then they feel they are somebodies people have to follow. And then they try to enslave those who follow them, and enslave them in every way. They impose their will, even their whims on them, in the name of discipline. They take away their freedom and virtually reduce them to their serfs. Because their freedom poses a challenge to their egos, they do everything to destroy their freedom. All gurus, all Masters do it.

This statement of Krishna is extraordinary, rare, and it has tremendous significance. No guru, no Master can have the courage to say what Krishna says to Arjuna, "Be immaculately yourself." Only a friend, a comrade can say it. And remember, Krishna is not a guru to Arjuna, he is his friend. He is with him as a friend and not as a Master. No Master could agree to be his disciple's charioteer as Krishna does with Arjuna in the war of the Mahabharat. Rather, a Master would have his disciple as his charioteer; he would even use him for a horse for his chariot.

It is a rare event that Krishna worked as Arjuna's charioteer on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. This event says it is a relationship of equal friends, and in friendship there is no one above you or below you. And Krishna tells Arjuna to find his self-nature, his intrinsic individuality, his primal being, his authentic face - and to be it. He tells him not to deviate from his authenticity, not to he in any way different from what he is. Why did he have to say this?

The entire being of Arjuna is that of a warrior, a kshatriya. Every fiber of his being is that of a fighter; he is a soldier. And he is speaking the language of a sannyasin, a renunciate. He is talking like a renegade, not like a warrior, which he really is. If he takes sannyas and runs away to a forest, and if he meets a lion there he will not pray, he will simply fight with the lion. He is not a brahmin, not a member of the intelligentsia. He is not a vaishya, not a businessman. He is not even a shudra, a workman. He cannot be happy with an intellectual pursuit, nor with earning money.

He can find his joy only in adventure, in meeting challenges, in fighting. He can find himself only through an act of adventure. But he is speaking of something which is not his forte, and therefore he is going off track, deviating from his self-nature, from his innate being. And so Krishna tells him, "I knew you to be a warrior, not a renegade, an escapist. But you are talking like an escapist. You say that war is bad, fighting is bad, killing is bad. A warrior never speaks this language. Have you borrowed it from others? It is definitely not the language of a warrior. You are deviating from your path if you are trying to imitate somebody. Then you are wasting yourself. So find yourself and be yourself, authentically yourself."

If Arjuna had really been a brahmin, Krishna would never have asked him to fight, he would very gladly have let him go. He would have blessed his going the way of a brahmin. He is not a brahmin, but he does not have the courage to say so. He is a swordsman; in his makeup he has the sharpness and thrust of the sword. He can shine only if he has a sword in his hand. He can find his soul and its fulfill, ment only in the depths of courage and valor, of battle and war. He cannot be fulfilled in any other manner. That is why Krishna tells him, "It is better to die upholding one's true nature than to live a borrowed life, which is nothing less than a horror. You die as a warrior, rather than live as a renegade. Then you will live a dead life. And a living death is better than a dead life."

Here Krishna does not use dharma in the sense of religions like Hinduism, Christianity or Mohammedanism. By dharma he means one's individuality. India has made four broad divisions or categories on the basis of individuality. What is popularly known as varna is nothing but broad categorizations of human beings on the basis of their own individualities. These categories are not specific and exclusive. Not that two brahmins or intellectuals are the same; they are not. Not even two kshatriyas or warriors are the same. But there is certainly a similarity between those known as kshatriyas. These categorizations were made after in depth study of man's nature.

There is someone who derives his life's joy only through work - he is a workman, a shudra. Not that he is a lowly being because of his being a shudra - it is grievously wrong to think so - but unfortunately this mistaken interpretation did receive wide acceptance, for which the wise people who originally conceived it are not responsible. The responsibility should lie with those ignorant people who imposed their wrong interpretations of varna on society. The wise ones said only this much, that there are people who can find their joy only through work, through service. If they are deprived of their work they will be unhappy, they will lose their souls.

Now a woman comes and wants to massage my legs. She does it for her own joy. Neither have I asked for it nor is she going to gain anything from me. And yet, because service is her forte, she feels re. warded. She regains her individuality; she gains her soul.

Someone gives up wealth for the sake of knowledge. He leaves his family, goes begging in the streets, even starves for the sake of knowledge. We wonder if he has gone out of his mind. A scientist puts a grain of deadly poison on the tip of his tongue just to know how it tastes and how it kills. He will die, but he is a brahmin, he is in search of knowledge. He will die, but he will discover the secret of that particular poison. Maybe he does or does not live to tell the world about his findings. There are poisons that kill instantly, but a daring scientist can take a particular poison because through his death he will tell the world what it is. That will be enough fulfillment for him.

We can say he was simply crazy to give up a thousand pleasures of the world and die to test a kind of poison. There were many other things he could have chosen for a scientific test. But this person has the mind of a knower, a brahmin; he will not derive any joy through service.

There is someone whose genius shines brightest in the moments of war, war of any kind, who attains the height of his potentials in fighting When he reaches a point where he can stake his all he feels fulfilled. He is a gambler; he cannot live with out risking. And he is not content with staking petty things like money, he will stake his whole life, where every moment hangs between life and death.

Then alone, he can come to his full flowering. Such a man is a kshatriya, a samurai, a warrior.

Someone like Rockefeller or Morgan finds his fulfillment by creating wealth. There is an interesting anecdote in the biography of Morgan. One day his secretary told him jokingly, "Sir, before I saw you I nursed a dream that I would someday become a Morgan, but now that I have seen you at close quarters in the capacity of your personal secretary, my dream has vanished. If I had a choice I would say to God to make me anything but a Morgan. It is much better to be Morgan's secretary than Morgan himself."

Morgan was a little startled and asked, "What is wrong with me that makes you say this?" The secretary said, "I have been wondering at the way you function. Office boys come here at 9 am, the clerks reach the office at ten, the managers at eleven, and the directors at twelve. The directors leave the office at 3 pm, the managers leave at four, the clerks at five and the office boys at six. But so far as you are concerned, you arrive every day at seven in the morning and leave for home at seven in the evening. It is enough for me that I am your secretary. How do you manage, sir?"

This man cannot understand Morgan, who has the mind of a vaishya, a businessman. He is seeking his happiness, his soul, by creating and owning wealth. Morgan laughed and told his secretary, "It is true I come here even before the office boys, but the office boys cannot have the joy I have by coming here at the earliest hour as the owner of the establishment. Granted, the directors leave the office at three, but they are only directors. I am the owner." A man like Morgan is fulfilled only when he creates and owns wealth.

After studying millions of human beings over a long stretch of time we decided to divide mankind into four broad categories. There was nothing hierarchical about this division, no category was higher or lower than the other. But the foolish pundits, the foolish scholars, took no time in reducing it into a hierarchy, which created all the mischief. The categorization of four varnas is, in itself, very scientific.

but to turn it into a hierarchy was unfortunate and unhealthy. It was not necessary at all.

The division of mankind into varnas represents an insight, and a deep insight at that. Therefore Krishna tells Arjuna. "Know rightly who you are. It is better to die upholding your self-nature than to live as a second-hand man. That is sheer madness."

In fact, it does not characterize the self-nature adequately, it is, after all, only a broad and rough categorization. Really, every person is unique and different; not even two are alike. God is a creator, not a technician, and he only creates original things, first-hand things. He never repeats what he once creates. Not even poets and painters do it. If someone asks Rabindranath Tagore to compose a poem like one he composed earlier, he will protest, "Do you think I am a spent bullet? Do you think I am dead? If I repeat a piece of poetry it will mean that the poet, the creator in me is dead. Now I can only write another original piece." No painter worth his salt repeats his paintings.

Once a very amusing incident took place in the life of Picasso. Someone bought a painting of his for a hundred thousand dollars and then brought it to him to confirm it was an original and not an imitation. The great painter said, "It is a downright imitation; you just wasted your money."

The man was startled and said, "What are you saying? Your wife confirmed it was your original painting."

As he said this, Picasso's wife came in and said to Picasso, "You are quite wrong to say it is not your painting; it is very much yours. I saw you doing it. You even signed it; it is your signature. How can you say it is a copy?"

Picasso then said, "I did not say I did not paint it. But it is a remake. I made a copy of one of my own old paintings, and so it is not authentic, original. It has nothing to do with Picasso the creator.

It was the imitator in me who made it. Any other painter could have done it. So I cannot say it is my authentic painting, it is an imitation of my own painting. The first one was authentic because I had created it. This one is just an imitation."

God creates; he is creativity itself. So his every act of creativity is original and unique and authentic.

Let alone two human beings, not even two rose flowers are alike, not even two leaves on a tree are alike. Pick up a rock by the roadside and go round the earth to see if there is another piece like it. It is impossible. And God has not yet exhausted himself. When he is spent he will, of course, repeat and begin to make inauthentic human beings.

He created Krishna only once, and although five thousand years have since passed, he has not made another Krishna. Nor is he going to, ever. He created Mahavira only once, the first and last Mahavira. Two thousand years have passed, but he has not repeated Jesus Christ. Likewise, each one of you is a unique creation of his - and he is not going to repeat you either. And this is your glory and grandeur. There has never been another person like you in the whole past, nor will there be in any future.

So don't lose yourself, your individuality, that which you are. God did not create you in the image of any other person, a carbon copy of another, he made you altogether genuine and new. So don't turn it into a counterfeit: it would be a betrayal of his trust. That is why Krishna says, "Rather die in your own nature than live in an alien nature." It is simply suicidal. Beware of it. Do not, even by mistake, follow any other, or become like another. To be oneself is the only virtue and to be like another the only sin."

But don't forget that this teaching is relevant to you as a river, not as an ocean. For the ocean you have yet to be, there is nothing like oneself or the other. The ocean is the destination, it is not where you begin your journey as a river. And you have to begin your journey as an individual, as a somebody. And when you arrive where neither "I" nor the other exists, you will cease to be an individual, you will be just nobody. But remember, you will reach there only as yourself, not as somebody else. It is in this context that Krishna said, SWADHARME NIDHANAM SHREYAH PARDHARMO BHAYAVAHAH.

Question 5:

In this context a few things should be rightly understood. If one knows Arjuna, even in passing, he can not say he is not a warrior. He is indeed a warrior; it is his distinct individuality - and his sadness, his grief is a momentary thing. He is not sad because he is going to kill some people, he is sad because he is going to have to kill his own family and relatives. If they were not his own people, Arjuna would have killed them like flies. He grieves not because of war, not because of violence, but because of his attach ments to those on the opposite side. He does not think killing is bad, although he says so. It is just a rationalization. His basic grief is that he has to fight with those who are so closely related to him. Most of them are his relatives.

The eldest of Arjuna's family, Bhisma, and his teacher Dronacharya are on the other side of the battlefield. The Kauravas are cousins, with whom he has grown up since childhood. Never did he imagine he would have to kill them. Violence is not the real cause of his resistance to war; he has been indulging in violence, in lots of violence, for a long time. This is not his first contact with war and violence. He is not a man to be scared of killing. He is, however, scared of killing his own people. And he is scared because of the bonds of his attachment to them.

It is wrong to say Arjuna is trying to become a brahman, because to be a brahmin means to be non-attached. In fact, it is Krishna who is telling him to shed his attachments. If Arjuna had said straightaway that he is against violence, Krishna would not have tried to persuade him to fight. He would not try to persuade Mahavira, who is also a kshatriya, a warrior. He would not try to change Buddha, who is a warrior too. It is amazing that all the twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jainas are kshatriyas. Not one of them thought of being born in any other varna than that of the kshatriyas.

What is really amazing is that the philosophy of non-violence is the kshatriya's gift to the world. And there is a reason for it.

The idea of non-violence could only take root in a soil deeply steeped in violence. People who had lived with violence for generations were the right vehicles for non-violence, and the kshatriyas became the vehicle.

Krishna could not have persuaded Mahavira to take to violence, because Mahavira did not say he would not kill his family and relatives, he was not grieving for them. In fact, he had renounced them, he had renounced the whole world of relationships. His stand was altogether different: he had totally denied violence as inhuman and meaningless. He would have said, "Violence is irreligious."

If Krishna had argued with him that, "It is better to die in one's own nature," he would simply have said, "Not to kill is my self-nature; I would die before killing." He would have told Krishna, "Don't tell me to kill. Killing is alien to me." If the Geeta had been preached to Mahavira, he would simply have stepped out of Krishna's chariot, said goodbye and retired to the forest. The Geeta would not have cut any ice with Mahavira.

But the Geeta had appeal for Arjuna; he was impressed and changed by it. The Geeta appealed to him not because Krishna succeeded with him, it changed his mind because he was intrinsically a warrior, because fighting was in his blood and bones. And all his distractions from war and its attendant violence, and his grief and sorrow, were passing reactions caused by his deep clannish attachments.

So Krishna succeeded in dispelling those patches of clouds that had temporarily covered the sky of his mind. Those clouds did not represent his real mind, they did not make up his sky. If it were his real sky, Krishna would not have tried to change it. This would be out of the question. Then the GEETA would not have been delivered at all. Krishna would have known it was Arjuna's own sky, his own self-nature. But the sky does not come so suddenly.

Arjuna's entire life bears witness to the fact that his real sky is that of a warrior, and not of a brahmin.

And his deviations are like transient clouds in the sky, which Krishna seeks to dispel. If it is his true nature there is no reason for Arjuna to move from it. This is precisely what Krishna tells him, "It is better to die in one's own nature than to live in any alien nature."

And had Arjuna this much to say, "This is my true nature, that it would be better to die than to kill others. Forgive me, I am walking out on the battle. "

The story would have ended right there. Krishna does not ask him to take on an alien nature; on the contrary, he insists over and over again on his knowing his true nature and remaining steadfast in it.

Krishna's entire effort, running through the whole of the GEETA, is directed towards making Arjuna realize his self-nature. He has no wish whatsoever to impose anything alien on him.

The other part of your question also deserves consideration.

Of course, I said that Krishna is not a Master, that he is a friend to Arjuna, but I did not say that Arjuna is not a disciple. I did not say that. Arjuna can well be a disciple, and this will be a relationship from Arjuna's side. He, on his side, can submit to being a disciple - which has nothing to do with Krishna who, nevertheless, remains a friend. And Arjuna is really a disciple; he wants to learn. To be a disciple means a readiness to learn. Therefore a disciple asks questions. Arjuna asks questions, inquires, because he wants to learn.

And there is a way of asking questions as a disciple; it has a discipline of its own. In order to inquire and learn, the disciple has to sit at the feet of the Master; that is a part of learning, of being a disciple.

To inquire and learn, it is first necessary that the disciple be earnest enough to learn, that he has the humility to learn, to know. Not that Krishna wants him to be humble and to sit at his feet - from his side he remains a friend; he is not a Master. He answers his questions as a friend; it is a matter of friendship with him. And therefore he takes pains to explain things at great length.

Had he been a Master he would easily have been angered by Arjuna's long questioning, by his persistent doubting. He would have said, "Enough is enough. Drop your doubts and do what I say.

It is not good to question, to doubt; you have to trust and obey your Master. You have to fight without raising a question when I ask you to fight. I need not explain." No, Krishna is always willing to answer and explain everything Arjuna would like to know.

Such a lengthy debate, such an elaborate exposition that the GEETA is, is enough evidence. Arjuna raises the same questions over and over again; he does not have any new questions, but Krishna does not object ever once. Now Kriyanand is doing the same here. He has been putting the same questions over and over again. But that does not make any difference to me.

When you put the same question time and time again, it only shows you have yet to understand it.

So I will continue to explain it over and over again; it is not a problem for me. It is in this spirit that the GEETA was delivered at such length. This GEETA is not Krishna's gift, it is Arjuna's, because he goes on raising one question after another. Krishna has to respond to his persistent inquiry. Arjuna has a mind that wants to learn, to know, and that is very significant.

After all is said and done on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, you tend to think Krishna imposed his will on Arjuna and almost forced him to fight. You may say that Arjuna is trying his best to escape, but Krishna, through his intelligent arguments, goads him to fight. But you are wrong to think so.

The truth is, all the time Krishna is trying to liberate Arjuna, to lead him to his freedom. That is why he explains to him at length what he can be, what his potentiality is, what his intrinsic nature is. He exposes Arjuna to Arjuna; he unfolds Arjuna to Arjuna. And if, after listening to the whole of the GEETA, Arjuna had re fused to fight and escaped, Krishna was not going to tell him, "Don't go."

There was no one to prevent him from escaping.

It is significant that Krishna, on his own part, has decided not to take part in the war of Mahabharat.

One who is not going to fight is trying to persuade another to fight. He keeps himself completely aloof from the war; he is not going to take up arms. It is extraordinarily amusing that Arjuna is persuaded to fight by one who is not going to fight himself. It is certainly a matter of tremendous significance. If Krishna had to impose himself on Arjuna, he should have asked him to follow him and not to fight. And only then could Arjuna have a grievance, that Krishna was imposing himself on him. Do you know one of the many names of Krishna is Ranchordas, which literally means one who is a renegade from war? Here a renegade is inciting Arjuna to fight as a brave man should fight. If Krishna wanted to impose himself on him he should have said, "Okay, now that you are my disciple, I ask you not to fight. Let us escape from the war together." No, it is not at all a matter of imposition.

All that Krishna tells Arjuna is this. "I know you to be a kshatriya, and I have known you very intimately as a warrior. And I know you better than you know yourself; your innate nature is that of a warrior. And so I am just reminding you of it. I tell you who you are. Know it rightly and then do what you choose to do."

The whole of the GEETA is an effort to remind you who you are.

Because Arjuna eventually agrees to fight after what Krishna has to say, you are inclined to think Krishna imposed his will on him. But this is a travesty of the truth. Krishna has no desires of his own; he is totally desireless. His desirelessness is superb and self evident. It is total.

In the war of Mahabharat Krishna alone is on the side of the Pandavas, while his whole army is on the other side, on the enemy side. Is this the way to fight a war, where your own army is on the side of those you are opposing? While Krishna is on the side of the Pandavas, his own army, his entire army is fighting from the side of the Kauravas.

It is a rare event in the entire history of war, in the whole history of mankind. And if this is the way a war should be fought then all other wars and warriors are wrong. Can you imagine Hitler would agree his army should fight on the side of the Allies, his enemies? Impossible. Armies are meant to fight for those who create and own them; there is no other meaning of an army. A belligerent's mind does every thing to see that all of his resources are used to help him win the war.

The Mahabharat is a weird kind of war, where Krishna is on one side and the whole of his own army on the side of the enemy. Obviously this man does not seem to relish fighting. He is certainly not a hawk, not a warmonger. He has no stake in war, but he is not an escapist either. Since a state of war is there, he offers himself to the Pandavas and his army to the Kauravas so that you don't blame him later. It is an extraordinary situation in which Krishna puts himself. Really, the structure of his whole makeup, his individuality, is unique.

And the Mahabharat itself is an exceedingly uncommon kind of war where, as fighting stops every evening, people from both sides get together, exchange pleasantries, inquire about one another and pay condolences to the bereaved. It does not seem to be a war between enemies, it looks like a play that has to be played, a drama that has to be enacted, an inevitable destiny that has to be accepted happily. Not a trace of enmity can be found after sunset when the two enemies visit each other, chit-chat and play together, and even drink and dine together.

Not only Krishna, there are many others who find themselves in the same strange situation.

Members of the same family have divided themselves and joined the two warring camps; even intimate friends find themselves on opposite sides of the battlefield. And what is most amazing is that, after the war ends, Krishna sends the Pandava brothers to Bhisma to take a lesson in peace from him - from Bhisma, who is the top general of the Kauravas' army, their commander-in-chief.

They have to take a lesson in peace from the general of the enemy's forces, and they sit at his feet as his disciples. And Bhisma's message is known as the chapter on peace in the epic of the Mahabharat. It is amazing, it is miraculous that one goes to the enemy to learn about peace. An enemy is a lesson in war, not peace, and you need not go to him to take a lesson. But here Bhisma teaches them the secrets of peace and righteousness.

It is certainly not an ordinary war; it is extra ordinarily extraordinary. And the soldiers of this war are not ordinary soldiers. That is why the GEETA calls it a dharma-yuddha, a righteous war, a religious war. And there is a very good reason to call it so.

Krishna does not deliver the GEETA with a view to persuading Arjuna to fight. No, he delivers it only to reveal to him his true nature, the nature of a warrior.

Here I am reminded of the story of a famous sculptor. He is busy carving a statue from a rock, when a visitor comes to watch him sculpting. The artist is working with a chisel and hammer in his hand.

As he cuts away chips of rock with expert skill a statue begins to manifest itself. And then a statue of superb beauty appears before the visitor's eyes. The visitor is simply enchanted and he tells the sculptor, "Congratulations, you are a marvelous artist. I have never seen another sculptor creating such an exquisitely beautiful piece."

The artist cuts in, "You understand me wrongly. I don't create a statue, I only help manifest it. A little while ago, passing by on the street, I saw by the wayside a statue hidden in this rock. I brought the rock home and with my chisel and hammer removed the unnecessary chips from it and the unmanifest became manifest. I did not create it, I just uncovered it."

Krishna does not create Arjuna, he only uncovers him, only uncovers his self-nature. He makes him see what he is. Krishna's chisel cuts away the unnecessary and ugly parts of his personality and restores him to his pristine being and beauty. What emerges at the close of the GEETA is Arjuna's own being, his individuality. But it seems to us that Krishna has created a new statue of Arjuna. The sculptor's visitor said the same thing, that he had seen him create it with his own eyes. But this is not what a sculptor feels about his art. Many sculptors have confessed they had seen the statues inside the rocks first and only then uncovered them. Rocks speak out to sculptors that statues are hidden inside and call to be uncovered. Not all rocks are pregnant with statues; not all rocks are useful for sculpting. Sculptors know where a statue is hidden and they uncover it. This statue happens to be the being, the individuality of the rock that bears it.

The entire GEETA is just a process of uncovering. It reveals the pristine possibilities of Arjuna.

Question 6:

When Krishna says "SANSHAYATMA VINASHYATI," he is speaking a great truth. But most people make a mistake in translating the word sanshaya. The Sanskrit word sanshaya does not mean doubt, it means indecisiveness, a state of conflict and indecision.

Doubt is a state of decision, not of indecision. Doubt is decisive; trust is also decisive. While doubt is a negative decision, trust is a positive one. One person says, "God is. I trust in him." This is a decision on his part. And this is a positive decision. Another person says, "There is no God. I doubt his existence." This is also a decision, a negative one. A third person says, "Maybe God is, maybe God is not." This is a state of sanshaya, indecisiveness. And indecisiveness is destructive, because it leaves one hanging in the balance.

In the GEETA Krishna tells Arjuna, "Don't be uncertain, indecisive. Be certain and decisive. Use your decisive intelligence and know for certain who you are, what you are. Don't be indecisive as to whether you are a kshatriya or a brahmin, whether you are going to fight or you are going to renounce the world and take sannyas. You have to be clear and decisive about your basic role in life. Indecision splits one into fragments, and fragmentation leads to confusion and conflict, to grief and disintegration. Then you will disintegrate, you will perish."

The word sanshaya in the GEETA has been taken to mean doubt, and therein lies the whole confusion and mistake. I am in support of doubt, but I don't support indecision. I say it is good to doubt, that skepticism is necessary. And Krishna, too, would not deny skepticism. He stands by skepticism, and that is why he asks Arjuna to put his questions again and again. To raise a question means to raise one's doubts. But at the same time Krishna warns him against indecision. He tells Arjuna not to be indecisive, not to remain in conflict and confusion. He should not be incapable of deciding what he should do and what he should not do. He should not get bogged down in the quagmire of either-or, either to be or not to be.

Soren Kierkegaard was an important thinker of the last century. He wrote a book with the title, "Either-Or". Not only did he write a book with this title, his whole life was the embodiment of this phrase, either-or. People in Copenhagen, his birthplace, forgot his real name and called him only "Either-Or". When he passed through the streets of his town they said to one another, "Here goes Either-Or." He would stand a long while at a crossroad, thinking whether he should turn to the right or to the left. After inserting a key in the lock he took long to decide which way to turn it.

Soren Kierkegaard was in deep love with a woman named Regina. When Regina proposed to him, for his whole life he could not decide whether to marry her or not to marry her.

This is indecisiveness, not doubt.

Krishna admonishes Arjuna not to fall prey to indecisiveness, because it will destroy him. Whosoever becomes a prisoner of indecision inevitably falls to pieces, because indecision divides one into contradictory fragments, a sure way to disintegration and ruin. Integration is health, and it comes with decisiveness. If you have ever taken a clear decision in your life you must have immediately become integrated in that moment. The bigger the decision, the greater the integration. And if one comes to a total decision in life, he has a will of his own, he becomes one, he attains to a togetherness, to yoga, to unio mystica.

All of Krishna's effort is directed toward eradicating indecisiveness, it has nothing to do with doubt.

He says, "Doubt fully, but never remain indecisive." I am fully in favor of doubt. Doubt you must. Go on using the chisel of doubt until the statue of trust becomes manifest. Keep chiseling from the rock, with the hammer of doubt, the foreign elements that have entered your nature, until you eliminate the last of them and nothing remains to be eliminated. Then the statue of trust will appear in its full splendor.

But remember, if you continue to use the hammer of doubt even after the statue has manifested, you will injure the statue, you will hurt your own being.

Trust is the ultimate product of doubt, and insanity is the ultimate result of indecision. An indecisive person will end up insane; he will disintegrate and perish.

If you understand it in this light, you will understand what Krishna means to say.