The cosmos is a Dance of Opposites

Question 1:

To understand raasleela, the dance of celebration, what is first necessary to know is that the whole of life is a meeting of contradictory forces, and that all its happiness comes from this union of the opposites. The very mystery and ecstasy of life lies hidden in this unio mystica.

To begin with, it is good to understand the metaphysical meaning of the celebration that our universe it. And then, together, we will go into the life of Krishna, a complete miniature of this celebrating universe.

Raise your sights and look at whatever is happening all around in this vast universe of ours. Is it anything other than a dance, a celebration, an abounding carnival of joy? It is all celebration, whether it is clouds gliding in the heavens or rivers rushing to the seas or seeds on their way to becoming flowers and fruit, or bees humming or birds on the wing or love affairs between men and women. It is all a panorama of play and dance and celebration.

Raas has a universal meaning; it has a cosmic connotation and significance.

Firstly, the meeting of opposite energies is the cornerstone of all creation, of the universe. To construct a house with a door, we put an arch at the top of the door with the help of opposite shapes of bricks to support it. It is just this placing of opposite kinds of bricks in the arch that upholds not only the door but the whole building. If we use uniform kinds of bricks in the arch, it will be impossible to construct a house. In the same way, the whole play of creation, at every level of life, begins when energy becomes divided into two opposite parts. This division of energy is at the root of all creation, of all life in the universe, and with the cessation of this division all life's play comes to a full stop.

When the same energy becomes one, when it returns to its primordial state, total destruction, the ending of the universe happens. And when the same energy again divides itself into two, creation begins anew.

Raas, the dance of celebration, is the most profound attribute of the mighty stream of creation. And creation in itself is the interplay of polar opposites - thesis and antithesis. When opposites collide with each other it results in conflict, hostility and war, and when they embrace each other there is love and friendship. Without the meeting of the two, creation is impossible. So we have to go into the significance of Krishna's raas in this context.

It is not all that we see when Krishna dances with the gopis, the milkmaids, but we can see only that much with our gross eyes. Krishna's raas with the milkmaids of his village is not an ordinary dance, on a small scale it really represents the universal dance of creation that, since eternity, goes on and on. It epitomizes the everlasting drama of the making and unmaking of the universe. It gives you a glimpse of that divine dance and that immense orchestra.

It is for this reason that Krishna's maharaas ceases to have a sexual connotation. Not that it prohibits any sexual interpretation, but for certain sex has been left far behind. In reality Krishna does not dance as a mere Krishna, he represents her, the whole of the male element in creation, known in Sanskrit as purusha. And similarly the gopis represent the entire female element, prakriti. The maharaas represents the combined dance of prakriti and purusha.

People who take the maharaas as a sexual representation of life are mistaken; they really don't understand it. And I am afraid they will never understand it. To put it rightly, it is a dance of the meeting of the male and female energies, of purusha and prakriti. It has nothing to do with any individual man and woman; it represents the mighty cosmic dance.

It is because of this that a single Krishna dances with any number of gopis. Ordinarily it is not possible for a single man to dance with many women at a time. Ordinarily no man can be in love with many women together, but Krishna does it, and does it beautifully. It is amazing that every milkmaid, every gopi taking part in the maharaas, believes that Krishna is dancing with her, that he is hers. It seems Krishna has turned into a thousand Krishnas so that he pairs off with each of the thousand women present there.

It is utterly wrong to take the maharaas, the celebration dance of Krishna, as that of an individual person. Krishna is not a person here; he represents the great male energy, purusha. The maharaas is a representation in dance of the great meeting between male and female energies. But the question is: Why only dance is chosen as a medium for this representation?

As I said this morning, the medium of dance comes nearest to the mysterious, to the non-dual, and to celebration. Nothing can express it better than dance.

Let us look at it in another way. Dance is the most primitive form of human language, because when man had not yet learned to speak, he spoke through gestures. If one man had to communicate with another, he made gestures with his face, his eyes, his hands and feet. Even today a dumb person only expresses himself through gestures. Verbal language came much later. Birds don't know a language, but they know how to chirp and dance together. Gestures make up the whole language of nature. It is used and understood all over.

So there is a reason why dance came to center stage for the raas, the celebration.

Gesture is the most profound medium of expression because it touches the deepest parts of man's mind and heart. Dance reaches where words fail. The sound of the ankle bells of a dancer says a lot even where speech is ineffective. Dance is more articulate than anything else. A dancer can go from one end of the earth to another and will, more or less, make himself understood through his dance.

No language will be needed to understand and appreciate him. No particular level of civilization and culture will be required to understand a dance. Dance is a kind of universal language; it is understood everywhere on this planet. Wherever a dancer goes he will be understood. Man's collective unconscious is well aware of this language.

To me, the great raas happening in infinite space, with millions of stars like the sun and moon dancing rhythmically, is not an ordinary dance. It is not meant for entertainment; it is not show business. In a sense it should be described as overflowing bliss. There is such an abundance of bliss in the heart of existence that it is flowing, overflowing. That is what we call the river of existence. The presence of the polar opposites in the universe facilitates its flow.

Man alone cannot flow; he needs the presence of woman. Without the woman man is inhibited and closed. In the same way, without man the woman is inhibited and closed. Their togetherness causes their energies to spring into the form of love. What we know as love between man and woman is nothing but the flowing of yin and yang together. And this love, if it is not personalized, can have great spiritual significance.

The attraction of man and woman for each other is what brings them together so that their latent energies flow into the stream of love and life. That is why a man feels relaxed with a woman and a woman feels at ease with a man. Separated and alone they feel tense and anxious; coming together they feel as light as feathers, weightless. Why? Because something in them, some subtle energy has become alive and moving, and as a result they feel at home and happy.

Unfortunately we have been trying to put man and woman in a cage, the cage of marriage. But as soon as we bind them with marriage and its institution, their energy ceases to flow, it stagnates.

Life's play has nothing to do with institutions; it cannot be institutionalized. Krishna's raas does not have an order, a system; it is utterly free and spontaneous. You can say it is chaotic. It is chaos itself.

There is a significant saying of Nietzsche's. He says, "It is out of chaos that stars are born." Where there is no system, no order, only the interplay of energies remains. In this interplay of energies, which is raas, Krishna and his milkmaids cease to be individuals, they move as pure energies. And this dance of male and female energies together brings deep contentment and bliss; it turns into an outpouring of joy and bliss. Rising from Krishna's raas this bliss expands and permeates every fiber of the universe. Although Krishna and his girlfriends are no more with us as people, the moon and the stars under which they danced together are still with us, and so are the trees and the hills and the earth and the skies that were once so drunk with the bliss of the raas. So, although millenia have passed, the vibes of the maharaas are still with us.

Now scientists have come forward with a strange theory. They say although people come and go, the subtle vibes of their lives and their living remain suffused in existence forever. If someone goes to dance on the grounds where Krishna once danced with his gopis he can hear the echoes of the maharaas even today. If someone can play a flute near the hills that in the past echoed with the music of Krishna's flute, he can hear those hills still echoing it, everlastingly.

In my view, the raas symbolizes the overflowing, outpouring of the primeval energy as it is divided between man and woman. And if we accept this definition, the raas is as relevant today as it was in the times of Krishna. Then it is everlastingly relevant.

Lately I have received a suggestion from many friends that men and women should be segregated from each other when we go for meditation, because they think it will help their meditation. This suggestion is utterly stupid. They don't know that if men and women are segregated from each other, if they are put into separate blocks, it will make them two homogeneous groups cut off from each other, blocking the flow of energy between them. Friends who come up with such suggestions are ignorant of their implications. I hold just the contrary view on the matter. If men and women meditate together as a mixed gather ing, it can be immensely helpful to their meditation. Then something can happen to both of them without their knowing it, and it will deepen their meditation.

Your being here together without any reason - you are not here as husbands and wives - will help you in catharsis as nothing else can do. The very presence of the opposite sex will stir many deeply repressed emotions in both men and women, and it will then be so easy to cathart them.

The terrible mental tension through which mankind is passing at the moment is the result of this segregation, this apartheid of men and women. We have separate schools and colleges for boys and girls; men and women sit in separate groups in churches and temples. Everywhere the sexes are being made to keep a distance from each other. Much of our present-day trouble and misery stems from this unnatural and unhealthy practice, because it violates the basic laws of nature. In this world the entire structure of life is based on the togetherness of the opposite forces. The more natural and spontaneous this togetherness, the more beneficial it is.

The significance of raas, the dance of celebration, is everlasting, it issues from the fundamental principle of life. This fundamental principle says that men and women are incomplete in themselves, they are fragments of a single whole. And they become whole and healthy only in close togetherness, in union with each other. If this togetherness happens unconditionally, it will complete the two in an extraordinary and unearthly way. On the other hand, if the union is conditional, if it has a motive, it is bound to lead to enormous difficulty and trouble in the process of its completion.

However, so long as men and women exist on this earth, the raas will continue to be in vogue in many shapes and sizes. Maybe it does not attain the height and depth it had with Krishna, but if we grow in understanding and wisdom it is not impossible.

More or less every primitive community is aware of the beauty and significance of the raas, of their own kind of raas. They work hard through the day, and in the night both men and women gather together under the open sky and dance with abandon for hours and hours. While dancing, they forget their family relationships and mix freely with each other as men and women, and dance madly, as if all of life is meant for dancing and celebrating. They go to sleep only when they are utterly tired, and so they enter into a sleep so deep it may cause the civilized societies envy. It is for this reason that the peace of mind and the joy of life these poor people enjoy is unknown to the most affluent people who, just by wishing, can have all the good things of life. The rich are missing some basic truths of life for certain, and somewhere they are erring very grievously.

Question 2:

Everything in existence happens in its own time, a time for which one has to wait with tremendous patience. Everything has its season; nothing happens out of season. Time and occasion have great importance in life. And it is necessary to go into it from different angles.

I don't believe that Ahilya had actually turned into stone; this is just a poetic way of saying that she lived a stony life, a dull and dreary life until she met Rama whose love transformed her life. It is possible a woman will come to her flowering only through a particular man like Rama, and that she will patiently wait for such a man to come into her life.

It is a poetic metaphor to say that Ahilya had turned into stone. It means to say that with the right opportunity, with real love, even stone comes alive. It also says that no one except Rama could have fulfilled her. The crux of the story is that everybody and everything has its own season, its own moment of fulfillment for which one must wait with patience. Until this moment comes, it is not going to happen. Only the touch of her lover, his warm hug can fulfill her.

Let us understand it in another way. Woman is passive; passive waiting is her way. She cannot be aggressive; she is receptive. She has not only a womb in her body, even her mind is like a womb.

The English word woman, "wo-man", is very meaningful; it means a man with a womb. Woman's whole makeup is receptive, while man's makeup is active, aggressive. And although these two qualities, receptivity and aggressivity, seem to be contradictory, in reality they are complementary to each other. And as man and woman are complementary, so are their attributes. Man has what woman lacks and woman has what man lacks. That is how both together make a complete whole.

Woman's receptivity turns into waiting and man's aggressivity into search, into exploration. So while Ahilya will wait for Rama like a piece of stone, Rama will not do so. Instead, Rama will search many paths. It is interesting to note that a woman never takes the initiative in proposing love to a man, she always receives proposals from the man. She does not take the first step; it is man who takes it. Not that she does not begin loving someone, but her love is always a kind of waiting. Waiting is her way of love, and she can wait long - for lives.

In fact, when a woman becomes aggressive she immediately loses a part of her femininity, she loses her feminine attraction, Her beauty, her significance, her very soul lies in passive waiting, in infinite waiting. She can wait endlessly; she can never be aggressive. She will not go to a man and tell him, "I love you." She will not say it even to a man she loves with all her heart. She will, on the contrary, want the man she loves to come to her and say that he loves her. Another beauty of feminine love is that it never says a straightforward yes when the man a woman loves comes to propose his love to her. While verbally she says no - which means yes - she says yes with her silent gestures, with her whole being turned into love. It is always man who takes the initiative.

A woman can wait endlessly for Krishna, she can never be fulfilled without him.

It is in this context that, in the past, we had an extraordinary rule, and it is good to know it and understand it. Women did not ordinarily propose love to men, but if once in a long while a woman came forward to propose her love to a man, he had to accept her; it was utterly immoral to say no to her. Since it happened rarely, it was ruled that such a proposal could not be turned down. If ever a man said no, it was thought that he had failed in his manhood. It was thought to be an insult to womanhood, which was so much respected in this country in the past.

There is an anecdote in the life of Arjuna which is worth mentioning here, Arjuna is under a vow of celibacy for one year. A beautiful young woman falls in love with the ascetic-looking young man, and tells him, "I wish I had a son like you." It is significant that when a woman makes a request, a proposal, she does not propose to be a beloved or a wife, but a mother. Arjuna was put into a dilemma. He was under a vow of celibacy which could not be broken before its time. And it was equally wrong to violate the rule which said it was immoral to say no to a woman who came with a proposal of love. Arjuna did not want to be that immoral. A male energy ceases to be male if a man turns down the request of a woman - the receiving energy - to make love to her.

Arjuna's difficulty was real. So he told the young woman, "I am ready, but how is it certain that our son will be like me? It is therefore better that you accept me as your son. I will become your son; this fulfills your desire."

A similar anecdote is recorded in the life of George Bernard Shaw. A French actress, the most beautiful actress of the times, made a similar proposal to Shaw. In a letter she wrote that she wanted to marry him. Although the western woman has moved a long way from being a woman, yet this French actress expressed a womanly desire to be a mother. She said in her letter that she wanted to have a son by Bernard Shaw, because this son would be something marvelous, combining her beauty and Shaw's intelligence.

I say that this western woman could not suppress the inherent feminine desire to be a mother, because motherhood is a woman's highest fulfillment. A woman does not feel guilty in becoming a mother, she feels great. And when a woman expresses her desire to be a mother, she is not transgressing her modesty, she is not demeaning herself, she is not falling behind man. To become a mother she makes use of man in a very small way; she does the rest of it all herself. But to be-a wife she needs the man the whole way.

Bernard Shaw was faced with the same difficulty as Arjuna, but Shaw could not answer the woman in the way Arjuna did. Since Arjuna belonged to the East, his answer was typically eastern. And Shaw's answer was clearly coarse and vulgar. Bernard Shaw wrote back asking the actress how she would feel if their son received his looks and her intelligence. No man in the East could say this; it is an insult to womanhood. Shaw not only turned down a woman's love, he did it in a very indecent manner.

Kubja has waited long for Krishna; she has waited for him for many lives. Krishna cannot say no to her, because no has no place in his life. Even if Kubja asks for love on the physical level, Krishna will not refuse her, because he is not opposed to the body. The body is as muck accepted as anything else; it has its own place in life The body is not everything, but it has its significance; it has its own juices and joys. The body has its own existence.

Krishna does not deny it He accepts both body and soul; he embraces both matter and God. He cannot insult womanhood by refusing sex on the physical level; he can go to any length to respect womanhood. He is prepared to fulfill every wish of Kubja's, and he will not have to persuade himself, strain himself in the matter. He will not have to make any effort to oblige Kubja; he will naturally and happily accept that which is.

For us it is difficult to think that Krishna would go in for physical sex; it seems outrageous. It is so because we are divided, we are dualists; we believe that the body and soul are separate, and while the soul is great the body is something lowly. But I don't view - nor does Krishna - the body and soul, sex and superconsciousness, matter and God as separate entities. They are all one and the same. The body is that part of the soul which is within the grasp of our senses - like our eyes and hands - and the soul is that part of the body which is beyond the grasp of our senses and intellect.

The body is the visible soul and the soul is the invisible body. They are united and one; nowhere do they separate from each other or contradict each other. What is sexual joy at the physical level becomes ecstasy at the level of the soul. To Krishna's mind there is no conflict between sex and ecstasy. The joy of sex is nothing but a faint reflection, a faint trace of ecstasy, and therefore sex can become a door to ecstasy, to samadhi.

I cannot say what there is in the mind of Kubja, but I can speak very well for Krishna. I don't think Kubja has any readiness to use sex as a door to samadhi. That is not even relevant here. What is re levant is that whatever Kubja desires, Krishna is ready to fulfill it. He does not care if her desires are petty; he does not tell her to ask for something great because he has it and he can give it. Kubja approaches him with a request for physical gratification; she does not know what it is to be fulfilled spiritually. And Krishna is not going to turn her down because of it. He meets Kubja on Kubja's ground, and that is how a physical union between the two could be possible.

Question 3:

I did not say that they were either superior or inferior. All I sail was that they were distinctly different from each other. I am not concerned with their status; I am only interested in the distinctive individuality of each one of them. And if someone finds himself in accord with Hanumana, he will not accept Hanunana as inferior because of me. As far as I am concerned Hanumana is not in accord with me. And I am not going to lie about my view of Hanumana because someone else is in accord with him. You put the question to me and I answered it the way I saw it. If I have to choose between them, I will choose Meera and Krishna, and I told you why. But I don't say that you should choose Krishna in preference to Rama. It is enough that you understand what I say, and then go wherever your individuality takes you.

In my view, Rama's personality is confined, confined to certain norms and ideals, and I think even Rama's followers will not deny it. In fact, they follow him because he lives within norms; Rama appeals to people who love to live within norms. But I say that to live within the confines of norms is to live a petty life, a limited, inhibited and narrow life. Life is not confined to norms; it goes far beyond norms and rules, ideas and concepts. Truth is unlimited and illimitable. The whole truth cannot be covered by any ideas and ideals, however great they may be. Truth can be at home only with the unlimited, the infinite. You limit it and it ceases to be truth. So truth is at home with Krishna, not with Rama, because Krishna too, like truth, is unlimited, infinite.

And it is wrong to say that your tradition does not make a distinction between Rama and Krishna.

It does. It does not accept Rama as a complete incarnation of God; Krishna alone is accepted as such. Your tradition is very clear about it. I don't know if they have a comparative evaluation of Hanumana and Meera - perhaps not - but they have certainly evaluated Rama and Krishna, judging Krishna to be the highest among all the Hindu avataras, all the Hindu incarnations.

It is obvious that followers of Rama do not accept Krishna; they don't even want to hear his name.

In the same way devotees of Krishna are allergic to Rama - and it is natural. But I am a follower of no one; I follow neither Rama nor Krishna. I have nothing to do with them; therefore, I can see them exactly as they are, and I will say the truth.

To me, it seems that Rama's life is clear-cut and defined; there is nothing hazy about it. Krishna's life is not that neat and clear-cut, it cannot be. And that is why it has great depth. Rama has cut out a portion of a vast and wild jungle and turned it into a neat and clean garden by removing unwieldy bushes and shrubs. But this does not mean that the vast jungle has ceased to be; it is there, surrounding the little garden.

D.H. Lawrence often said he wanted to see man in his wild form, that modern man had turned into a garden and was diseased. While Rama is a small and enclosed garden, Krishna is the vast jungle itself, wild and rugged and chaotic. It lacks planning and organization, order; it has no roads, no pathways, no sidewalks, not even flowerbeds. It is full of wild animals like lions and tigers; it is infested with all kinds of snakes and reptiles and lizards. At places it is dark and awesome.

Even fugitives from the civilized world, like robbers and thieves, take shelter here. It is packed with wilderness, with ruggedness, dangers.

Krishna's life is that gigantic jungle, while Rama's life is a kitchen garden in the backyard of your house, where everything is in order, where there is nothing to fear. I don't say to you, "Don't have a kitchen garden," what I say is that a garden is a garden and a jungle is a jungle.

When you are bored with your garden you think of the jungle, because it is nature's own creation; it is not of your making. There is a life, grandeur and beauty in the jungle which no garden can have.

Your tradition has made a comparison between Rama and Krishna, but not between Hanumana and Meera. It is not that necessary to evaluate Meera and Hanumana comparatively. Since you raised the question I have to say something about it. Where will you place Hanumana when his lord Rama himself is only a kitchen garden? At best he can be a flower pot; nothing more than that. And as a flower pot in the garden of Rama he is very neat and clean, at times more orderly than Rama himself.

Question 4:

It is possible. When a strong wind comes, the plants of a garden sway and dance, even the plant in a flower pot begins to sway. But the dance of a jungle is like Shiva's tandava, his dance of destruction.

This dance is mighty. It is immense; it is awesome. This dance of the jungle is, as the jungle is, beyond our control, and it is frightening to us. The dance of a garden is small and manageable; we can manage it. Hanumana can dance, but he is subject to Rama's control. Meera is different. When she dances even Krishna cannot control her. Hanumana cannot disobey Rama; he is disciplined and obedient.

It is true that we need discipline in the world, but discipline is not everything. Everything that is profound, great and immense in life is free from discipline. Everything that is true, good and beautiful in life comes exploding; it follows no rules, no discipline.

However, this is how I see them, Meera and Hanumana. And I told you about my choice: I choose Meera. But it does not mean that you should do the same. And I don't think in terms of the superiority or inferiority of one; I am simply pointing out the difference that is there. Everyone has his own criteria of what is superior and what is inferior. If someone finds greatness in Hanumana, it only shows his way of evaluation. And if I find Meera to be great, it speaks for my meaning of greatness. In this evaluation Meera and Hanumana are not that important; they only reflect our preferences.

Question 5:

When Charles Darwin first said, looking at man's physical frame, that it seems he has evolved from some species of monkeys, we were shocked and could not easily take it. How could man, who believed God was his father, suddenly come to replace God with the monkey? It came as a great blow to our egos, but there was no way out. Darwin backed his theory with powerful evidence. and the whole scientific discipline supported him. That is why, in spite of tremendous opposition, it had to be accepted. There was no way out.

There is so much similarity, both physical and mental, between man and monkey that it is difficult to deny Darwin. Even the ways of their being and living are so strikingly similar that we had to accept that man is very much linked with the monkey. Even today, when we walk our hands move rhythmically with our moving legs - the left hand with the right leg and vice versa - although it is not at all necessary for our hands to move. We can walk very well without moving our hands; those whose hands are amputated walk as easily. Evidently Darwin thinks that this movement of the hands is only a habit, a hangover from out old life as monkeys millions of years ago when we walked on all fours. Even the little opening where a monkey has its tail is discernible on man's body as a linkage.

It indicates that man had a tail when he was a monkey.

In this context Hanumana is very significant. Had he known about Hanumana, Darwin would have been greatly pleased. Darwin was searching for the missing link between monkey and man; he believed that there must be some species in the evolution of man from monkey who was halfway between the two, neither a full monkey nor a complete man. Between the two there must be a transitory period which the monkey took to evolve into man; it is impossible that a monkey was all of a sudden transformed into a man. It should have been over millions of years when some monkeys became men and others remained monkeys.

Biologists and anthropologists are still wondering what happened to the missing link. A worldwide search is still underway to discover the skeleton of that intermediary between monkey and man.

Hanumana seems to be, in many ways, related to that missing link, and it would be great if his skeleton were found. Darwin's theory met with stiff opposition, and it took a long time to be accepted.

It was accepted because it was supported by proof.

I say yet another thing which is concerned with the evolution of man. I say that as man has evolved from the monkey at the level of his body, similarly, he evolved from the cow at the level of his soul.

If the monkey is his predecessor on the physical side, the cow is his predecessor on the spiritual side. While man's physical frame has evolved from the monkey's body, his soul has evolved from the soul of the cow. Of course, in support of this theory we can not advance proofs as direct and strong as Darwin's in support of his. But there are many other kinds of evidence in support of what I am saying: man as a soul has evolved from the cow.

It is not reason enough to call the cow our mother because we are an agricultural community and the cow has great use and importance for us. If it were so, we should have called the bull our father, which we did not. And we don't turn every utilitarian object into our mother. There is no reason to do so. The railway train has great utility for us and we cannot do without it, but we are not going to give it the status of a mother. No community calls the airplane mother, although it is so important to modern life. Never and nowhere has an object of utility been called mother, despite the fact that there are any number of things that have utility. And there is no relationship between motherhood and utility. There must be some other reasons for regarding the cow as our mother.

In my view, the cow is man's mother exactly in the same way as the monkey, according to Darwin, happens to be his father. And I have good reasons to say it. Further, most of these reasons are based on the findings of psychic research into man's memory of his past lives, called jati-smaran in Buddhist terminology. Thousands of yogis down the centuries have explored and recalled the memories of their past lives and have found retrospectively that as soon as the chain of their human lives comes to an end, the life of the cow begins. If you go back into your past lives - and there are tested methods to do it - you will find that for many lives you were a human being. but as soon as the series of human lives ends, you will enter the life of the cow that you were. Everyone who experimented with jati-smaran has come to the same conclusion: behind the layers of memory of human lives lies the layer belonging to the life of a cow. And it is on this basis that the cow has been described as man's mother.

Apart from this, there are other reasons to say so. If you explore the whole animal world you will note that no other animal has such a developed soul as the cow. Looking into the eyes of a cow you will find a kind of humanly quality, a humanness no other animal has. The innocence, the simplicity, the humility of a cow is rare. Spiritually, the cow is the most evolved being in the whole animal world; its high qualities of soul are evident. Its evolved state clearly indicates it is ready for a spiritual leap forward.

If you watch the physical restlessness in which a monkey lives, it will be obvious to you that it is not going to rest until it achieves a higher form of body. The monkey seems to be utterly dissatisfied with his body; in fact, he is dissatisfied with everything about it. It is so agile, speedy and restless all the time. Looking at a newborn child, you will find, while his body has the agility of a monkey, his eyes have the peace and serenity of a cow. Physically he reminds one of a monkey, and spiritually he resembles a cow.

The cow is held in deep respect in this country not because we are predominantly an agricultural society, it is so because after protracted investigations in the psychic world, it was learned that man has spiritually evolved from the cow. And as psychic knowledge grows - and it is growing - science will soon support this truth that India discovered long ago about the cow. There will be no difficulty in the matter.

You will understand it better if you look at the long chain of God's incarnations as conceived by the Hindus. It begins with the fish - the first incarnation of God is the fish - and goes up to Buddha. Until recently one wondered how God could incarnate as a fish; the whole thing seemed so ridiculous.

But now the science of biology accepts that life on this earth began with the fish. Now it is difficult to mock the Hindu concept of matsyavatara, God's first incarnation as a fish. Science has such a hold on our minds that we have to accept whatever it says. Science says that life on this earth has evolved from the fish. That is why this country said centuries ago that the fish was the first incarnation of God. The Sanskrit word for incarnation is avatara, which means descent of consciousness. Since life as consciousness first dawned in the fish, it is not wrong to call it the first incarnation. This is the language of religion. Science says the same thing: the first appearance of life on earth was in the shape of the fish.

We have yet another of God's incarnations which is still more puzzling and unique. It is called narsinghavatara, God's incarnation as half man and half animal. When Darwin says that the missing link between monkey and man should be half monkey and half man, we don't have any difficulty in accepting him. But we find it difficult to accept the concept of narsinghavatara. This is again the language of religion, and undoubtedly it carries with it a deep insight.

The cow is man's mother in the same way as the monkey is his father. Darwin was concerned with the evolution of the physical body, in fact, the whole of the West is concerned with the physical. But India has long been concerned with the spirit, the soul; it is not much concerned with the body. We have always wanted to explore the spirit and its ultimate source. For this reason we emphasized the soul much more than the body.

Secondly, you want to know my view on cow slaughter.

I am against all kinds of slaughter, so the question of my favoring cow slaughter does not arise.

But whether I am for or against it, cow slaughter is not going to stop. The conditions of our life are such that the cow will continue to be killed. I am against meat-eating, but it is not going to make a difference. Under the present conditions meat-eating cannot go. We are not yet in a position to provide the entire population of the world with an adequate amount of vegetarian food. Let alone the world, even a single country cannot afford to be vegetarian at the moment. It will simply die of starvation if it decides to go vegetarian. Unless we have enough food grains and vegetables and milk to feed the whole world, non-vegetarianism will continue to predominate. There is no way out at the moment. It is a necessary evil. So is cow slaughter.

It is ironic that people who are anxious to ban cow slaughter are doing nothing to create the necessary conditions to make the society vegetarian. So cow slaughter is not going to end because of these people. If it ends someday, it will end because of the efforts of those who are not at all anxious to do away with cow slaughter. Slogan-mongering and agitation are not going to end it, nor is it going to end through legislation. Though we have the largest number of cows, they ate the most uncared for; they ate as good as dead and useless. On the other hand, beef-eating countries have the best kinds of cows, healthy and strong. While a single cow in the West yields forty to fifty kilos of milk pet day, it would be too much for an Indian cow to give half a kilo. We have only skeletons in the name of cows, and we make such a hulla-baloo about them.

The production of vegetarian food, of nutritive and health-giving vegetarian food, is the first imperative if you want to abolish cow slaughter. Supporters of vegetarianism have yet to meet the argument of the non-vegetarians that the world is much too short of vegetarian food to provide nutrition and health to mankind. There is logic in their argument.

It is very interesting that both cow and mon key ate vegetarians. Man inherits his body and soul from vegetarian sources. It is another thing that a monkey sometimes swallows a few ants, but by and large he is a vegetarian. The cow is wholly vegetarian; it will eat meat only when it is forced to. Under the circumstances it is strange how man has turned non-vegetarian, because his whole physical and psychic system is derived from vegetarian sources. The structure of his stomach is such as only vegetarian animals have, and so is his mental makeup. Obviously man must have been forced by circumstances to become non vegetarian. And even today he cannot do with, out animal food.

It seems to me that cow slaughter will continue in spite of all our good intentions to stop it. In my view, it will only stop when we make provisions for adequate synthetic food for all. And then people have to be persuaded to take to synthetic food on a large scale. Synthetic food is the only alternative to non-vegetarianism. The day man accepts living on scientific food, meat-eating will disappear, not before.

So I am not interested in the agitation for banning cow slaughter by law; it is absurd and stupid. It is a sheer waste of time and energy. I am interested in something else: I want science to put its energy into the creation of synthetic food so that man is freed from meat-eating. There is no other way except this. Food derived from the earth will not do; food will have to be produced in factories in the form of pills. The population of the world today ranges between three and a half to four billion, and this goes on increasing. In spite of what we do to control population, it is going to increase in an unprecedented manner.

The day is not far off when we will leave behind this agitation against cow slaughter and will instead be agitating for a large-scale slaughter of men. The day is not distant when man will eat man, because you cannot argue with hunger As we now ask a dying man to donate his eyes or kidneys, we will soon ask him to donate his flesh for the hungry. And we will honor him who donates his flesh, as today we honor one who donates his heart or lungs. There is going to be such a population explosion on the earth.

Very soon we will begin to think it is unjust to cremate dead bodies, they should be saved for food - and it will not be something new and extraordinary; cannibalism has been known to man since ancient times. There have been tribes where man ate man to satiate his hunger. Once again we are coming close to that situation when cannibalism will be revived. In view of it, it is just stupid to agitate for a ban on cow slaughter. It is utterly unscientific to do so.

I don't suggest that cow slaughter should not and cannot go. It can go. Not only the killing of cows, all kinds of killing can go. But then we will have to take a revolutionary step in the direction of our food and food habits. I am not in favor of cow slaughter, but I am also not in favor of those who shout out against it. All their talk is sheer nonsense. They don't have a correct perspective and a right plan to stop cow slaughter. But it must stop; the cow should be the last animal to be killed. She is the highest in animal evolution; she is the connecting link between man and animal. She deserves all our care and compassion, we are connected with her in an innate and intimate manner. We have to take every care for her.

But remember, caring is possible only when you are in a position to take care. Without the facilities and the wherewithal, caring is impossible. We have to be pragmatic; it is no use being sentimental.

I should tell you an anecdote which I narrated to some friends the other day while we were on a walk.

A priest has to go to a church to give a Sunday sermon. The priest is an old man and his church is four miles away, and the road to it is difficult as it passes through a hilly area with many ups and downs. So the old priest hires a horse-driven coach for his journey. He sends for the owner of the coach and tells him that he will be well paid for his services. The coachman says, "That is okay, but my horse, Gaffar, is very old, and we will have to take care of him."

The priest says, "Don't worry, I will be as considerate of the horse as you are. He will be well cared for."

After only a half mile's drive the coach reaches a steep rise in the hills. So the coach stops and the coachman tells the priest, "Now please step out of the coach, because the uphill road begins and since Gaffar is very old we have to care for him." The old priest gets out and begins to walk alongside the coach. And when they reach the plain the priest is asked to board the coach again. This is how the whole journey is covered - the priest is made to walk when the road is uphill and rides in the carriage when it is on flat ground. On a four-mile journey he drives hardly a mile in the coach, and the rest he has to cover by walking. In fact, he has to walk where for his age it is necessary to ride, and he rides where he can well afford to walk.

When the coach reaches the church, the priest pays the coachman and tells him, "Here is your fare, but before you go I would like you to answer a question. I came here to give a sermon and you came here to earn money. It is okay, but why did you bring Gaffar? It would have been easier if only you and I had come. Why Gaffar?"

Life is lived according to its needs and exigencies, not according to ideas and theories. The cow cannot be saved when man himself is facing death. To save the cow it is necessary for man to become so affluent that he can afford it. Then, along with the cow, other animals will be saved too.

The cow is, of course, nearest to us as an animal, but other animals are not that distant. Even the fish is our kin, although a distant kin. Life really began with the fish. So, as man grows affluent he will not only save the cow, he will save the fish too.

We have to be clear in our view that the cow and, for that matter, all other animals have to be saved.

But it is sheer stupidity to insist on saving them even when the conditions necessary to do so are lacking.

Now we will sit for meditation.