Follow No One but Yourself

Question 1:

All times and all conditions are good enough for a consciousness like his does not depend on any social and political conditions. Such a soul is not at all dependent on time. People who are asleep and unconscious depend on certain conditions for being born. No awakened person takes birth in a time which he may call his time; on the contrary, he molds time in his own way. Time follows him; he does not follow time. It is the unawakened ones, the unconscious people who come in the wake of time and go on trailing behind it.

But we always think Krishna was born to respond to the needs of the times, because the times were bad, because the times were terrible. But this kind of thinking is basically wrong: it means that even a man like Krishna comes as a link in the chain of cause and effect. And it shows that we reduce even the birth of Krishna into a utilitarian item. It means we see Krishna as serving out interests.

We cannot see him in any other way.

It is as if a flower blooms by the wayside and a passerby thinks it has bloomed for his sake and that its fragrance is meant for him. Maybe he writes in his diary that wherever he goes flowers bloom to perfume his path. But flowers bloom even in secluded places where humans never go.

Flowers bloom for the sheet joy of blooming; they don't bloom with the purpose of pleasing others.

If someone happens to partake of their fragrance, it is quite a different matter.

People like Krishna take birth out of their own joy and bliss and for the love of it; they don't do so for the sake of others. It is different if others partake of his fragrance. And is there a time when people would not profit from the presence of a man like Krishna? Every age will need him, and every age will bask in his sunshine. Really, every age is unhappy; every age is steeped in suffering. So a man like Krishna is relevant and meaningful for all ages. Who is not fond of fragrance? Who is not going to enjoy it if he comes upon it? Wherever a flower blooms a passerby will certainly partake of its fragrance. What I want to tell you is that it is utterly wrong to think of Krishna in terms of utility.

But we have our own limitations. We are conditioned to see everything in terms of its utility for us.

We don't attach any significance to that which is non-utilitarian, purposeless. When clouds gather in the sky, we think they are there to irrigate our fields and fill our tanks. If your wristwatch could think, it would think your wrist was made for its use and for no other reason. If your eyeglasses could think they would think your eyes were meant for them. Their difficulty is that they can't think.

Because man thinks and he is egocentric, he thinks that everything in the cosmos is meant to serve him and his ego. If the flowers bloom they bloom for him, and if the stars move they do so in his service. He thinks that the sun is there just to give him warmth and light. And if Krishna is born, he is born for his sake. But this kind of thinking is utterly egoistic and stupid.

To think in terms of utilitarianism is basically wrong. The whole movement of life is non-utilitarian; it is purposeless. Life is for its own sake, for the sake of being life. The flower blooms out of its own joy. The river flows for the joy of flowing. The clouds, the stars, the galaxies all move out of their own bliss. And what do you think you are for and why?

You too are here out of your own joy. And a person like Krishna lives totally out of his ecstasy. It is a different matter that we utilize the light of the sun in various ways, that we grow our food with the help of the rains and make garlands of flowers, but they are not there to serve these purposes. In the same way we take advantage of his presence when a Krishna or a Christ is among us.

But we are entrenched in the habit of looking at everything through the eyes of our petty egos. And so we always ask why was Mahavira born. We ask what the special social and political conditions were that made it necessary for Buddha to be born. Re member that this kind of thinking has another implication, which is dangerous. It means that human consciousness is the product of social conditions.

This is how Karl Marx thought. Marx says that consciousness is shaped by social conditions, not that social conditions are shaped by consciousness. But the irony is that even the non-communists think the same way. They may not be aware that when they say that Krishna was born because of certain social and political conditions that they are saying he was the product of those conditions.

No, social conditions are not responsible for Krishna's birth. No social condition is capable of producing a consciousness of the height of Krishna. When a person like Krishna visits the world he finds society far behind him. Such a backward society cannot create a Krishna. The truth is, it is Krishna who gives that society, without its being aware of it, a new image, a new direction and a new milieu of life.

In my vision, social conditions are not important; it is consciousness that has the highest value. And I tell you that life is not utilitarian: it serves no purpose, no end; life is like a play, a leela. Try to understand the difference between life with purpose and life as play. Someone walks a street in the morning in order to reach somewhere, say his office. And the same person walks the same street in the evening for a stroll; he does not have to reach anywhere. Though the person is the same and the street is the same, there is a great difference between the two walks. While going to the office is an effort, a drudgery, the evening stroll is a play, a joy. Walking to the office he feels heavy and dull; walking for walking's sake he feels delight.

People like Krishna don't live for a purpose; their life is like an evening stroll. Their life is just a play, a leela. Of course, if he finds a thistle lying on the path, he removes it, which is a different matter.

This too is part of his joyful play; he does not do so with a motive to earning merit. He walks for the love of walking, but walking, he will lovingly help someone who has lost his way. The man should not go away with the impression that Krishna is a traffic policeman deputized especially to help him.

People like Krishna don't do things with a purpose, with a motive. They do not conform to the law of cause and effect.

I do not think men like Krishna, Buddha, Christ and Mahavira are products and parts of our traditions; they are outside every tradition. They happen without a cause. Or you can say that the cause of their being is totally inner; it has nothing to do with any social or external conditions.

I have heard about a famous astrologer whose townsmen had become scared of him because whatever he predicted came true. So two young men of his town conspired to do something so that for once the astrologer would be proved false. As it was winter time, one of them put on an overcoat and hid a pigeon inside it. Together they went to the astrologer's house to test him. They told the astrologer that they had a pigeon hidden inside the overcoat and they wanted him to say if it was alive or dead. They had settled among themselves that if the astrologer said the pigeon was alive, the pigeon would be throttled and killed before being taken out, and in case he said it was dead the live pigeon would be taken out. The astrologer would have no way to be right, so the two friends thought.

But the answer of the astrologer was one they could not have conceived. He said, "It is in your hands." He said, "The pigeon is neither alive nor dead; it is in your hands. It depends on you." They were flabbergasted and they said, "You have defeated us, sir."

Our life is in our hands, and for people like Krishna it is utterly in their hands. They live the way they want to live. Society as such, its social and political conditions, or any kind of external pressures, do not make a difference to them; they go their own way. Their beings are exclusively their own.

Of course, they do make some adjustments with the societies they live in, but they do so out of compassion for those societies. Such adjustments are made not for fear of punishment or for reward.

And many things happen just because of their living in a particular time, things that would not take place without their presence. But these things are insignificant and irrelevant, they have nothing to do with their inner lives as such.

Please listen. Men like Krishna do not come to this world for the sake of a particular society or for the sake of some particular social and political condition. Nor do they come to protect some kind of special people. It is true some people receive guidance, and even protection at their hands, but it is a different matter altogether. Krishna flowers out of his own ecstasy and this happens without a cause. It is as causeless as the dance of the stars in the heavens and the blossoming of the flowers on the earth. It is as causeless as the passing of the breeze through the pine tree and the clouds raining in the monsoon.

But we are not so purposeless. All of us are tethered to some purpose in life, and therefore we are unable to understand Krishna. We live with a goal in life, with a purpose, a motive. Even if we love some one we do so with a purpose; we give our love with a condition, a string attached to it. We always want something in return. Even our love is not purposeless, unconditional, uncontaminated.

We never do a thing without motive, just for the love of it. And remember, unless you begin to do something without a cause, without a reason, without a motive, you cannot be religious. The day something in your life happens causelessly, when your action has no motive or condition attached to it, when you do something just for the love and joy of doing it, you will know what religion is, what God is.

Question 2:

Yes, Krishna says that whenever there is a decline in religion, he has to come to the world. But what does he really mean to say?

Only a person who is absolutely free can make a statement like this. You cannot say you will come whenever you need to come. You cannot even say that you will not come if some conditions are not fulfilled. Your birth and death are subject to the law of cause and effect; you are fettered by a long chain of your past karmas. You cannot afford to give a promise like this. You dare not do so.

Krishna has the courage to make such a promise for the reason that he lives without cause, he lives with abandon, he lives just for the joy of living. And anything can spring out of this causeless bliss.

Only a free consciousness is capable of giving such an assurance. And when Krishna comes, he comes, not because of a particular situation, but because of his freedom; he is free to come and go as he likes. He does not say that if certain conditions are there they will force him to incarnate himself. It is a promise. And who is capable of making such a promise?

I remember an extraordinary anecdote mentioned in the Mahabharat. It was a fine morning, and Yudhisthira, the eldest of the Pandavas, was sitting on the veranda of his house when a beggar came asking for alms. Yudhisthira told him that since he was busy the beggar should visit him the following day. And the beggar went away. Bhima, one of Yudhisthira's brothers, heard him say this.

He quickly picked up a drum and ran shouting to the village. Yudhisthira was surprised to see him do this and asked, "What is the matter with you?"

Bhima said, "I am going to inform the village that my brother has conquered time, because he has made a promise for tomorrow. I really did not know you had become master of time, but your promise to the beggar tells me so. Are you sure you will live tomorrow? Are you sure this beggar will live tomorrow? Do you know for sure that tomorrow you will be in a charitable mood and give alms to the beggar? Is it certain that tomorrow this beggar will remain a beggar? And do you know that you and the beggar will see each other again tomorrow? It seems you have conquered time and I should tell the village about this great event. And I am in a hurry, I don't want to delay, because I am not sure that if I miss this hour I will have it again."

Yudhisthira then said to Bhima, "Wait a moment; I made a mistake. He alone can make such a promise who has attained to supreme freedom. Call the beggar back so I can give him something right now. Tomorrow is really unknown."

Krishna's promise is not confined to a day or two, it covers the whole of infinity. He says, "l will come whenever religion will decline." No prisoner can make such a promise. Put a person in a prison and then ask him to give you an assurance he will come to you tomorrow if the need be. He cannot give such an assurance. An assurance like this can be made only in a state of absolute freedom. Only freedom which is utterly uninhibited can do so.

So remember, Krishna's birth is not dependent on any conditions; it is an act of supreme intelligence, utterly uninhibited, free, sovereign. This difference needs to be clearly understood. It is evident from this promise that Krishna is not bound by time and its conditions. He is not subject to any laws, like the law of causation. He is free; he is freedom itself. And this promise is a promise of freedom.

But it is difficult to understand the language of freedom, because we don't know what freedom is.

We are in bondage, we are inhibited and conditioned. So when Krishna says something it seems to be paradoxical, and we find ourselves in difficulty. We think that Krishna is bound by some laws, by rules and regulations, to visit us from time to time. Water is subject to the law that it has to turn into steam when heated to the boiling point. But if someday water says it can turn into heat even at a ninety-degree temperature, you can take it that it has become free, that now it is not subject to a law.

The assurance that Krishna makes in the GEETA arises from an awareness of utter independence, where every vestige of dependence has been destroyed. Such a pledge is the flowering of freedom and ecstasy.

No, a man like Krishna does not come here because of you. He comes on his own. He is not bound like us. He is free. He is freedom itself.

Question 3:

"Protection of the righteous and destruction of the wicked" - both these phrases mean the same.

But it is necessary to understand how the wicked are destroyed. How are the wicked finished? Are they destroyed by killing?

Killing does not destroy the wicked. Krishna knows very well that nothing is killed by killing. The only way to finish a wicked person is to help transform him into a righteous person, into a sage. Killing will never finish him, it will only result in a change of body for him. Killing will not make a difference, he will continue to be wicked in his next life. The wicked can come to an end only if they are helped to become righteous. There is no other way.

Another amusing thing Krishna says is that he will come for the protection of the righteous, of the sage. A sage is in need of protection when he ceases to be a sage, when he is a phony sage, a fake one. How can a sage need protection? It will be a bad day when a righteous person, a sage, will be in need of protection. When Krishna says he will come for the protection of the righteous, he means to say that when the righteous turn unrighteous he will come. Only the unrighteous is in need of protection; the righteous man has no such need. Even if Krishna comes, the righteous man will tell him, "Why waste your effort? I am secure in my insecurity." A sage, a righteous person, is one who is secure in his insecurity, who lives dangerously, who is at ease with danger. A sage is one for whom there is nothing like insecurity. Why will he need a Krishna or anyone to protect him?

This promise of Krishna is very meaningful. He says he will come for the protection of the righteous.

It means he will come when the righteous cease to be righteous and when the unrighteous masquerade as the righteous. And only then a need to transform the wicked will arise. A Krishna is not needed to punish the wicked, anybody can do it. We all do it. The law and the law courts do it; the magistrates and judges do it. But they only punish the guilty man - they do not change him; they do not make a good and righteous man out of him. But how will the unrighteous fare in a world where even the righteous turn into the unrighteous?

This saying of Krishna's has been widely mis understood. The so-called righteous man thinks Krishna will come to protect him. But we forget that one who needs protection is not a sage. A sage is his own protection; unprotected he is protected. And the wicked man thinks that Krishna will come to destroy him. And he is right to think so. Since he is deeply interested in hurting others, is killing others, he is always in fear of being hurt and killed in retribution. But no one can really be killed, the wicked man will be reborn as a wicked man. So Krishna is not going to indulge in this kind of foolishness.

"For the destruction of the wicked..." The wicked can be eliminated only through righteousness, spirituality. "For the protection of the righteous..." The righteous needs to be protected when he is righteous only in name, when his inner spirit ceases to be righteous.

This saying is pregnant with deep meaning.

Monks living in temples and monasteries believe that Krishna has a special concern for them, that he will come to their aid whenever they are in trouble. And they derive a kind of gratification from thinking that those who hurt them in any way are wicked, evil. This is the monk's definition of a wicked person, which is wrong. A true sage is one who treats even his tormentor as a friend and not as an enemy. He is not a sage who thinks that his tormentor is wicked, that he is his enemy.

He alone is a sage who has ceased to see anyone as his enemy, not even his persecutor. But the so-called righteous people, who are really unrighteous, gleefully think Krishna is pledged to destroy those who hurt and harass them. For this very reason this saying has received wide attention in this country: it is being chanted like a mantra; it has become a watchword.

But they are not aware that this statement of Krishna makes a great joke of the very monks who gloat over it. It is a satire on them. But the satire is so subtle they fail to see it. When people like Krishna make a joke it has to be very subtle and deep. It is not an ordinary kind of joke. Sometimes we take centuries to understand it.

They say that when a joke is told, it makes people laugh in three different ways. There are people who understand its subtlety, its punchline immediately and laugh. Then there are those who laugh in imitation of this laughter. And some people laugh lest they are discovered to be so dull they don't understand a joke.

It takes time even to understand an ordinary joke. And it takes much too long to understand a joke made by people like Krishna. This statement is a profound satire on the so-called sages: it says that a time will come when even sages will need to be protected.

Question 4:

The process of the creation of the universe, according to those who study it in depth, is threefold.

Investigation into the structure of matter, as done by science in recent times, also says that the atom has three components: it can be divided into electron, positron and neutron. Those who were endowed with deep insight in the world of religion discovered long ago that the process of creation can be divided into three parts: Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the sustainer; Mahesh, the destroyer.

There is birth at the beginning, there is death at the end, and in between them lies the small span of life. That which begins must come to its end, and between the two poles there is a brief stretch of the journey which we call life.

Vishnu is in the middle of the two, between Brahma and Mahesh or Shiva. Vishnu sustains life. He is the middle part of the process. Brahma is needed once, at the moment of creation, at birth. So also, Shiva is needed once, at the moment of destruction, at death. Vishnu comprises the span of life between birth and death. So between birth and death there is life. Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh are not the names of persons, they are names of energies, forces.

As I said, in the course of the creation of the universe Brahma and Shiva are needed very briefly, but Vishnu, who sustains life, who is life-energy, or elan vital in the words of Bergson, has a large role to play. That is why every avatara or incarnation in this country is the incarnation of Vishnu. It has to be so. You too are an incarnation of Vishnu. Vishnu alone can incarnate because he is life.

But it is wrong to think that the person known as Rama is the same as Krishna. No, the energy, the elan vital that manifested itself in Rama is also manifesting in Krishna, and it is the same energy manifesting itself in you. And don't be under the illusion that what manifested itself in Rama is not manifested in Ravana, his opponent. It is really the same energy gone astray. Ravana is Vishnu deviated. There is no other difference between the two. In the case of Ravana the same energy has gone off track.

All of life is Vishnu. All of incarnation is Vishnu's.

It is erroneous to think of Vishnu as a person. Rama is a person; Vishnu is not. Krishna is a person; Vishnu is not. Vishnu is the name of energy, power. But there is a reason for the mistake of taking him to be a person. Every insight in the past was expressed in poetry, and poetry even turns energy into a person. Out of necessity it had to do so; we could not have expressed it otherwise. But then this way of expression resulted in creating any number of riddles in mythology.

I have heard... A man is Lying on his deathbed. He is a Christian and the priest has come for the last rites. As is the custom, the priest asked the dying man, "Do you believe in God the father?" The man kept quiet. The priest again asked, "Do you believe in God the son?" The dying man remained silent. Lastly the priest asked, "Do you believe in God the holy ghost?"

The dying man turned to his own people around him and said, "Look, here I am dying and this man is giving me puzzles to solve." Evidently they were like puzzles for the dying man.

Let alone for the dying, even for the living, life is the greatest of riddles. What is it we call our life?

How does it come into being? How does it go on? How does it come to an end? What is that energy which makes it move, grow, ultimately shrink and disappear? In its own way, science calls it electron, positron and neutron, which make up a trinity like the religious trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. And it is interesting to note that the meaning of both the trinities - one of science and the other of religion - is approximately the same. The positron is a positive energy which we can equate with Brahma. The neutron is negative electricity and can sit well with Shiva the destroyer.

And in between the positron and the neutron is the electron, which may be called Vishnu. There seems to be just a linguistic difference. One thing is said in the language of science and the other in the language of religion.

The whole of life is Vishnu incarnated. When a flower blooms it is Vishnu blooming, when a river flows it is Vishnu flowing, when a tree grows it is Vishnu growing. And it is again Vishnu who takes birth, grows and lives as man or woman. And the moment of death, of annihilation, belongs to Shiva.

At the moment of death Shiva takes over from Vishnu. He is the lord of destruction. And therefore mythology has it that no one will agree to marry his daughter to Shiva. How can one offer one's offspring to death? How can one give to Shiva a woman who is basically a source of creation?

The incarnation of Vishnu does not mean that some person named Vishnu incarnated in Rama, then in Krishna and yet again in someone else. It is the energy known as Vishnu that descends in Rama, Krishna and everybody else. It has ever been descending and it will continue to descend forever. And the energy known as Shiva or Shankar is that which terminates life. If you understand it in this perspective, everything will be clear to you. Then it is not a riddle, not a puzzle at all.

To create something the minimum number required is three; less than three won't do. Two are not enough, and one will make creation impossible. With one all diversity disappears and everything turns into a monotone. Even two won't work, because to unite any two, a third factor becomes essential. Otherwise the two will never unite, they will remain separate, apart. So the minimum number required is three. With three. creation and growth becomes possible. It may be more than three, but never less.

However, these three are not really three; they are different forms of one and the same energy, because reality is basically one. And because of this we created the statue of trimurti - one body with three faces. We did not create the statues of these gods separately, one apart from another; that would have been a mistake. They are not really separate, they are one. If they are separate entities they would need something else to join them together and that would lead to a process of infinite regression. Therefore we created the trimurti - three faces in one body, representing the one elan vital which gives birth to life, develops and sustains it and finally destroys it over and over again.

This is just a formal division, a division of labor. It is all one life-force which divides itself into three parts to bring the world into being.

Question 5:

Timid people, people who are afraid, would do well to keep away from Krishna. But your question is relevant.

Not only Krishna, no one should be followed, It is not that you will degrade yourself if you follow Krishna, you will degrade yourself if you follow anybody. Every kind of following, imitation, is degrading and destructive. But we raise this question of degradation especially in regard to Krishna.

We don't raise such a question with regard to Mahavira, Buddha and Rama. No one will say that you will debase yourself if you follow Rama. So why do they raise this question only in regard to Krishna? We encourage our children to follow Rama, but when it comes to following Krishna we tell them to beware. Why?

We are afraid. We are a frightened people. We are utterly lacking in courage. And hence this question.

I say to you, all following is degrading; all imitation is debasing. The moment you imitate someone, whosoever he is, you destroy yourself. Neither Krishna nor anyone else is worth imitating. Certainly people like Krishna, Buddha and Christ should be considered, studied and rightly understood. All the awakened people have to be considered.

When we come to consider Buddha it is not that difficult. Nor do we find any difficulty in considering Christ. The real difficulty arises when we come to consider Krishna. Why? It is so because the life of Buddha or Mahavira or Christ is such that it fits in with our philosophical matrices; Buddha. Mahavira and Christ can be accommodated in our systems of thought. Discipline is their way of life, there are certain norms, principles they don't transgress. On the other hand, Krishna's life does not fit in with our systems of thought, because it transcends every norm, every limitation, every discipline, every constraint. Krishna's life is simply illimitable.

No matter how lofty it is, our every thought is limited, finite, so when we come to consider Krishna we soon reach the end of our tether, and Krishna remains unending and incomprehensible. We cannot transgress our limitations; we find it dangerous to do so - whereas Krishna knows no limits, he is infinite. So Krishna is always ahead of us, beyond and beyond.

But I say, we should consider Krishna all the more just because he is illimitable, because he is vast and immense. In my view he alone should be considered and thought over who can take you to a space where consideration comes to an end, where all thought ceases. One who can take you beyond thought and concept, beyond word and image, who can show you something which is without end, which is eternal, which is inexpressible, is alone worthy of consideration. If you walk with Krishna, you will have to walk endlessly. His journey has no destination, or should I say, for him journeying itself is his destination. But on your part you would like to reach somewhere and rest.

But Krishna would say, "We have to go farther and still farther."

Thought, thinking, is not the ultimate, it is only the beginning. A moment should come in the life of each one of you when you can transcend thought, when you can go beyond words and images. But he alone can take you beyond thought who is capable of shaking and shocking your thought, your way of thinking. He alone can lead you into the beyond who refuses to be contained in your thought, who, in spite of your efforts, blows all of your thought systems, who transcends them.

Consider everybody, but follow no one - not even Krishna, Buddha and Christ. You have to follow only one person, and that is you. Understand everybody and follow yourself, follow your intrinsic nature. If you want to imitate, imitate yourself and no one else.

Why is it that such a question is raised only in the context of Krishna? It is obviously out of fear; we are afraid of Krishna. But why? We are afraid, because we have all lived lives of utter suppression.

It is not much of a life, it is a bundle of suppressions and repressions. There is no openness in our life; it is utterly inhibited and blocked. That is why we are afraid of Krishna. We are afraid that even if we think of him all that we have suppressed will begin to pop up and surface. We are afraid lest our suppressive logic, our philosophy of suppression is weakened and the wall that we have built around us, all our defenses, will begin to crumble and fall apart. We fear that if we come in contact with Krishna all our imprisoned feelings and emotions will cry for an outlet to express themselves.

The fear is inner; the anxiety is psychological. But Krishna cannot be held responsible for it; the responsibility is ours. We have utterly misbehaved with ourselves; we have mistreated ourselves all down the road of life. We have constantly suppressed ourselves, our lives. We have always lived tepid and fragmented lives. We have never tried to know and accept ourselves. We have hardly lived our lives.

Our life is like a sitting room, a drawing room in our house. We decorate our sitting room, furnish it, keep it clean, very spick and span, and leave the rest of the house in a mess. This sitting room is very different from the rest of the house. If you happen to visit someone's sitting room, don't take it for his house. He does not eat here or sleep here; here he only receives his guests. This room is made as a showpiece to create a good impression on others. His house is where he lives, eats, grumbles, quarrels and fights, where he is himself. The sitting room is just a cover, a mask to deceive others. It is not his house, his real life.

Every one of us is wearing a mask to hide what we really are and to show what we are not. That is not our real face; our real life is hidden, suppressed deep down in our unconscious, so much so that we are ourselves unaware of it. We have ceased to take care of it; we have forgotten it.

We are afraid of our suppressions and repressions hidden in the basement of our minds. We are afraid even to look at them. It means we are like one who has forgotten the rest of his house and is confined to his sitting room alone. The rest of the house is a heap of rubbish, and he is afraid to enter it. It is no wonder our lives have become shallow and superficial, shadowy and shady.

This is the reason for our fear of Krishna.

Krishna does not have a separate sitting room; he has turned his whole house into a sitting room and lives all over. He receives his guests in every corner of his house and takes them all over. Krishna's whole life is an open book; there is nothing he needs to cover and hide. Whatever is, is. He does not deny anything; he does not suppress anything: he does not fight with his life. He accepts his life totally.

So it is natural that we are afraid of Krishna, we who are so suppressive and secretive. We have rejected and repressed ninety-nine percent of our life and buried it deep in the darkness of the unconscious. We barely live one percent of what we call life. But the rejected and repressed part is always clamoring and knocking at the door and pushing to come out and live in the open. All that we have repressed is constantly struggling to express and assert itself, every day it expresses itself in our dreams and daydreams and in many other ways. We do everything to push it back, but the more we thwart it the more it asserts itself. All our life is spent in fighting with our own repressed emotions and desires and cravings. Man is against himself. He is wasting his life in fighting against himself, because he courts defeat after defeat and ultimately ends up in smoke.

For this very reason we are afraid of Krishna, who has no facades, who has no masks whatsoever, who is open-ended, who does not suppress anything, who has nothing to hide, who accepts life totally, who accepts its sunshine and its darkness together. We fear that, coming in contact with such a man, our repressed souls will rise in revolt against us and overwhelm us. We fear that, coming close to him, we will cease to be what we are - pseudo entities, false homo sapiens.

But even this fear deserves to be considered and understood rightly. This fear is there not because of Krishna, but because of us, because of the way we have lived up to now. A man who is open, simple and clean and who has lived a natural life will not be afraid of Krishna. If he has not suppressed anything in his life, he will never fear Krishna. Then there is no reason to fear him. So we have to understand our own fear and why we fear. If we have fears it simply means we are ill at ease with ourselves, it means we are diseased, we are neurotic. And we have to make efforts to change this condition, to be totally free of fear.

It is therefore essential that we come in contact with Krishna and know him intimately. We need him more than anyone else. But we say we are already in contact with lofty thoughts. We read the teachings of Buddha, who says, "Shun anger." We read the sayings of Christ, who says, "Love thine enemy." But remember, these lofty ideas and thoughts that we repeat every day do nothing but help us suppress our selves, alienate ourselves from ourselves. But we are afraid of Krishna. Why?

If you are afraid of Krishna, so far so good. It means that Krishna is going to be of great help to you.

He will help you to uncover, to expose yourselves, to understand yourselves and to make you once again natural and simple. Don't resist him; don't run away from him. Let him come into your life. Let him encounter you. In this encounter you have not to imitate him, you have only to understand him.

And understanding him you will understand yourself. In the course of your encounter with Krishna you will come to encounter yourself, you will come to know who you are, what you are. Maybe you will come to know you are what Krishna is, what God is.

A friend came to me the other day and said, "Do you believe that Krishna had sixteen thousand wives?"

I told him, "Leave Krishna aside, think of yourself. Can you be satisfied with less than sixteen thousand women?"

He was a little startled and said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "Whether Krishna had sixteen thousand wives or not is not that important. What is important to know is that every man longs to have that large number of women, that less than that won't do. And if I come to know for sure that Krishna had sixteen thousand wives, the man in me will immediately assert himself and begin to demand them too. And we are afraid of that man inside us, imprisoned in us. But it is no good fearing him and running away from him. He has to be encountered. He has to be known and understood."

We will discuss it further tomorrow. Now prepare for meditation.