Spiritualism, Religion and Politics

Question 1:

Let us first understand the difference between religion and spiritualism; they are not the same thing.

Religion is one avenue of life, like politics, art and science. Religion does not contain the whole of life; spiritualism does. Spiritualism is the whole of life. Spiritualism is not an avenue of life; it encompasses the whole of it. It is life.

A religious person may be afraid of taking part in politics, but a spiritual person is not afraid. A spiritual person can take part in politics without any fear. Politics is difficult for a religious person because he is tethered to certain ideas and ideals which come into conflict with politics. But a spiritual person is not bound by any ideas or concepts. He accepts life totally; he accepts life as it is. So he can easily participate in politics.

Krishna is a spiritual man, he is not religious. Mahavira is a religious man in this sense, and so is Buddha; they have opted for one particular avenue of life, which is religion. And for the sake of religion they have denied all other avenues of life. They have sacrificed the rest of life on the altar of a part. Krishna is a spiritual man; he accepts life in its totality. That is why he is not afraid of politics, he does not shrink from going headlong into it. For him, politics is part of life.

It is important to understand that people who have kept away from politics in the name of religion have only helped to make politics more irreligious; their non-cooperation has not made it any better.

I repeat: Krishna accepts life with all its flowers and thorns, its light and shade, sweet and sour.

He accepts life choicelessly, unconditionally. He accepts life as it is. It is not that Krishna chooses only the flowers of life and shuns its thorns; he accepts both together, because he knows thorns are as necessary to life as the flowers. Ordinarily we think thorns are inimical to flowers. It is not true.

Thorns are there for the protection of flowers; they are deeply connected with each other. They are united - members of each other. They share common roots, and they live for a common purpose.

Many people would like to destroy the thorn and save the flower, but that is not possible. They are parts of each other, and both have to be saved.

So Krishna not only accepts politics, he lives in the thick of politics without the least difficulty.

The other part of your question is also significant. You say that in politics Krishna uses means that cannot be said to be right. To achieve his ends, he uses lies, deception and fraud - which cannot be justified in any way. In this connection one has to understand the realities of life. In life there is no choice between good and bad, except in theory. The choice between good and evil is all a matter of doc trine. In reality, one always has to choose between the greater evil and the lesser evil.

Every choice in life is relative. It is not a question of whether what Krishna did was good or bad.

The question is whether it would have resulted in good or bad had he not done what he did. The question would be much easier if it was a simple choice between good and bad, but this is not the case in reality. The realities of life are that it is always the choice between greater evils and lesser evils.

I have heard an anecdote:

A priest is passing a street when he hears a voice crying, "Save me, save me! I am dying!" It is dark and the street is narrow. The priest rushes to the place and finds that a big strong man has overpowered another man, who seems to be very poor and weak. The priest demands that the strong man release the poor man, but he refuses. The priest physically intervenes in the struggle and succeeds in releasing the victim from the strong man's grip, and the poor man takes to his heels.

The strong man says, "Do you know what you have done? That man had picked my pocket and you have helped him to run away with my purse."

The priest said, "Why didn't you say it before? I thought you were unnecessarily torturing a poor man. I am sorry; I made a mistake. I had thought I was doing something good, but it turned out to be evil." But the man had already disappeared with the purse.

Before we set out to do good, it is necessary to consider if it will result in evil. It is equally necessary to know that a bad action may ultimately result in good.

The choice before Krishna is between lesser evil and greater evil. It is not a simple choice between good and evil. The fighting tactics which Krishna uses are nothing compared to those used in the war of Mahabharat by the other side, who are capable of doing anything. The Kauravas are no ordinary evil-doers - they are extraordinarily evil. Gandhi would be no match for them; they could crush him in moments. Ordinary good cannot defeat an evil that is colossal. Gandhi would know what it is to fight with a colossus of evil if he had fought against a government run by Adolph Hitler.

Fortunately for him, India was ruled by a very liberal community - the British - not by Hitler. Even among the British - if Churchill had been in power and Gandhi had to deal with him, it would have been very difficult to win India's independence. The coming of Atlee into power in Britain after the war made a big difference.

The question of right means, which Gandhi talks about so much, deserves careful consideration.

It is fine to say that right ends cannot be achieved without right means. However, in this world, there is nothing like an absolutely right end or absolutely right means. It is not a question of right versus wrong; it is always a question of greater wrong versus lesser wrong. There is no one who is completely healthy or completely sick; it is always a matter of being more sick or less sick.

Life does not consist of two distinct colors - white and black, life is just gray, a mixture of white and black. In this context men like Gandhi are just utopians. dreamers, idealists who are completely divorced from reality. Krishna is in direct contact with life; he is not a utopian. For him life's work begins with accepting it as it is.

What Gandhi calls "pure means" are not re ally pure, cannot be. Maybe pure ends and pure means are available in what the Hindus call moksha, or the space of freedom. But in this mundane world every, thing is alloyed with dirt. Not even gold is unalloyed. What we call diamond is nothing but old, aged coal. Gandhi's purity of ends and means is sheer imagination.

For example, Gandhi thinks fasting is a kind of right means to a right end. And he resorts to fasting - fast unto death every now and then. But I can never accept fasting as a right means, nor will Krishna agree with Gandhi. If a threat to kill another person is wrong, how can a threat to kill oneself be right? If it is wrong of me to make you accept what I say by pointing a gun at you, how can it become right if I make you accept the same thing by turning the gun to point it at myself? A wrong does not cease to be a wrong just by turning the point of a gun. In a sense it would be a greater wrong on my part if I ask you to accept my views with the threat that if you don't I am going to kill myself. If I threaten to kill you, you have an option, a moral opportunity to die and refuse to yield to my pressure. But if I threaten to kill myself, I make you very helpless, because you may not like to take the responsibility of my death on yourself.

Gandhi once undertook such a fast unto death to put pressure on Ambedkar, leader of the millions of India's untouchables. And Ambedkar had to yield, not because he agreed that the cause for which Gandhi fasted was right, but because he did not want to let Gandhi die for it. Ambedkar was not ready to do even this much violence to Gandhi. Ambedkar said later that Gandhi would be wrong to think that he had changed his heart. He still believed he was right and Gandhi was wrong, but he was not prepared to take the responsibility for the violence that Gandhi was insisting on doing to himself.

In this context it is necessary to ask if Ambedkar used the right means, or Gandhi? Of the two, who is really non-violent? In my view Gandhi's way was utterly violent, and Ambedkar proved to he non-violent. Gandhi was determined till the last moment to pressure Ambedkar with his threat to kill himself.

It makes no difference whether I threaten to kill you or to kill myself to make you accept my view.

In either case, I am using pressure and violence. In fact, when I threaten to kill you I give you a choice to die with dignity, to tell me you would rather die than yield to my view which is wrong. But when I threaten you with my own death, then I deprive you of the option to die with dignity; I put you in a real dilemma. Either you have to yield and accept that you are in the wrong, or you take the responsibility of my death on you. You are going to suffer guilt in every way.

In spite of his insistence on right means for right ends, the means that Gandhi himself uses are never right. And I am bold enough to say that whatever Krishna did was right. In a relative sense, taking his opponents into consideration, Krishna could not have done otherwise.

Question 2:

They are being killed with weapons. Don't forget that cunning and deceit are parts of the arsenal of war. And when your enemies are making full use of this arsenal, it is sheer stupidity to play into their hands and get defeated and killed.

Krishna does not use deception against a group of good and saintly people. They are all unsaintly and unscrupulous people. It has been proved a thousand times, and Krishna is having to deal with them. Before going to war Krishna has done everything to bring them round to some compromise so that war is avoided. But they force a war. They are nor ready for anything short of war, and they are ready to use every foul means to destroy the Pandavas. And their whole past record is one of unabashed dishonesty and treachery. If Krishna had behaved with such people in a gentlemanly way, the Mahabharat would have ended very differently. Then the Pandavas would have lost the war and the Kauravas would be the victors. Then evil would be victorious over good.

We say that truth wins - satyameva jayate - but history says it differently. History also puts the victor on the side of truth. If the Kauravas had won, historians would have written their story, extolling them to the skies. Then the Pandavas would have been forgotten, and no one would have known Krishna.

An altogether different story would have been written.

I think Krishna did the only right thing to do in the face of the realities of the situation, and all talk of purity of means is irrelevant. In the world we live in, every means has to be tainted more or less.

If the means is absolutely pure, it will soon turn into an end; there will be no need to strive for the end. A wholly pure means ceases to be different from the end; then ends and means are one and the same. But ends and means are different from each other, as long as the means is tainted and the end is clean. While it is true that a clean end is never attained through unclean means, is a pure end ever achieved in this world? It is always there in our dreams and desires, but it is never really achieved.

Gandhi could not say at the time of his death that he had attained to his lofty ends of truth and non-violence and celibacy, for which he worked hard throughout his life. He died experimenting with them. If the means were right, then why did he not achieve his ends? What was the difficulty? If the means are right, there should be no difficulty in achieving the end.

No, means can never be wholly pure. It is like putting a straight rod of wood in the water - it becomes slightly crooked. There is no way to keep the rod straight in the water. Not that the rod actually becomes crooked in the water, it just appears so. The medium of water makes the rod crooked to look at. It is straight again when you take it out of the water.

In this vast world of relativity, everything is slightly crooked; it is in the very nature of things. So it is not a question of being straight and simple, it is just a question of being crooked and complex as little as possible. And to me, Krishna is the least crooked and complex person there is. It is ironic, however, that to the ordinary mind Krishna appears to be crooked and complex and Gandhi appears to be straight and simple.

To me, Gandhi seems to be a very crooked and complex personality. In comparison with him, Krishna is far more straight and simple. Gandhi has a knack of making a complexity of every simple thing. If he has to coerce someone else, he will begin by coercing himself. To hurt others he will hurt himself. His ways of coercion are indirect and devious. If Krishna has to punish someone he will do it straight, he will not take a devious course like Gan&i. But we are in the habit of looking at things very superficially, and we go by our superficial impressions.

Question 3:

Yes, they did happen. In the times of Mahavira, a man named Goshalak had declared that he, not Mahavira, was the real tirthankara.

The Jews crucified Jesus on the basis that a carpenter's son was falsely claiming to be a Messiah; he was not real. The real messiah was yet to come. The Jewish tradition believed that a messiah would come; many past prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah had predicted it. Just before the birth of Jesus, John the Baptist had gone from village to village announcing that the messiah is on his way who will redeem all people. And then a young man named Jesus came on the scene declaring that he was the messiah. But the Jews refused to accept him; instead they crucified him, on the grounds that he was a fake, he was not the real messiah.

No other person except Jesus claimed to be the messiah, but any number of people claimed that Jesus was not the messiah. Why? They said that to be acknowledged as their messiah, a person would have to fulfill certain conditions. He would have to perform a few miracles. One of the miracles to be performed was that the messiah would come down from the cross alive. The Jews believed that descending alive from the cross would be enough of a miracle to make them accept him as their messiah.

Now Christians believe that the resurrection of Jesus happened on the third day after the crucifixion.

They say that after three days, two women devotees of Jesus saw him alive. But his opponents don't accept it; they say these two women were so much in love with Jesus that they could see Jesus in fantasy, it could not be real. There is nothing on record in the whole of Jewish scriptures that Jesus came down from the cross alive, that he fulfilled that condition of being their messiah. Jews are still waiting for the coming of the messiah their prophets predicted.

But Goshalak made a clear and emphatic claim to be the real tirthankara in place of Mahavira. There were many people who accepted Goshalak as the tirthankara, and their number was not small, it was large. And the controversy lasted long, because Jaina tradition believed that the twenty-fourth tirthankara, who would be the last in a long line of tirthankaras, was coming. So Goshalak staked his claim and a large group of Jainas accepted him as such.

Apart from Goshalak, there were about six contemporaries of Mahavira who were believed by their followers to be the twenty-fourth tirthankara. They did not openly state their claim as Goshalak did, but their followers believed they were. Sanjay Vilethiputta and Ajit Keshkambal were among a half dozen people who were believed to be tirthankaras. Even Buddha's devotees thought that Buddha was the real tirthankara; they often scoffed at Mahavira.

It is always possible that when a person like Krishna is born, or is being awaited according to certain predictions made in the past, many people will claim that exalted position, there is no difficulty in it. But time is what finally decides who the rightful claimant is. The truth is that when one claims to be something, it shows clearly that he is not the right person. Only a wrong person claims to be something that he is not. Krishna does not need to claim to be Krishna, he IS Krishna. The very fact that someone claims to be Krishna shows that he is a pretender, that his being is not enough. He has to claim it to be so.

Mahavira does not claim that he is a tirthankara, he is it. But Goshalak has to lay claim to it, because he himself is in doubt. In fact, it is our feeling of inferiority that leads us to claim to be this or that. If someone claims to be a saint it clearly means that he is not a saint; he will be just the contrary to what he claims.

But it is just natural and human that such claims are made.

Question 4:

Jesus did not. He did not claim that he was the messiah. His claims were quite different. In fact, his claims don't come in the form of statements; he claimed through his being. People recognized that he was the messiah.

As I mentioned earlier, john the Baptist, a rare sage, had declared that the messiah was coming and he was his messenger. He also said that the day the messiah would arrive he, the messenger, would depart from the world. He lived on the banks of the River Jordan and initiated people in the water of that river. Thousands of people were initiated by him. Jesus too, had his initiation from John the Baptist. When Jesus was standing in water up to his neck, John initiated him and then said, "Now, you should begin your work and I go."

The news of this event in the River Jordan spread like wildfire all over the country, and people came to know that the messiah had arrived. And that very day John disappeared and nobody ever heard of him again. John's disappearance was the real declaration of the coming of the messiah, because he had gone to every village saying that the messiah was com ing and the day he would come, John would disappear He said that he was only the forerunner of the messiah; he was there only to prepare the way for his coming, and that he would leave the world when the messiah came So John's disappearance announced that Christ, the messiah, had arrived. Now people began to ask Jesus if he was the messiah. And he could not have lied to them; he said that he was the one they were waiting for, he was the one who was there everlastingly, who was there even before their first messiah Abraham was.

When people inquired, he had to tell them this much.

Question 5:

Even a partial incarnation of God is as good as the complete one. It makes no difference as far as incarnation is concerned. An incarnation means that divine consciousness has become manifest.

In how many dimensions it manifests itself is another matter. Krishna is a complete incarnation in the sense that divine energy has become manifest in all dimensions of his life. Buddha's incarnation is not that complete, nor is the coming incarnation of Kalki going to be. As far as the descent of divine energy is concerned, the process of descent is going to be complete in the case of every incarnation, but it may not touch every dimension of a man's life. And there are many reasons for it.

In the ordinary process of evolution, completion should happen at the end. But incarnation is outside this process of evolution. Incarnation means descent from the beyond; it is not a part of the evolutionary process, where something grows with evolution. Incarnation comes from some space that is beyond evolution. Try to understand it: We are all sitting here with closed eyes, and the sun has risen in the East. If someone opens his eyes partially he will see light partially. And another person will see light fully if he opens his eyes fully. The same person can go through both processes - now opening his eyes partially and then opening them fully. And he can do it any time he likes; there is no evolutionary process involved, no compulsion.

Krishna's life is open, fully open on all sides; he can take in the whole of the divine. Buddha's life is partially open; he can take in the divine only partially. If today someone exposes himself fully to the divine, he will have the whole of it. And if tomorrow someone closes himself, he will wholly miss the divine. No evolutionary process is involved. This process is applicable only in a general way; you cannot apply it to individual cases. Twenty-five hundred years have passed since Buddha, but a man of our times cannot say that he is more evolved than Buddha. Of course, we can say that our society is more evolved than Buddha's society.

In fact, evolution takes place at two levels - one at the level of groups and the other at the level of individuals. An individual can always overtake his society; he can move ahead of his time by his own effort. And those who do not try to grow on their own will drag their feet with the rest of their society. Also, all members of a group do not evolve uniformly; each individual has his different way of growth. So many people are sitting here, but not everyone is on the same rung of the ladder of growth. Someone is on the first rung, another is on the tenth and a third can be at the top. General rules are applicable only to groups.

For example, we can say how many persons died annually in traffic accidents in Delhi during the last ten years. If fifty have died in the current year, forty-five died last year, and forty the year before last, we can predict that next year fifty-five people are going to die in traffic accidents. And this forecast will prove true to a large extent. But we cannot say who these fifty-five people will be individually.

We cannot ferret them out and identify them. They are an unknown persons. And if the population of Delhi is two million, this figure of fifty-five will vary a little. But if the population is two hundred million, fifty-five will remain fifty-five; there will not be the least variation. The larger the group, the greater the chances of making correct statistical forecasts about them.

General rules are applicable only to groups, not to individuals. Evolution is a collective process, and an individual can always come ahead of this process.

A single bird's chirping can herald the coming of the spring, but it takes time before all the birds begin to sing. A single blossom can say that spring is on its way, but it takes time for all the flowers to bloom. Spring is really full only when all flowers have bloomed, but even a single blossom can say it is com ing. Individual flowers can bloom both before and after the spring, but collective flowering happens only in the spring.

Krishna's becoming a complete incarnation even though he happened midway in the long line of incarnations, shows that his life was fully open from all sides, all its dimensions were available to divine consciousness. Buddha is not that open in all his dimensions. And remember, Buddha must have wanted it that way, it was his own choice. If somebody asks him to complete himself because he has the possibility to be a Krishna, he will refuse. Buddha has chosen not to be so; it is not that Buddha falls behind Krishna in any way. Buddha has decided to be the way he is, and so has Krishna. And in this respect they are their own men, masters of their own destinies. Buddha comes to his flowering the way he wants it. Krishna chooses to come to complete flowering, because it is his nature. And in its own dimension Buddha's flowering is as complete.

There is no sequence of evolution in the matter of incarnations. The law of evolution does not operate on individuals; it operates only on groups.

Question 6:

It can appear so, because we all have only skin deep tolerance. If I lose my temper on the fourth foul word hurled at me, it means I had lost it with the very first one, but somehow I put up with three of them, and appeared in my true colors as soon as the fourth one came. But the contrary can also happen, and Krishna is that contrary; he is not like us. There is every possibility that he was an exception to this generality.

It is not that Krishna's tolerance could take only nine hundred ninety-nine invectives. Do you think nine hundred ninety-nine are not enough. And that one who can bear this huge number of abuses cannot bear one more? It is really hard to believe. The real question before Krishna is not that his tolerance has run out, the real question is that the man confronting him has reached his limit. Not only has he reached his limit, he has really surpassed it. And to put up with any more would not exhaust Krishna's patience, but it would certainly amount to putting a premium on evil. To tolerate any more would go toward strengthening unrighteousness. It is obvious that nine hundred ninety- nine curses are more than enough.

Someone, a disciple, asks Jesus, "What should I do if someone slaps me once?"

Jesus says to him, "Bear it."

The disciple then asks, "And what if he slaps me seven times?"

To this Jesus says, "You should bear it not only for seven times but for seventy-seven times."

The disciple does not ask again what he should do if he is slapped for the seventy-eighth time, so we don't know what Jesus would say. But I believe that if the disciple raises this question Jesus would say, "Don't take it quietly after the seventy-seventh. Enough is enough, because you have not only to take care of your forbearance, you have also to see that unrighteousness does not go beserk."

I have heard a joke:

A follower of Jesus is passing through a village when some stranger slaps him on his cheek. He re members this saying of Jesus, "If someone slaps you on the left cheek, turn your right cheek to him." And he turns his right cheek to the person, who inflicts a harsher slap on it. But the stranger has no idea of what the disciple is going to do next. There is no instruction from Jesus as to what one should do after he is slapped for the second time. The disciple thinks now he is free to decide on his won, and he smites the stranger with all his strength.

The stranger is flabbergasted! He protests, "What kind of a Jesus devotee are you? Don't you remember that he says, "If someone slaps you on the left cheek turn the right one to him?"

The disciple answers, "But I don't have a third cheek. I obeyed Jesus so far as his saying goes, and now I take leave of him, because I have already turned my two cheeks to you. Now your cheek should take a turn. That is why I slapped you."

Krishna kills Shishupal not because his patience has come to an end; his patience is unending.

But we are apt to think otherwise, because our own tolerance is very brittle. Krishna does not lack tolerance, but he also knows that it is dangerous to put up with unrighteousness beyond a certain limit; it amounts to encouraging it. Tolerance is good just because intolerance is evil. There is no other reason for praising patience except that impatience is ugly. But does it mean that I should care for my own patience and let the impatience of another run riot and ruin him? This is not compassion; it is really cruelty to the other. A point comes when I have to stop evil from going too far. This is how I see it.

Looking at the whole life of Krishna, it does not seem that anything can exhaust his patience, but it is equally difficult for him to encourage evil. So he has to find a golden mean between the two extremes - his own patience and the impatience of another.

Question 7:

When social systems change, many things suddenly become absurd and obsolete. There was a time when if a woman was not kidnapped by some man it was thought no one loved her, that she was an ugly and unwanted woman. In those days kidnapping was a way of honoring women. Of course, that time is past, and we are in different times. But even today if inside a university campus a young woman is never brushed against by a young man while passing in the corridors, she feels rejected and miserable; there is no end to her unhappiness. And watch a woman carefully who complains that she is being jostled by men around her, and you will notice how really happy she feels about this business. A woman wants that some man should really think of kidnapping her, that he should love her so much he feels compelled to steal her instead of begging for her.

You will understand it only if you try to understand the times in which Krishna lived. And I believe that it was really a heroic age, when marriages were not made with the consent of lovers' parents and astrologers. Such a marriage is not worth a farthing. If Krishna encourages someone to kidnap his beloved, he is saying that love is such a valuable thing that even kidnapping is permissible.

Everything can and should be staked for love. Love does not accept any law, it is a law unto itself.

And Krishna's age was the age of love, when love held a supreme place in the life of man and his society. When love begins to be governed by conventions and laws, you will know love's power is fading, it has ceased to be a force, a challenge, a thing of value. So you have to consider the age in which Krishna was born. It had its own social order which was very different from ours. And it would not be right to measure that age with the yardstick of our times. If you do, Krishna's actions will look immoral.

To me, it is an heroic age, a brave world, when life, bursting with energy, full of fire and radiance, invites challenges and stakes everything to meet them. And it is a cowardly and dead society when life's light is dimmed; it loses zest and vitality. Like a weakling it runs away from challenges and dangers and plays safe. Such a society makes different kinds of laws and moral codes which are insipid and dead. I will say that it will be an insult to womanhood if Krishna does not kidnap a woman he loves but instead sends supplications to her parents and maneuvers for her hand in marriage. At least Krishna's age would never approve of it. And the woman concerned would say to Krishna, "If you don't have the courage to steal me it is better you had not thought of me."

Although times change and old systems die, making way for the new, something of the past remains with us. We forget that what we call a baraat - a wedding procession - today is nothing but a remnant of old times when armed troops were sent with the lover to forcibly bring his beloved from the house of her parents. Even today, the bridegroom with a sword in his hand is made to ride a horse when he leaves for the house of his bride. A horse and a sword don't fit with marriage today; they are just relics of ancient customs.

In olden times a lover had to go on horseback so that he could elope with his beloved. And for this very purpose he carried a sword, and a troop of armed men rode with him. And you know that even now when a wedding party arrives at the house of the bride's parents, the women of the family and neighborhood gather together and receive the guests with insults and invectives. Why this strange practice? In the days when brides were forcibly seized it was natural that the kidnappers were treated with abuse and curses. The practice is now meaningless, because marriages are arranged - but it continues. Even today the bride's father bows to the bridegroom's father; this too is a residue from the same dead past, when in acknowledgement of his defeat the father of the bride bowed to the victor's father.

Question 8:

When a devotee prays for pain it is very meaningful. And there are reasons for it.

To pray for happiness seems to be somewhat selfish. It is. When one prays to God for happiness, he does not really pray to God, he only seeks happiness. His prayer has nothing to do with God, it is only concerned with his happiness. If he can find happiness without God, he will gladly give him up and move directly toward happiness. He prays to God only because he believes that happiness can be had through him. So he uses God as a means; happiness remains his end, his objective.

Therefore a true devotee will not pray for happiness, because he would not like to place anything, not even happiness, above God.

When a devotee prays for unhappiness, he simply means to say to God, "Even if you give me unhappiness, it would be far better than happiness coming from somewhere else." A devotee will prefer unhappiness coming from God to happiness that comes from the world. Now there is no way left for this person to move away from God. Man is in the habit of moving away from unhappiness and chasing happiness. The devotee seeking happiness can part with God, but one who asks for suffering cannot; he has now burned his bridges.

A prayer for unhappiness is immensely significant. It is asking for the very thing which people avoid at all costs. A true devotee asks for unhappiness.

There is yet another side to this prayer to God for unhappiness. You can easily risk this kind of prayer, because God can never inflict unhappiness on you. His gift is always happiness. In fact, whatever comes from God is happiness. And if happiness is the only gift that comes from God then why beg for it? There is some sense in seeking happiness from those who cannot give it. And it is safe to pray to God for unhappiness, because he is incapable of granting this prayer. He has only one gift to make, and that is happiness. This devotee is trying to be clever with God; he is playing a joke on him. Really he is telling him that he would not ask for happiness, because whatever God gives is happiness; he can easily ask for the opposite. He is putting God in an awkward position. It always happens in a love relationship - lovers have fun at each other's expense. In a way the devotee is kidding God, because he knows that although he is omnipotent God is nevertheless incapable of inflicting pain on his lovers.

There are other reasons too, which are psychological. Happiness is transient; it comes and goes.

But suffering is lasting, once it visits you it will not leave you so soon. And happiness is not only fleeting, it is very shallow too. Happiness lacks depth. That is why happy people also lack depth, they have a superficiality about them. Suffering has great depth and it lends its depth to those who suffer.

There is a depth in the life of people who go through suffering, there is a depth in their eyes, in their look, in their whole demeanor. Suffering cleanses and chastens you, it gives you a sharpness.

Suffering has great depth which is utterly lacking in happiness. Happiness is like Euclid's point which has neither breadth nor length; it is virtually non-existent. You cannot draw a point on paper; the moment you draw it there is a little length and breadth to it. So it is with happiness; it exists in your thoughts and dreams, it does not really exist. So there is no point in praying for happiness.

A devotee asks for something enduring, some thing lasting, that can broaden and deepen his being By asking for suffering he is asking for all that is pro found and everlasting in life.

And the last thing: There is a kind of joy even in the suffering that comes to you from the one you love. And even happiness that comes from an unloving quarter is devoid of this joy. Has it ever occurred to you that suffering has its own joy? This joy has nothing to do with the pleasure Masoch used to have in flogging himself.

A masochist is one who receives a kind of pleasure by inflicting pain on himself, by torturing himself.

Gandhi was such a masochist. The suffering a devotee prays for is something entirely different from masochistic pleasure. He is talking of the joy that comes from love's suffering, which only lovers know. Love's suffering is profound. Ordinary pain is not so devastating as the pain of love. Love's pain wipes out the lover, while ordinary pain leaves your ego intact. Love is the death of the ego, which remains unaffected by ordinary suffering. So the devotee prays for a suffering that can efface him altogether. He prays for love s suffering.

That is why Krishna just laughs on hearing Kunta s prayer; he does not say a word. Sometimes a smile, a giggle can say more than words do; words are not that articulate. And if you use words where a smile is enough you will only spoil the game. That is why Krishna does not say a word beyond giggling, because he knows that the devotee is cleverly putting him in a corner, he is really asking for something that is good and great. There is nothing to explain.

Question 9:

A devotee who prays for suffering is not masochistic. A masochist creates so much suffering on his own that he need not pray for it any more. He is so rich in suffering that you cannot add any more to it. He does not ask for suffering; he himself can create it.

A devotee asks for suffering because he has enough happiness and now he wants to have some taste of pain and suffering as well. He wants to know what it is really. He is never unhappy, and even if he sheds tears they are tears of bliss. A devotee cries a lot, but he does not cry out of despair.

But we mistakenly think he is in misery because we are familiar only with the tears of misery; we do not know what it is to cry with joy. We think that tears are inescapably linked with misery. But really tears have nothing tO do with pain and suffering; tears are an expression of excess emotion, an outpouring of emotion.

Whether it is a happy emotion or otherwise is immaterial. Any emotion, when it goes beyond a certain limit, expresses itself through tears. If you have an excess of misery you will cry, and you will cry if you have an excess of happiness. Even excessive anger bursts into tears. But we are familiar with only one kind of tears, tears of misery. So in our minds we have formed a connection between tears and misery which is not a fact. Tears are not exclusive to misery; they are an expression of every kind of abundance of emotion. If an emotion is too much, it overflows in the form of tears.

A devotee cries and a lover cries too, hut they always shed tears of joy. This pain of love, devotion and bliss has nothing to do with masochism.

Question 10:

We have already discussed this matter, but because you could not get it you raise it again and again.

What I said about prayer is relevant to this question.

I said prayerfulness, not prayer is my word. Similarly, a devotional attitude, not devotion to some god or deity is my word. Devotion is a name for the feeling, the psychological climate, the heart of a devotee. God is not essential to it. Devotion can exist without God; there is no difficulty in it. The truth is that there is no God; it is because of devotion that he came into being. It is not that devotion is dependent on God; it is because of devotion that God, came into being. For those whose hearts are filled with devotion the whole world turns into God. And people devoid of devotion ask, "Where is God?" - they are bound to raise this question. But no one can tell them where God is, because this very world seen through the eyes and heart of the devotee becomes God.

The world is not God, but a heart full of devotion sees the world as God. The world is not even a stone, but a stony heart sees it as stone. What we find in the world is just a projection; we see in the world that which we are. The world is just a mirror; it reflects us as we are. As the feeling of devotion deepens, the world itself turns into God. Not that god is sitting in a heaven or in a temple, no; devotion finds godliness in everything and everywhere.

Krishna is both God and devotee and whoever begins as a devotee is going to reach his destination as God. When he finds God everywhere there is no reason he should not find God inside himself.

A devotee begins as a devotee but he finds his fulfillment as God himself. His journey begins with looking at the world. He looks at what is there in the world with prayerful heart, with a loving heart, the heart of a devotee; and by and by he comes to look at himself the same way. Ultimately he is bound to find himself to be the very image of God. He can find himself in the very state in which Ramakrishna found himself. There is a beautiful episode in his life:

Ramakrishna was appointed priest in the temple of Dakshineshwar in Calcutta. He was given a small salary of sixteen rupees every month, and assigned the job of doing puja, worshipping the idol of Goddess Durga, every day. But just a few days after his appointment he found himself in trouble with the managing trustees of the temple. They came to know that the new priest's way of worship was all wrong! First he tasted the food himself and then made an offering of it to the Goddess. He even smelled the flowers before they were offered to the deity. It was, they thought, very improper of him to pollute the purity of the offerings.

So they sent for Ramakrishna and asked for an explanation. Why did he not observe the correct standards of worship and devotion? Ramakrishna said, "I have not heard that there are any accepted standards for worship, that there is a discipline of devotion."

The trustees said, "We have heard that you first taste the food meant to be offered to the goddess.

Isn't it highly improper?"

Ramakrishna answered, "Before my mother served me any food, she always tasted it to know if it was properly cooked, if it was tasteful. How can I serve any food to the goddess without knowing whether it is delicious or not? The offering must be worthy of the goddess. I cannot do it otherwise.

It is up to you to have my services or to dispense with them."

Now a devotee like Ramakrishna cannot be content with an external God. He will soon find God is within him. So the journey which begins with the devotee completes itself with God. And God is not somewhere on the outside. After going round the whole world, we ultimately return to ourselves, we come home, and find that God is there. God has always been inside us.

Krishna is both God and devotee, and so are you. Everyone is God and devotee together. But you cannot begin as God; the beginning has to be made as a devotee. If you say, "I am God,"

you will be in trouble. In fact, many people who begin with saying they are God get into such troubles. They utterly lack the humility of a devotee, so when they proclaim they are God they become egocentric; they immediately become gurus initiating others as their devotees. Evidently their God needs devotees - but they fail to find God in others. They find God in them selves, and in others they find only devotees. And the world is full of such gurus.

You have to begin as a devotee; you have to begin from the beginning.

Krishna can very well be accepted as God, because this man is as much devoted to a horse as he is to God himself. Every evening, when the horses yoked to his chariot are weary after a hard day's work on the battlefield, Krishna personally takes them to the river and gives them a good bath and massage. This man possesses all the attributes of God, because he bathes horses with the same devotion as a devotee would give a bath to the idol of God himself. There is no risk in accepting him as God. If he was arrogant about being God he would not have agreed to be Arjuna's charioteer.

Instead, he would have asked Arjuna to be his charioteer, because he was God and Arjuna was only a devotee. Ask any one of those who claim to be God to take a seat below you, and you will know their arrogance.

The journey should begin with being a devotee, and it will complete itself with God.

Question 11:

As I said, there is no discipline of devotion, and there is no test for love. Love is enough unto itself; why bother about testing it? You think of testing it only when love is not there. Care for love, not for its test. Why do you need a test? You think of testing only when there is no love.

So be concerned with love. Be loving. And when there is love, it is always true love. There is nothing like false love; it is a wrong term. Love is or it is not; the question of test does not arise. There is a test for gold because there is false gold too. Love is never false; it is or it is not. And when love is, you know it the way you know when the shoe pinches. It is painful when the shoe pinches, pain is the test of the pinch. There is no other test. Do you have a test for pain? Pain is its own test; you know when it hurts and when it does not. In the same way you know it when love happens and when it does not. Watch yourself and you will have no trouble knowing whether there is love or is not. What will a test do when there is no love? Love has nothing to do with a test. So care for love, your love.

But we are afraid to turn in and watch our selves. We are afraid because we know there is no love in there. Instead we always look to others for love; we are anxious to know if they are loving toward us. Rarely one wants to know if he is loving toward others. Day in and day out couples have been quarreling over love. A wife is always complaining that her husband does not love her as much as she loves him. And a husband in his turn is complaining that his wife is not as loving to him. A son is full of resentment that his father does not love him. And a father in his turn grumbles equally.

Everybody is complain ing, but no one asks if he himself is loving or not.

We are not loving; we really don't have love. We don't feel any love for living human beings who surround us from everywhere. We don't love plants and flowers that are visible everywhere. We don't love the hills and mountains and stars who are all members of the visible world. And when we don't love the seen, the tangible, how can we love that which is unseen, invisible?

Let us begin with the visible world - the tangible. Love should begin at home. And you will find that one who loves the visible soon begins to feel the presence of the invisible that is hidden just behind.

You love a rock and the rock turns into God. You love a flower, and you will come in contact with the elan vital that is throbbing inside the flower's heart. You love a person and soon the body disappears and the spirit becomes visible. Love is the alchemy which can turn the visible into the invisible, the subtle. Love is the door to the unknown, the unknowable. So just be concerned with love and don't worry about testing it.

And never ask what the highest state of love is. Love is always the highest state. When love comes, it comes at its pinnacle. There is no other state of love, it is always the highest.

There are no degrees of love - less and more. Let us go into it more deeply. I cannot say that I love you a little. Love is never less than the whole. A little love has no meaning. Either there is love or there is not. It is meaningless to say, "Right now I love you less than I loved you before." It does not happen like that. If I love you, I love you totally or I don't love you at all. For example, if someone steals two cents and another person steals two hundred thousand dollars, you cannot say that one committed a small theft and another a big one. Of course, people who worship money will say that a theft of two hundred thousand is big and that of two cents is petty. But in reality theft is theft, whether it involves two cents or two hundred thousand dollars. There are no degrees of theft, large and small. One is as much a thief when he pockets two cents as he is when he bags two hundred thousand dollars.

Love is neither small nor big; love is simply love. There is no such thing as the highest state of love; love is the highest state. Love is always the climax; there are no short climaxes and long ones.

Water becomes steam at a hundred degrees. You cannot say that it will be less steam at ninety-five or ninety degrees. No, water changes into steam only at a hundred degrees, not before. So the hundredth degree is the first and the last point of that climax when water turns into steam. Similarly love is the first and the last; love is the climax. Its alpha and omega points are the same. The first and the last rungs of love's ladder are the same. Love's journey begins and ends with the first step; one step is enough.

Since we don't know love we raise strange questions about it. I have yet to come across a person who asks a right question about love. I am reminded of a story:

Morgan, a multi-millionaire, was having a discussion with another multi-millionaire who was his rival in business. Morgan said, "There are a thousand ways of earning money, but the way of earning it honestly is only one."

His rival asked with some amazement, "What is that one way?"

Morgan said, "I knew you would ask this question, because you don't know. I was certain about your raising the question because you don't know an honest way to make money."

It is the same with love. We cannot formulate a right question about love; we never ask a right question about it. Whatever questions we raise are irrelevant, beside the point, because we don't know a thing about love. Like Morgan, I knew you would ask this wrong question. We can only ask wrong questions about love. And the irony is that one who knows love is not going to ask a question, which would be the right question, about love. The question does not arise because he knows it.

Question 12:

The truth is that a person like Krishna never takes anything for granted; he is uncommitted. He is neither somebody's friend nor his enemy. Krishna has no fixed ideas about men or things. He knows a friend can turn into an enemy and an enemy into a friend; it all depends on circumstances.

But as far as we are concerned, we live differently; we take things for granted. We are friends with some and enemies to others. And so when circumstances change, we find ourselves in great difficulty. Then we try to carry on with our old relation ships and suffer. Krishna does not. He allows life to go its way and he goes with life. Even if Arjuna comes to fight with him, he will not waver. He will not have any difficulty; Krishna can fight against Arjuna with the same enthusiasm with which he fights for him.

For Krishna, friendship and enmity are not something permanent, static; they are fluid. Life is a flux, and so it is difficult to ascertain who is a friend and who is an enemy. Today's friend can turn into an enemy tomorrow; today's enemy can turn into a friend tomorrow. So it is always good to deal with both friends and enemies with an eye on tomorrow. To morrow is unpredictable, even the next moment is unpredictable. Everything changes with the changing moment.

Life is always changing; change is its nature. Life is a play of light and shade. Now there is light here and shade there; the next moment this light and shade will be somewhere else. Observe this garden where we are meeting now, from morning through evening, and you will find everything constantly changing; morning turns into evening, day into night, and light into shade. The flower that blooms with the sunrise withers away by sunset.

It is difficult for you to think how Krishna and Arjuna can encounter each other in a fight, but it is just possible. Krishna can very well fight with a friend. In this respect, the Mahabharat is a unique war; it is amazing! Friends are arrayed against friends, relatives against relatives. Arjuna has been Dronacharya's student, and he now aims an arrow at his master. He received so much from Bishma, the eldest of the family, and he is ready to kill him. That way the Mahabharat is a rate war in all history. It says that in life nothing is permanent; everything is changing. Brother is fighting against brother, student is fighting against teacher.

Another remarkable thing about the Mahabharat is that when fighting ends in the evening enemies visit each other's camps, make inquiries about their well-being, exchange pleasantries and even eat together. It is an honest war; there is nothing underhand or dishonest about it. When they fight they fight as true enemies, and when they meet each other they meet without any reservations, without any bitterness in their hearts. There is nothing deceitful in the Mahabharat. The Pandavas don't hesitate to kill Bhishma in the battle, but in the evening they gather together to mourn his death, that they have lost such a valuable man. This is strange.

The Mahabharat proclaims that even enemies can fight in a friendly way. But it is just the opposite today: even as friends we are inimical to each other. There was a time when wars were made in a friendly way, and now even friendship is not friendship; it is just a kind of intimate enmity. Time was when even enemies were friends, and now even friends are enemies., And this is very significant in the larger context of life. It is worth knowing that when my enemy dies, something in me dies with him. Not only my enemy dies, with his death I too die in some measure.

My being has been bound with the being of my enemy, so with his death a part of me dies at the same time. Not only I lose something with the death of my friend, I also lose when my enemy dies.

After all, even my enemy is as much part of my life as a friend is. So it is not good to be very inimical to our enemies, because in some deeper sense even enemies are friends. In the same way, friends are also enemies. Why is it so?

As I have been explaining to you these few days, the polarities into which we divide life are polarities only in appearance, only in words and concepts; in reality they are not. There is no polarity at the depth of life; there, all polarities are united, one. North and south, up and down are all united as one.

If we see the basic unity of life, the war between Krishna and Arjuna will be easy to understand.

Otherwise it will be very difficult for us to accept. Even those who are thought to be authorities on Krishna have found it difficult to explain this episode. It is difficult because our concepts and beliefs immediately come in the way when we try to comprehend it. We believe that a friend should always remain a friend and an enemy should remain an enemy. We break life into fragments and put the fragments in fixed categories. But it is utterly wrong to do so. Life is fluid like a river, it is always moving. You look at a wave this moment and the next moment it has moved far away. A wave that was before your eyes in the morning will be hundreds of miles away by the evening of the same day.

On the road of life someone walks with you a few steps and then he parts company. All relationships are transient; you cannot say how long anyone is going to be for or against you. Friends turn into enemies and enemies into friends in a split second. So a person who lives his life like a river makes neither friends nor foes; he accepts whatever life brings. If someone comes to him as a friend, he is accepted as a friend, and if another person comes as a foe, he too is accepted. He chooses nothing; he rejects nothing.

To Krishna no one is his friend and no one is his enemy. Time decides; circumstances create both friends and foes. And Krishna has no grievance against anybody. It is amazing that while Krishna is on the side of the Pandavas, his whole army is on the other side - the side of the Kauravas.

He divides and distributes himself between the two warring camps, because both of them accept Krishna as their friend. The chiefs of both camps arrive at Krishna's place at the same time to ask for his support and cooperation in the war that is imminent, and Krishna gives each of them a choice.

He tells them, "Since both of you are my friends - and fortunately you come to me at the same time - I offer that I will personally be on one side and my forces will be on the other side. You can choose." It is something incredible.

Question 13:

He could not say so, because the war of the Mahabharat is going to be such a great and decisive event that Krishna's participation in it is essential. Perhaps the Mahabharat would not be possible without Krishna. Secondly, it would be dishonest of him to tell friends that he would be neutral in the way India is currently neutral, non-aligned in international affairs.

Neutrality has no place in life; it may be an inner feeling, but in day-to-day life neutrality is meaningless. One has to take sides - either this side or that. Of course, one can pretend to be neutral, but pretension is pretension. Krishna could pretend to be neutral, but it would be meaningless. Friends have come to ask for his help, not his neutrality. And Krishna has to say yes or no to their request; neutrality is not an answer. If he says he is neutral, it only means that he is not their friend, that he has nothing to do with them. Neutrality means indifference, neutrality means that one is not concerned with the fate of the war.

Krishna cannot say that he is not concerned with the war; he is really concerned. Although he is a friend to both, he clearly wants the Pandavas to win, because he knows the Pandavas are fighting for righteousness and the Kauravas are against it. But he is friendly to both of them; even the Kauravas look to him as their friend, they have no enmity with him. They respect him, they love him.

By and large, these people are very simple, and their behavior is frank and open. Even their differences and divisions are clear-cut; they don't hide their likes and dislikes. In a domestic war, they divide themselves clearly between the two camps. Issues are well-defined, so they don't take long to decide.

Krishna is not indifferent, apathetic. He is aware that great issues are at stake; he cannot be neutral.

He is also aware that both sides look to him as their friend, and he is prepared to give each its share. But he does not treat them equally, because he knows who is just and who is not. And he also knows that the way he will divide his help and cooperation between the two warring camps is going to be a decisive factor in the impending conflict.

So the way he divides himself is extraordinary; it is of immense significance. He tells them that they have two options: he and his army; they can choose either him or his whole army. This division makes things still clearer as far as which side stands for righteousness. It is obvious that no one anxious for victory would choose Krishna without his army. Only he who cares for values and not for victory, who trusts the spiritual force much more than the material one, will choose Krishna alone.

The way the choice is made is also significant. Representatives of the two sides arrive at Krishna's place at the same time to ask for his help in the war. Krishna is Lying on his bed. The representative of the Pandavas comes first and takes his place at the foot of his bed. Next comes the representative of the Kauravas, who sits at the head of his bed. Krishna is asleep, but he wakes up with their arrival.

The way the two emissaries take their seats is meaningful. Only a man of humility can sit at the feet of the sleeping Krishna; an arrogant person will sit near his head. Even such small things speak for themselves. Our every act, even a twitch of the nose, reveals us. Actually we do that which we are.

It is not accidental that the Kaurava representative sits near his head, and the Pandava sits near his feet. And when Krishna awakens, his eyes fall first on the Pandava and not on his rival. Of course he gives the Pandavas first choice.

This is how humility wins. Jesus has said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

The Pandavas have the first choice. This makes the Kaurava representative anxious, lest his rival get away with the best prize. The army, and not Krishna, is the best prize in the eyes of the Kaurava who believes in physical force. He knows Krishna's army is vast and thinks that whoever has it is going to win the war. Krishna alone will be of no use in a matter like war. But he is immensely pleased when the Pandava representative opts for Krishna and leaves his whole army to be taken by the Kauravas. He thinks the Pandavas' envoy has acted foolishly and their defeat in the war is guaranteed.

Really this choice decides the fate of the war. The Pandavas' choice of Krishna says clearly that they stand for righteousness and religion. Krishna's personal support of the Pandavas becomes the decisive factor in the war of Mahabharat.

As I said, the sitting of the Pandava at Krishna's feet makes the whole difference. I am reminded of a small anecdote in the life of Vivekananda.

Vivekananda is leaving India for America. He goes to Mother Sharada, the wife of his Master, Ramakrishna, for her blessing. Ramakrishna had died, leaving Sharada behind him. So Vivekananda goes to her and says, "I am leaving for America, and I seek your blessing."

Sharada queries, "What are you going to do in America?"

Vivekananda says, "I will spread the message of dharma in that country."

Sharada, who is in her kitchen, directs the young monk to pass her a knife meant for cutting vegetables. Vivekananda hands the knife to her. Then Sharada says, "You have my blessings."

But Vivekananda wants to know if there was any connection between her asking for the knife and her blessings to him. Sharada says, "I wanted to know the way you handle the knife while passing it to me."

Ordinarily, anyone would do it indifferently, without awareness. He will hold the handle of the knife in his hand and pass it with the blade directed toward the one who asks for it. But Vivekananda has the blade of the knife in his hand and its handle is directed toward his master's wife. Sharada says to Vivekananda, "Now I think you are worthy of carrying the message of dharma to America."

If you were in Vivekananda's place, you would have taken the handle in your hand, because that is the usual way. Ordinarily, no one would do it any differently, but Vivekananda does it very differently.

And it is not accidental. Vivekananda is not expected to be prepared for it. It is not written in any book that, "When Vivekananda will go to Sharada for her blessings she will ask him to pass her a knife." No scripture can say it, and a person like Sharada is unpredictable. Who could know that she was going to test Vivekananda's awareness in this way? Is this a way of knowing a person's religiousness? But Sharada says, "I bless you, Vivekananda, because you have a religious mind."

In the same way the Pandavas, by sitting at the feet of Krishna, proclaim that righteousness is on their side. They have the courage to sit at Krishna's feet. And by choosing Krishna they further proclaim that they would rather risk defeat than give up righteousness, they would prefer defeat to victory rather than go with unrighteousness. And he alone can go with righteousness who has the courage to risk defeat.

As I said earlier, only one who is ready to go through pain and suffering can go with God. Similarly one who is ready to go down fighting is worthy of religion. One who wants victory at any cost is bound to land in irreligion. Irreligion is forever in search of the easy way, the shortcut, while the road to religion is long and hard. Unrighteous ways bring easy success; this is the reason most people adopt them. The ways of righteousness are long and arduous. Going with righteousness can lead to defeat; walking with religion can even lead to disaster.

It is significant that one who is prepared to go with religion even at the cost of defeat and disaster, can never be defeated. But the readiness for defeat is necessary. The road to irreligion is tempting, because it gives you an assurance of cheap success. Its attraction lies in its promises, and because of it people take up corrupt ways. Evil is a cunning persuader; it says, "If you want success, never take the path of righteousness; it is an impossible path. My path guarantees effortless, easy success. You begin and you win." But the irony is that nobody ever wins through evil, evil ultimately leads to utter ruin. On the contrary, righteousness is a challenge; you have to be prepared for defeat.

But its glory is that if you choose it with this awareness, you will never be defeated.

This is the paradox of life. It is truth that wins - satyameva jayate.

Question 14:

Yes, there is another saying of Jesus: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." But there is a small difference between the two sayings: "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth," and "Blessed are the pure for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." In fact, humility is the beginning and purity is the end, the attainment.

To be humble is to be on the first leg of the journey to purity. The humble has yet to be on the first leg of the journey to purity. The humble has yet to be pure; he is on his way to it. One cannot be pure without being humble, because there is no greater impurity than ego. One who is full of ego can never be pure, but one who drops his ego, who is humble, who is surrendered, is on the path that leads to purity. So humility is not enough; it only sets you on the road to purity that is innocence.

For example, a man is standing on the bank of a river. Say he is standing in the water on the river and a huge expanse of water is flowing before him, and he is thirsty. But unless he bends and reaches for the water his thirst cannot be quenched. If he is not ready to bend he will remain thirsty, though he is surrounded on all sides by water.

Then it is not the river but his ego that is responsible for his misery. If he only bends, all the water will be his.

So humility comes first; it is the beginning of innocence; it is the door. Humility purifies, because it negates everything that creates impurity. A humble person cannot have ego, he cannot be greedy, he cannot be angry, he cannot be sexual. To be greedy, sexual and angry, one needs to be aggressive; aggression is the prerequisite. So a humble person will be forgiving and generous; he will share his happiness, everything with others. He cannot be ambitious and dominating; he cannot be acquisitive, he cannot hoard. And a humble man will give up all self aggrandizement, instead.

he will sink into anonymity.

And when humility comes to completion, innocence is complete. It is this state that Jesus is talking about when he says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God."

There is yet another statement of Jesus which is similar. He says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." It is a strange saying: "poor in spirit", but it includes both humility and purity. One is so poor, so empty within that there is no space left for any impurity to exist. To be arrogant, to be egoistic, one needs to have something - money, power, prestige. And to be impure one needs things like avarice, anger, hate, and violence. It is significant that while anger is something, non-anger is just the absence of anger. Violence is something; non-violence is just its absence. If a person is utterly empty of everything - greed, hate, violence, money, and fame - he is really poor in spirit, and only such a person is really rich and affluent. And he will, as Jesus says, "inherit the kingdom of heaven. The poorest is the richest, he has everything worth having.

In this context there is yet another very significant saying of Jesus. He says, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all else shall be added unto you." But when someone asks him how he can find the kingdom of God Jesus says, "Be humble and pure, poor and empty, and the kingdom of God is yours. After realizing the kingdom of God all else shall be added unto you." A strange condition:

if you lose everything, you will gain everything. And if you save anything, you will lose everything.

Those who are ready to lose themselves will gain everything, and those who will save themselves will lose everything.

This, according to me, is the meaning of sannyas: one who is ready to lose everything becomes heir to everything that is worth gaining.

Question 15:

It is not a question of your thinking; it is so. If you think of losing, you cannot lose. If you try to be humble in order to gain the kingdom of God, you cannot be humble.

What Jesus says is not a guarantee to you, it is just a statement of what happens. If someone says that he is ready to give up everything so that he gains everything, he cannot give up really. The last part of the statement is not an assurance, it is a consequence that follows renunciation. It has been found that those who give up everything become their own masters, and that is everything there is to gain. And it is also true that those who desire to gain everything cannot give up a thing.

Question 16:

I am not going to do anything to destroy your doubt and confusion. A person who imposes humility on himself, who cultivates and practices humility, will always seem to be humble. But the humility that comes naturally, that is not imposed, cultivated, can be bold enough to be impolite if need be.

Only a humble person can have the courage to be utterly impolite; only a man of love can afford to be hard-hitting if need be.

It is always possible that I will appear to be contradictory in many ways. That is what I have been telling you about Krishna - that he is a bundle of contradictions. There are any number of contradictions in me, and you will encounter them often. I accept the whole of life, and that is my humility. If sometimes I feel like being harsh, I don't suppress it, I become harsh. I am not; there is no one to suppress anything. Similarly when I am humble, I am just humble. I don't come in the way of anything. I allow whatever is there to be and to express itself as it is. There is no effort on my part to become anything - humble or arrogant. Therefore you will continue to be in confusion regarding me; it is not going to end.

Who, as you conceive it, is enlightened? Will you not accept Krishna as enlightened? But Krishna confuses you as much as I do. At times he seems to be departing from his enlightenment. When he takes up arms to fight in the battle of Kurkshetra, it seems he has lost his steadiness, his wisdom.

But what is our concept of enlightenment, of wisdom that is unshakeable? Does it mean that an enlightened person acts the way we think to be the right way? Does it mean that his wisdom has been steadied in the way we think it should be?

No, steadfast wisdom does not mean wisdom that is inert and dead. It only means that one who has become enlightened, who has attained to the highest intelligence and wisdom allows this wisdom to act as it chooses. He is just a vehicle; he does not do a thing on his own. Such a person owns nothing, neither merit or demerit, neither virtue nor vice, neither respect nor disrespect. He does not say that what he does is right or wrong; he neither brags nor repents; now he does not look back on the past. He dies to every passing moment, and he lives in the moment at hand. He is not a doer; he just allows that which is, to happen. There is no one about him to oversee his spontaneity, to come in its way or decide for it. Now he is utterly choiceless.

So it is possible that sometimes I may appear to you to be harsh; I cannot help it. When I am harsh I am harsh, and when I am soft I am so. I have altogether ceased to be anything on my own; I don't insist any more that I should be this, that I should not be that.

This is what I call steady wisdom.