Krishna Smriti #1

Krishna’s personality is utterly unique. The first mark of this uniqueness is that although Krishna happened in the past, he belongs to the future. Humanity is still not capable of being contemporary with Krishna. He still lies beyond our understanding. Only in the future will it become possible to truly understand Krishna.

There are reasons for this. The greatest is that Krishna is the only person who, having traversed the ultimate depths and heights of religion, is not grave, not gloomy, not tearful. Ordinarily the hallmark of a saint is sorrow—disenchanted with life, defeated, fleeing. Krishna alone is a dancing being—laughing, singing. The religion of the past was sorrow-centered. Except for Krishna, the whole of past religion was sad, full of tears. A laughing religion, a religion that accepts life in its totality, is yet to be born. Certainly the old religion has died; and the old God—the idea of God we held until now—has also died.

It is said of Jesus that he never laughed. Perhaps his somber personality and his body hanging on the cross became a powerful attraction for us grief-stricken people. Mahavira and Buddha, in a very deep sense, are opponents of this life. There is some other life beyond—moksha—for which they are advocates. All religions split life into two halves: one to be accepted and one to be denied.

Krishna alone accepts life in its wholeness. The fruition of accepting life’s totality appears in his personality. Hence this land called all other incarnations partial avatars and Krishna the full avatar. Rama too is but a part of the Divine, but Krishna is the Divine in full. There is reason for thinking and saying so: Krishna has assimilated everything.

Albert Schweitzer, in his critique of Indian religion, made a costly claim—that Indian religion is life-negating. This is true to a large extent if Krishna is forgotten. Include Krishna, and it becomes wholly false. Had Schweitzer understood Krishna, he could not have said such a thing. But even for us, Krishna’s shadow has not fallen broadly upon our consciousness. In an ocean of sorrow he stands as a tiny dancing island. Or think of a vast desert of denial, repression, and condemnation, and there, a small dancing oasis. He has not been able to influence the whole stream of our life; we were not worthy, we could not assimilate him.

The human mind has thought by splitting, by duality. Deny the body, accept the soul—thus set the soul and body at war. Accept the other world, deny this world—thus set this world and the next in conflict.

Naturally, if we deny the body, life will turn bleak. All the sources of juice and health and music and sensitivity come through the body. A religion that denies the body will turn sallow and bloodless; its glow will fade. It will be like a yellow leaf—dried out. And those in whom such a religion takes root will also become like yellow leaves, always preparing to fall, eager to die.

Krishna alone accepts the body in its entirety, its totality. This is true not in one dimension but in all. Perhaps apart from Krishna, in the whole history of humanity only Zarathustra is said to have laughed at the moment of birth. All other babies cry; in the history of humankind, only one is said to have been born laughing. This is indicative: a laughing humanity has not yet been born. And Krishna can only be understood by a laughing humanity. Therefore Krishna has a great future. The world of religion that existed before Freud cannot continue after Freud. A great revolution has happened; a great fissure has opened in human consciousness. Where we were before Freud, we can never be again. A new peak has been touched; a new understanding has arisen. We should understand it.

The old religion taught repression. Lust, anger, greed, attachment—suppress and annihilate them, and only then will the soul and God be attained. This fight went on very long. Yet in thousands of years, hardly a handful can we say attained the Divine. In one sense the battle did not succeed. Billions died without finding God; surely there was a fundamental mistake. It is as if a gardener plants fifty thousand saplings and only one produces a flower, and still we continue to revere the gardener’s manual, pointing to that one flower while forgetting the fifty crores in which no flowers came, no leaves grew, only dry stumps remained. If out of hundreds of millions only one sapling flowers, it did so in spite of the gardener. The gardener’s true testimony is the vast remainder that did not flower.

With Freud, a new consciousness was born: repression is wrong. It leads to self-violence. If a man begins fighting himself, he can only be destroyed. If I make my left and right hands fight, neither wins; I lose. Repression made humanity suicidal; it led us to kill ourselves with our own hands.

To the understanding born after Freud, only Krishna appears truly meaningful. In the whole of human history Krishna alone is non-repressive. He accepts all the colors of life. He does not flee from love. As a man he does not escape woman. While experiencing the Divine he does not turn his back on war. Filled with compassion and love, he is still capable of fighting. His heart is nonviolent, yet he steps into the very conflagration of violence. He accepts nectar, yet he has no fear of poison. In truth, one who has known nectar must be free of the fear of poison; what worth is nectar if poison still terrifies you? One who has found ahimsa should be free of the fear of himsa; what kind of ahimsa trembles before violence? What kind of soul is it that is afraid of the body? What meaning has a God who cannot embrace the whole world? Krishna accepts the opposites together, and thus he goes beyond them. Transcendence is never possible by becoming entangled in duality; it becomes possible by accepting both at once.

Therefore Krishna has profound relevance for the future. And in the future, Krishna’s value will only increase. As other values fade, as dualistic religions sink into darkness and history’s ashes cover them, the ember of Krishna will continue to glow, and glow brighter—for the first time man will be capable of understanding him. Krishna is very difficult to understand. It is easy to understand a man who leaves the world and finds peace. It is difficult to understand one who stands in the midst of the world’s struggle and is still silent. It is easy to understand that a man becomes dispassionate, breaks attachments, and flees—and in him, a certain purity is born. It is difficult to understand that in the very tumult of life, amid its dust, fog, and storms, a lamp stands unshaken, its flame unquivering. Therefore Krishna has been hard to understand; even those nearest to him could not understand. Yet for the first time, a great experiment occurred in Krishna: a complete testing of human strength—that one can remain unattached while in relationship, that even at the moment of war, compassion need not vanish; that even with the sword of violence in hand, the lamp of love in the heart need not go out.

Hence even those who worshipped Krishna have worshipped him in fragments. Surdas’s Krishna never grows beyond childhood. The adult Krishna is dangerous; Surdas could not endure him. If child Krishna teases the village women, we do not mind much; but if a young Krishna does so, we are troubled, because we can only understand on our own level. Lacking any other measure, we select a form we like and reject the rest. Those who love the Gita ignore the Bhagavata, because the Krishna of the Bhagavata is quite different; and those who love the Bhagavata avoid the Gita—where is music, color, rasa, and where the battlefield! Perhaps there is no personality greater than Krishna in swallowing such vast oppositions at once. So people have clung to one face of Krishna and denied the others.

Gandhi called the Gita his mother, but he could not assimilate it. Where would Gandhi’s ahimsa place the possibility of war? So Gandhi found a way: he said the war is only a metaphor, it never happened. Kurukshetra is not an outer battlefield; Krishna did not send Arjuna to fight any outer war. It is an inner allegory, a parable, a symbol of the struggle between good and evil within. Gandhi faced a difficulty: to his mind, Arjuna seems right. Arjuna’s heart is filled with nonviolence; he is ready to renounce battle. He says, “What is the use of killing our own? Even if I gain wealth, fame, and a kingdom, what will I do with it? Better I give it all up and become a beggar. Better I run away and embrace all suffering than fall into violence. My heart trembles; such violence is inauspicious.”

How could Gandhi grasp Krishna? Krishna tells him: Fight. And the argument he gives is so unique it could only be given by a supremely nonviolent one. Krishna’s argument is: as long as you believe anyone can die, you are not spiritual. The one within has never died and never can. If you think “I can kill,” you are in deep delusion. The very notion of killing is materialistic. For the knower, no one dies. Dying and killing are play—leela, a drama.

In this context it is helpful to see that we call Rama’s life “character.” Rama is very serious; his life is not leela but character. Krishna is not serious; his life is leela, not character. Rama is bound by codes—maryada; he will not step one foot beyond them; he will sacrifice everything for maryada. In Krishna’s life there is nothing like maryada. He is boundless, completely free—without limit, stopping nowhere, meeting no boundary that frightens him into halting. This boundlessness too is the final fruit of Krishna’s self-realization. Where violence has become meaningless, ahimsa also becomes meaningless. So long as violence has meaning and can occur, only then is nonviolence meaningful. Truly, to consider oneself violent is materialism; to consider oneself nonviolent is the other end of the same materialism. One says, “I will kill”; the other says, “I will not kill; I refuse to kill.” Both believe someone can be killed.

This is a spirituality that can take even war as play; that can accept all directions at once—of melody, love, enjoyment, desire, yoga, meditation. Our capacity to understand this vision of totality is growing day by day, for we have now learned things we never knew, though Krishna surely knew them.

For example, we now see there are not two things called body and soul. The visible end of the soul is the body; the invisible end of the body is the soul. There are not two things called God and world. There is no duality of God and nature. The portion of God that has become visible is nature; what remains invisible is God. There is nowhere a point where nature ends and God begins. Nature, merging and merging, becomes God; God, manifesting and manifesting, becomes nature. This is the meaning of nonduality. If this understanding becomes clear to us, we can understand Krishna.

And why will Krishna’s value grow in the future—why will he come closer to man? Because repression will no longer be possible. After long struggle and long seeking, it has become known that the forces we fight are our own; nothing is more foolish than fighting oneself. It is also known that what we fight, we remain surrounded by; and what we fight, we never transform.

If one fights sex, celibacy will never happen in his life. If celibacy can happen, there is only one way: to transform the energy of sex. Do not fight sexual energy; collaborate with it. Do not make it an enemy; befriend it. We can transform only what we are friends with; what we make an enemy of, we cannot change—nor can we understand it. What appears the lowest is but the other end of the highest. The peak of the mountain and the deep valley at its foot are not two events; they are two aspects of one event. The valley is formed because the mountain rises; the mountain rises because the valley forms. In language they are two; in existence they are two ends of one thing.

Nietzsche has a precious saying: the tree that wants to touch the heights of the sky must send its roots down to the depths of the underworld. If a tree is afraid to send its roots into the netherworld, it must abandon the longing to reach the sky. In truth, as high as one goes, that deep must one go. Height and depth are not two things; they are two dimensions of the same thing and always grow in the same proportion.

Man’s mind has always wanted to choose. He wanted to keep heaven and drop hell; to keep peace and drop tension; to keep the auspicious and drop the inauspicious; to have only light and no darkness. By splitting existence and choosing one half, he created conflict and duality. Krishna is the symbol of accepting both together. Only the one who accepts both together can be whole; otherwise he remains partial. Whatever you choose remains; whatever you deny keeps you bound. One who represses sex becomes more and more obsessed with sex. Therefore a culture or religion that teaches repression of sex generates sexuality.

Had Krishna been accepted, perhaps sexuality would have departed from the world. But Krishna was not accepted. In countless ways we denied precisely those parts of Krishna that affirm sex. Now it will become possible, because it is becoming apparent that sexual energy, moving upward, touches the highest peaks of celibacy. In life there is nothing to run from and nothing to abandon; live life in its entirety. One who lives it in totality attains life’s fullness.

Therefore I say that in the perspective of the future Krishna has immense value, and our present is daily approaching that future in which Krishna’s image will grow clearer and a laughing religion, a dancing religion, will soon be created. In the foundations of that religion, Krishna’s stone is certain to remain.

It is the same when it comes to war and peace. We want only peace to remain, with no conflict at all. The mind immediately begins to choose. But existence is a meeting of opposites; it is a symphony of contrary notes. The world cannot be single‑toned.

I have heard of a man who would play a musical instrument by rubbing his finger for hours on the very same spot on a single string. His family was tormented, and soon the neighbors too. Many pleaded with him: “We have seen many musicians, but everyone moves the hand; different notes come forth. What scale have you taken up?” The man replied, “They are still searching for the right place. I have found it—so I stay there. I have no more need to search.”

Our minds too would like to choose a single note for life. But a single note belongs only to death. Life stands upon opposing notes. If you have ever seen an arch over a doorway, bricks are brought from either side and set against each other to form the gate. Precisely because the bricks oppose each other, they bear the great weight of the building. Someone might think to set all the bricks facing the same way—then the building would collapse; it would never be built.

The entire order of life rests on the tension of opposites. War is a part of that tension. And those who think war has brought only harm are seeing only a fragment. Consider the evolution of humanity: the greater part of human development has happened through wars. Almost everything we possess today humans first discovered in the context of war. The first roads were built not to unite two people, not for wedding processions, but to move armies. The first big structures were not houses but forts; the first walls were raised against enemies. Only later came other walls, and today buildings that touch the sky. We can hardly imagine that skyscrapers have a genealogy in the needs of war. The wealth, the tools, the scientific inventions we have—all have been catalyzed by war.

War creates an intense tension, a challenge that awakens our sleeping powers and forces them into action. In times of peace we can become lazy, inert (tamas). War stirs our dynamic energy (rajas). In the face of challenge our dormant capacities must rise. In war we do not remain ordinary; we become extraordinary. The human brain begins to work at full power. In war, a leap occurs in human genius that peace often cannot produce even in hundreds of years.

Many think that had Krishna stopped the Mahabharata, India would have become very prosperous and reached great heights of development. The truth is quite the reverse. Had there been five or ten more figures like Krishna in Indian history, and had we fought not one but several Mahabharatas, we would likely be at the very peaks today.

It has been roughly five thousand years since the Mahabharata. In these five millennia we have fought no great wars. Our other battles were bankrupt—of little consequence—mere skirmishes, hardly worthy of the name “war.” If war only destroys, then we should by now be the most prosperous, forward‑moving people on earth. But the opposite is the case. Those nations that have fought wars have advanced and prospered far more. After the First World War people thought Germany would be broken forever. Yet in only twenty years it emerged for the Second World War many times stronger—something no one thought possible. The first war intensified German capacities; the second drew on that intensity.

Even after the Second World War, when it seemed that future wars might be impossible, the two nations most shattered—Germany and Japan—rose again into affluence. Looking at Japan today, who could say that only a couple of decades ago the atom bomb fell there? But looking at India one could well imagine atom bombs must be falling continuously—such is our wretched state.

India did not suffer because of the Mahabharata. In the shadow of that war, the teachers who arose were mostly anti‑war. They exploited the memory of the Mahabharata to preach: “Look what violence does; no more war, no more violence, no more fighting.” We did not produce a lineage of people with Krishna’s capacity. If we had, the crest‑wave of consciousness that India touched during the Mahabharata would have been surpassed again and again. Perhaps we would now be the most prosperous and developed society on earth.

Remember too: a war like the Mahabharata does not occur in impoverished societies. Prosperity is needed even for war to happen—and, paradoxically, war is needed for prosperity. War is a moment of challenge. The war Krishna ushered us into—had we continued to meet such challenges… Consider this: the West today stands roughly where we had reached in the Mahabharata. Almost all the kinds of weapons spoken of today were used then in some form. It was a high peak of prosperity, genius, and scientific advancement. The war itself did not ruin us. What ruined us was the pall of despair that followed—and how that despair was exploited. A similar fear has gripped part of the West; if the West succumbs to pacifism, it will decline, just as we did after the Mahabharata.

India embraced the pacifist’s counsel, and so we wandered for five thousand years in a long detour. Understand this well. Krishna is not a war‑monger, but he does see war as part of the play of life. He has no desire to annihilate anyone, to hurt anyone. He did everything possible to prevent war, but he was not willing to save peace at the cost of life, truth, and dharma. There is a limit to what we can preserve. We avoid war precisely so that life not be harmed. But if the refusal of war itself begins to harm life, what meaning remains? The pacifist says: let there be no war lest peace be disturbed. But if refusing to fight is what disturbs peace, then a decisive war is required.

So Krishna is neither a warmonger nor a doctrinaire militarist, but neither is he a frightened escapist who runs from war. He says: if war can be avoided, good. But if war becomes inevitable, then do not run. And if a moment comes when for the sake of human welfare war is unavoidable, then accept it joyfully. Do not carry it like a burden, because one who goes to war burdened by duty is sure to be defeated. One who fights only in defense is also sure to lose, because a defensive mind cannot display power and valor; it merely takes precautions and keeps shrinking. Krishna says: even fighting can be an expression of joy. The point is not to cause suffering to others. In life, choices are always proportional: will the outcome be auspicious or inauspicious? It is not necessary that war always yields the inauspicious; sometimes refusing to fight yields the inauspicious.

Our country remained enslaved for a thousand years. That was the result of our diminished capacity to fight. We have been poor, abject, for five thousand years. That is the result of a lack of courage, of fearlessness in our personality, and of the expansive spirit that reaches out.

The harm did not come because of Krishna. The harm came because we could not produce a lineage of Krishnas. After such a war a wave of pessimism naturally rises. Then the pessimists preach: “All this is futile; look at the damage.” That voice entered our minds, and for five millennia we have been a frightened people. A people that fears death and fears war soon begins to fear living deeply as well. We became afraid even of life. We tremble; we neither truly live nor truly die—hanging in between like Trishanku.

In my view, if the world adopts the counsel of Bertrand Russell, Gandhi, or Vinoba, it will be harmed. There is no need to be afraid of war. But it is true that the earth has become too small for war. War also requires space. Our means have become so immense that war on earth is now senseless. Not because the pacifist’s fear is wise, but because our means are vast and the earth is small. The very shape of war will change; it will expand outward. Wars will begin on the moon, on Mars, on other planets and satellites. Scientists estimate there could be at least five hundred million planets in the universe that harbor life. If we heed the frightened voices saying “do not build hydrogen and atom bombs,” then the human adventure of expanding into the universe will halt. Yes, the earth has reached the point where war is meaningless—but not because pacifism has prevailed. Understand this.

War has become meaningless today not because pacifism makes sense, but because the science of war has completed itself; total war has arrived. War has become so comprehensive that it is absurd to fight on earth, because war has meaning only so long as someone wins and someone loses. In the war now imaginable, no one would win or lose; both would perish together. In this sense, the earth will now become one—no more than a global village. Smaller than a village, perhaps: the time it once took to go from one village to another now suffices to circle the entire earth. The earth has become so small that war upon it is pointless; to wage it here would be folly. That does not mean war will cease. It means it will move to new theaters. New journeys, new campaigns will begin. War has not stopped despite all the preaching, nor can it—because it is woven into life.

It is interesting to see what war has generated. If you observe carefully, our entire organization of cooperation arose for the sake of conflict—cooperation for conflict. If there were no war on earth, there would be little cooperation.

To understand Krishna is crucial. He is not a pacifist and not a militarist. An ’ism’ means you choose one of the two. Krishna is a‑vadi—beyond any one-sided ideology. He says: if good, if the auspicious, flowers through peace—welcome it. If it flowers through war—welcome that too. Do you see my point? Whatever advances the pilgrimage of well‑being (mangal), whatever nourishes dharma and increases the possibilities of joy in life—welcome that. Such welcome is needed.

Had our country understood Krishna, we would not have become so impotent. Behind our fine talk of nonviolence we have hidden our cowardice. Behind our anti‑war stance hides the fear of death. But our refusal to fight does not stop war; it only ensures that others wage war upon us. If we do not go to battle, it does not cease; we simply become slaves. And still we are dragged into battle—ironically, to fight for our own bondage. We did not fight; others overpowered and enslaved us, and then we fought in their armies. We ended up fighting anyway: sometimes in the Mughal army, sometimes the Turkic, sometimes the Huns, then the British. War did not stop. Only this happened: instead of fighting for our own freedom and life, we fought to preserve our subjugation; our people died to keep it intact. That was the tragic outcome—not because of the Mahabharata, but because we could not muster the courage for another Mahabharata.

Therefore I say: Krishna is a little more difficult to understand. It is easy to understand a pacifist, because he chooses one side. It is also easy to understand the war-mongers—Hitler, Mussolini, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Napoleon, Alexander—who say war is life. And the pacifists—Russell, Gandhi—are easy to grasp too: they say peace is life. Krishna is hard to grasp because he says life walks on both doors. It passes through peace and through war. If you want peace to endure, you must have the capacity for war; if you want to wage war, you must prepare in times of peace. These are life’s two legs. Cut off either and you become lame and crippled. Genghis, Tamerlane, Mussolini are lame—and so are Gandhi and Russell. Each has but one leg; you cannot move forward on one. Hence the world moves by periodic fashion: one leg of Mussolini, one of Gandhi—so it hobbles along. You need both legs. For a while the Mussolini fashion prevails; then the Gandhi fashion; when the Hitlers and Stalins finish their wars, Russell and Gandhi and Vinoba begin to appeal. Their one leg carries us for ten or twenty years; then the other leg is needed again—someone like Mao rises, and war returns to the stage.

Krishna has both legs. He is not a cripple. And I maintain that each of us needs both legs. A person who cannot fight lacks something essential; and one who cannot fight cannot be truly peaceful either—he becomes lame. One who cannot be peaceful becomes deranged; and if he cannot be peaceful, how will he fight? Even to fight, a certain inner peace is needed.

In this sense Krishna is profoundly relevant to the future. A decisive question looms: Are we to make the whole world pacifist? That would bring a kind of lifelessness—impossible in any case; no one will agree. The pacifist will keep marching with flags, but life will not stop; the militarist will keep preparations going. Fashions change—ten or twenty years one side influences, then the other. They work in tandem, in a way.

Krishna speaks to the totality of life. If we understand him, we need abandon neither peace nor war. The theaters of war will certainly change, because Krishna is no Genghis Khan; he has no thirst to kill or to hurt. But war’s terrain will shift.

Let us see how its terrain does shift. If man does not fight man, then all men together begin to struggle with nature. Notice: the peoples who kept fighting are the very ones in whom science developed—because they have the capacity to struggle. They fight one another, and when time permits they fight nature. After the Mahabharata, our people fought nothing—not floods, not storms, not mountains, not any element of nature. Hence science did not develop; it develops by grappling with nature. Today you wrestle with the earth and uncover her secrets; tomorrow you wrestle with the stars; the campaign does not stop.

So the societies that plunged into war and emerged again are the very societies that set foot on the moon. We did not. The pacifist did not. And sooner or later, the moon will be immensely significant in terms of war. Whoever holds the moon will hold the earth, because the missiles of future wars, once emplaced on the moon, will put the earth at the mercy of those who control them. The real conflict has moved off the earth. The rest—Vietnam, Cambodia, India‑Pakistan—are play‑fights, contrivances to keep the minds of the uncomprehending busy. The real contest has begun elsewhere. The race to reach the moon had a deeper meaning: whoever gets there first will face no earthly challenge. Atomic and hydrogen cannon aimed from the moon at the earth need not fly over any country; the globe’s rotation brings every nation into the line of fire every twenty‑four hours. That is why such a colossal sum—one billion eight hundred million dollars—was spent to land a man on the moon. It was no game.

This race resembles the one that began some three centuries ago when ships from Europe rushed toward Asia—Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, German. Then, expansion and development demanded possession of Asian lands. Now that has become meaningless. Asians think their independence movements freed them; that is only half true. The other half is that there is no longer any point in holding Asian territory. That era is over. Now the struggle is to possess other ground—celestial ground. Eyes and energies have turned there.

Life is an adventure of power. Those who embrace lifelessness are gradually destroyed. We are such a people—being destroyed. All the more reason why Krishna’s message is meaningful—not only for us. I would say the West too stands at a point where it may have to fight one more decisive war—surely not on earth. Even if rivals on earth must fight one another, they will likely do it on the moon or Mars. There is no sense fighting here—both would die. If they must decide, they will have to do it elsewhere.

In that decisive conflict, conditions may become very much like those of the Mahabharata. Then too there were two camps. One was frankly materialist—seeing nothing but the body, recognizing only the senses and indulgence, denying any soul, a life of plunder and pleasure. The struggle arose against that camp. Krishna had to bring it about, to ensure that the forces of the auspicious, of the good, did not become weak and impotent before the forces of the inauspicious.

We are near such a moment again; within twenty years it may be upon us. On one side will stand materialism with all its might; on the other, the forces of the good—traditionally the weaker, because good harbors a basic weakness: it tends to shrink from fighting. Arjuna is a good man. The very word Arjuna, I say, means straight, simple—no crookedness at all, a‑riju. He is simple‑hearted, and he says, “Why get into useless entanglements? Step aside.” He always withdraws.

Krishna is even more simple than Arjuna—but he is not merely “straightforward” in the sense of weakness. His simplicity knows no measure, but it is neither weakness nor escape. He stands firm; he will not allow retreat. Perhaps the earth will again split into two camps. Such decisive moments do come. Then Gandhi, Vinoba, Russell will be of no use, for in one sense they are all Arjunas. They say, “Withdraw; die if you must, but do not fight.”

A personality like Krishna is needed again—one who can say that even the good must take up the sword; that when the good takes up the sword, no evil is done, because the fight is not to harm, but to keep evil from prevailing.

Soon the world will divide into two parts: one materialist, and the other standing for freedom, democracy, the individual, and the deeper values of life. But will such a second, “good” camp find its Krishna?

It can. Whenever humanity reaches a point where something decisive is to happen, the situation itself calls forth that consciousness; it gives birth to that person. This too is why I say Krishna is deeply relevant to the future. When the voices of all the simple, good men prove ineffective—and they do, for a bad man neither fears nor stops for the good man’s words—then the bad grows stronger as the good keeps shrinking.

After the Mahabharata, India produced many good men—Buddha, Mahavira—whose goodness is beyond measure. Yet under their influence the country’s spirit shrank, and upon that shrunken psyche the aggressors of the world descended. We ourselves did not attack; we invited attack. And when you strike someone you alone are not responsible; when you allow yourself to be struck, you are also responsible. Slapping a face is a deed in which both share responsibility: the one who slaps, and the one who invites, accepts, and endures it with passivity. If someone slaps you, you too are fifty percent responsible.

A long succession of utterly good men shrank the mind of this nation, and we invited: “Come.” Many came, kept us enslaved for centuries, oppressed and tormented us, and left when it pleased them. Yet our mentality remains one of contraction. We could invite someone again. If tomorrow Mao were to enter this country, he would not alone be responsible. Long ago Lenin predicted that communism would travel from Moscow to Peking to Calcutta and then to London. The prophecy seems apt. It has reached Peking; its footsteps can be heard in Calcutta; London is not far. Entering Calcutta would be easy, because India’s mind is shrunken; it will yield to whoever comes.

This country must reconsider Krishna.

In truth, whenever such a moment of crisis comes—when one has to decide who is good and who is evil—it is always difficult. It wasn’t easy even then. It wasn’t only Duryodhana on that side; Bhishma was there too—there were good people on that side. And it wasn’t only Krishna and Arjuna on this side; there were bad people on this side as well. At decisive moments it is always hard to fix things. But values do the determining.

Why was Duryodhana fighting? Whether the people with him were good or bad is not the crucial measure; for what was he fighting? What were the values for which he fought? If Krishna was urging Arjuna to fight, what were the values there? The greatest, the most decisive value was justice. What is justice? What is just? So today too we must decide: what is just, what is justice?

As I understand it, freedom is justice; dependence is injustice. The group, the class, the bloc that pushes human beings into any kind of dependence stands on the side of injustice. There may be good people on that side too, because good people are not necessarily far‑sighted. They can be confused. They themselves may not know that what they are doing serves the cause of evil.

Freedom is a profound touchstone. We need a society, a world, in which human freedom increases. Wherever freedom diminishes, we do not want such a society or such a world. Naturally, those who wish to bring about dependence will not use the word “dependence.” Hearing that word, people would step back at once. They will search for words that smuggle in dependence without revealing it. One such clever new word is “equality.” This word is full of cunning. And there are people who, trimming freedom on one side, plead for equality. They say, we want equality. They also say, without equality how can there be freedom? They claim equality is primary. And this will seem reasonable to many: until all are equal, how can all be free? Then, to bring about equality, if freedom has to be cut, we agree.

This is a very amusing argument. Equality is to be brought so that freedom can arrive—and freedom has to be cut in order to bring equality. And once freedom is lost, bringing it back is nearly impossible. Who will bring it back? Suppose all of you are gathered here, and I say: to make you equal, first we must put chains on everyone. Without chaining you, how will we cut down what is long here, what is large there—someone’s head big, another’s arms long, another’s legs short? So to make everyone equal, first chains are put on; then we cut hands and feet and make you all equal.

But the one who makes everyone equal will remain unequal. He will stand outside you; his hands will be free, there will be no chains on him, and a sword will be in his hand. And once everyone’s hands are in chains and a few have swords, and hands and feet have been cut, what will you do?

Marx had this notion: to bring equality, freedom will have to be lost for a while; individual freedom must be destroyed; there must be an authoritarianism, a dictatorship; and when the work of equality is complete, freedom will be returned. But will those who hold such power—the power to make everyone equal—return freedom? The signs do not suggest it. Rather, the more their power increases and the more people become crippled, the more the very talk of freedom vanishes—because you cannot even ask, you cannot raise a voice, you cannot rebel.

Under the cover of equality, freedom will be cut. And once freedom is cut, restoring it is very difficult. For when freedom is cut, the cutter also cuts off its future possibilities. And another point: freedom is a wholly natural element which each person should have, while equality is a wholly unnatural thing that cannot be given. It is unpsychological to make human beings equal. Human beings cannot be equal; they are not equal. Man is essentially unequal. Freedom is certainly needed—and so much freedom that each person can become all that he can become; he should have his full chance.

So in my view, the side of freedom is Krishna’s side; it cannot be the side of equality. If freedom exists, then gradually inequality can lessen. Note, I am saying inequality can lessen; I am not saying equality can arrive. If freedom remains, inequality can slowly diminish. But if equality is forcibly imposed, freedom will go on decreasing. Anything imposed by force is only another name for bondage. So values must be chosen. The value of the person is precious.

Always, the evil does not want to value the person, because the person is the element of rebellion. Therefore the forces of evil honor the collective, not the individual. And you will be surprised to know: if you want an evil act done, it is very difficult to get an individual to do it; it is always easy to get a group to do it. To get a single Hindu to set fire to a mosque is very difficult; to get a crowd of Hindus to do it is very easy. To get a single Muslim to thrust a dagger into the chest of a Hindu child is very difficult; to get a crowd of Muslims to do it is quite easy. In fact, the larger the crowd, the less soul there is. For what makes a soul present is personal responsibility, individual responsibility. When I thrust a dagger into your chest, my conscience asks, what are you doing? But when I merely move with a crowd and fires are set, then I am only part of the crowd; my conscience never asks, what are you doing? I say, people are doing it. “Hindus are doing it; I’m just along.” And later I can never be held personally responsible. Evil always wants to attract the crowd. Evil depends upon the mob. Evil wants the person to be erased and only the crowd to remain. The good accepts the individual and wants the crowd to slowly disappear, leaving persons. When persons remain there will be relationships, but it will not be a mob; it will be a society.

Understand this a little more too: where there are persons, only there can there be society. Where the authority of the person is diminished, there is only a crowd, not a society. This is precisely the difference between society and crowd. The interrelationship of persons is what we call society—but there must be persons. When I, as a free person, relate to you, a free person, society is formed. In a prison there is no society; there is only a crowd. Prisoners relate; they smile at each other; they send each other cigarettes or bidis; but it is a crowd, not a society. They have been gathered there; it is not the choice of their freedom.

Therefore, wherever freedom, the person, individuality, the soul, religion, and the possibility of the invisible and unknown are stronger—stronger, I say, because it is rarely absolutely decisive that it is all on one side and not at all on the other. Even if Ram and Ravan fight, it is still not wholly clear. For in Ravan there is a little of Ram, and in Ram there is a little of Ravan. In the Kauravas there is a little of the Pandavas, and in the Pandavas a little of the Kauravas. There is no such best man on earth in whom there is not a little bad; nor can such a worst man be found in whom there is not a little good. So the question is always of proportion and predominance. Freedom, the individual, the soul, religion—these are the values with which the consciousness of the good will align.