Krishna Smriti #10

First we must understand a small distinction between religion and spirituality. Religion and spirituality are not the same. Religion is one direction of life. Just as politics is a direction, art is a direction, science is a direction, so religion is a direction of life. Spirituality is the whole of life. Spirituality is not a direction of life; the totality of life is spirituality.

So it can be that a religious person hesitates to enter politics; a spiritual person will not. Politics may prove difficult for the religious person, because he has adopted certain fixed tenets that run counter to politics. A spiritual person adopts no fixed tenets; he accepts life in its totality, as it is.

Krishna is not a religious person; he is a spiritual person. Mahavira is a religious person in this sense; Buddha is a religious person in this sense—that they chose one direction of life. For that one direction they sacrificed all the other directions of life; they cut them off. Krishna is a spiritual person in the sense that he has chosen life in its entirety. Therefore politics cannot frighten Krishna. He has not the slightest hesitation in standing in politics; there is no reason. Politics too is part of life. And it is essential to understand that those who, in the name of religion, withdrew and abandoned politics have only helped to make politics more irreligious; they have not helped to make it religious.

So first understand this: for Krishna, all the flowers and all the thorns of life are accepted together. He has no choice in life; he is choiceless—he has accepted life without choosing, as it is. He does not choose the flower alone; he also acknowledges the thorn—since it is there. And the interesting thing is that we ordinarily think the thorn is the enemy of the rose. It is not an enemy. The thorn exists precisely to protect the rose. They are deeply connected, joined to the same source, with one and the same purpose. Many may wish to cut off the thorn and save the rose, but they must understand that the thorn is part of the rose. Then both the thorn and the rose must be saved together.

So Krishna accepts politics naturally. He steps into it; it poses no difficulty to him.

The second issue you raise is even more thought-provoking: that Krishna uses means that cannot be called proper; he uses means that no one could justify—the use of falsehood, of guile, of deceit. But if you understand one thing here, it will become very easy. In life there is never a choice between the auspicious and the inauspicious—except in theory. In life there is no choice between good and bad—except in theory. In life, all choices are between a lesser evil and a greater evil. All choices in life are relative. The question is not whether what Krishna did was bad. The question is: had he not done it, would something good have happened, or would something even worse have happened? If choices were between good and bad, the matter would be simple. But the choice is always between the lesser evil and the greater evil. All of life is like this.

I have heard of an incident. A church priest was passing along a street when he heard a loud cry, “Help! Help! I will die!” It was dark, a narrow lane. The priest ran inside and saw a very strong man sitting on the chest of a very weak man. He shouted, “Get off! Why are you crushing that poor man?” When the strong man did not move, the priest pounced, threw him off, and the man underneath sprang up and fled. Then the strong man said to the priest, “What kind of man are you? That fellow picked my pocket and he escaped with my wallet.” The priest said, “Why didn’t you say so earlier! I thought you were strong and were oppressing the weak—that you were killing him! This is a mistake: trying to do good, I did harm.” But by then, the man had vanished with his wallet.

When we set out to do good in life, it is necessary to see whether it might not produce harm. Conversely, we must also see whether by doing something that appears harmful, some good might not result. The choice before Krishna is not between bad and good. The choice before Krishna is between the lesser evil and the greater evil. And for every bit of guile he used, the opposing side was using, and could have used, far greater guile. And to fight that opposing side, Gandhiji would not have sufficed; that side would have ground Gandhi to dust. The opposing side was not ordinarily bad; it was extraordinarily bad. In the face of such extraordinary evil, there was no possibility of goodness winning. If Gandhiji had faced a Hitlerian regime in India, then we would have seen! In India, the rulers were not Hitler; they were a very liberal nation. And even among them, had Churchill remained in power, attaining freedom would have been far more difficult. The coming to power of Attlee made a fundamental difference.

What Gandhiji calls purity of means needs to be understood. The thought is fair enough: without pure means, how can pure ends be attained? But in this world neither are there pure ends nor pure means. Here there are only less impure and more impure states. Here there are no wholly healthy people and wholly sick people—there are less sick and more sick. Life is not black and white; life’s color is gray—the white and the black all mixed together. Therefore in many ways people like Gandhi are utopian. Krishna is very directly and simply close to life. Utopia has no place in Krishna’s mind. It is about accepting life as it is and working from there.

And then, what Gandhiji calls pure means—are they pure? They cannot be. Perhaps in liberation there could be pure means and pure ends; in this world, everything is mixed with earth. Even gold here is alloyed with dust. Even a diamond is only a part of stone. What Gandhiji takes to be a pure means is not pure. For example, fasting—he calls that a pure means. I cannot call it so. Nor would Krishna. For if threatening to kill another is impure, how can threatening to kill yourself be pure? If I put a knife to your chest and say, “Agree to my demand or I will kill you,” that is impure. And if I put the knife to my own chest and say, “Agree to my demand or I will die,” does that become pure? Does purity arise merely by changing the direction of the knife? It is just as impure. And in one sense, it is more subtly impure than the first case. Because in the first case a person can at least say, “Fine, kill me—I will not agree.” He still has a chance; a moral opportunity—he can choose to die. But in the second case you weaken him greatly. He may not wish to take on the responsibility for your death.

Gandhiji fasted against Ambedkar. Ambedkar later yielded—not because Gandhi was right, but because it did not seem just to let Gandhi die over such a matter. Ambedkar was not willing to take that much violence upon himself. Later, Ambedkar said, “If Gandhiji thinks my heart changed, he is mistaken. My position was right and Gandhi’s was wrong; I still stand by my view. But I did not want to take the violence of Gandhi’s death upon myself for the sake of that insistence.” Now it is necessary to think: whose means were pure—Ambedkar’s or Gandhi’s? Who, in this, is nonviolent? I hold that Ambedkar showed more nonviolence; Gandhi exercised complete violence. He kept at it to the last breath: until Ambedkar agreed, he would remain prepared to die.

On this earth, either you threaten to kill someone else, or you threaten to kill yourself. When we threaten to kill another, we at least give him a chance to die with dignity and say, “You are wrong, and I am prepared to die.” But when we threaten to kill ourselves, we do not even grant him the chance to die with dignity. In both cases he is put in a bind: either he must admit he is wrong and yield, or he must hold to being right and accept the burden of your death. In every situation we declare him guilty.

Gandhiji’s means are not pure; they only appear to be. And I say that whatever Krishna did is pure—in comparative, relative terms. Faced with those he fought, there was no other way than what Krishna did.

They were indeed killing with weapons. But in war, deceit and guile are also weapons. And when the enemy before you is fully prepared to use them, getting yourself cut down is nothing but foolishness. Krishna is not deceiving some good man; Krishna is not deceiving a saint. He is acting thus with those whose un-saintliness has been tested in a thousand ways. And before the war Krishna tried every possible means to make them agree, so that the war would not happen. Despite all those efforts, when no path was left, the war took place.

With those who had committed every kind of dishonesty—whose entire story is one of dishonesty, deceit, and trickery—if Krishna had employed “goodness,” I believe the result of the Mahabharata would have been different: the Kauravas would have won and the Pandavas would have lost. And the more amusing thing is that while we say, “Satyameva Jayate—truth triumphs,” history says something else. History begins to call the victor the truth. If the Kauravas had won, scholars would have been ready to write the Kauravas’ epic, and we might never even have known that there were once Pandavas and a Krishna. The story would have been entirely different.

What Krishna did, I feel, was exactly what could be done in view of what was before him—within actuality, within reality. All talk of purity of means is possible up in the sky. On earth, however you use means, they will be impure, a little or a lot. If the means were completely pure, they would themselves be the end; there would be no need to reach the end. If the means are completely pure, then there is no difference between means and end—they become one. The difference between means and end exists precisely because the means are impure and the end pure. Therefore it is also true that through impure means a pure end is never attained in its totality. But when are ends ever attained on earth? There is only the longing to attain; they are never fully attained. Even Gandhi could not die saying, “I die utterly nonviolent”; nor could he say, “I die having attained complete brahmacharya”; nor could he say, “I have realized truth and am dying.” He dies while experimenting with truth.

If the means were pure, why was the end not achieved? What obstacle remained? If the means are pure, the end should be attained—what is the obstacle? No, the means cannot be pure. The conditions are almost like this: put a stick into water and it appears bent. There is no way to keep it looking straight in water. The stick itself doesn’t bend; it only appears bent. The watery medium makes it look crooked. Only outside the water does the stick appear straight; put it in water and it looks bent.

In this vast relative world—in this relative world—where everything is comparative, everything becomes skewed. Therefore the question is not that we be straight; the question is that we be at least as little crooked as possible. There is no other question. And Krishna, it seems to me, is a man the least crooked. The amusing thing is that, from the surface, it appears otherwise.

Gandhi appears to us a very straight man. To me, Gandhi is very crooked. Many times he will catch the ear by circling the head—grabbing it from the other side—whereas Krishna takes hold of it directly. Gandhi will do the same work of coercing the other, but by suppressing himself. He will take a very long route. He will still suppress the other; coercion will continue. But the experiment he will make is: by suppressing himself he will suppress the other. Krishna will press him down directly. Thus such a Gandhi looks straightforward, clear. I hold it is a very crooked personality—very intricate, very complex. But ordinarily we do not notice, because we take things to be just as we have grasped them.

Yes, it did. In Mahavira’s time a man named Goshalak declared, “I am the real Tirthankara. Mahavira is not the true Tirthankara.” And it happened in Christ’s time too, for the Jews crucified him precisely because this carpenter’s son was, without warrant, calling himself the Christ; they held he was not the real Christ, that the true Christ was yet to be born. In the Jewish tradition there was the notion that a prophet called the Christ was to come. Many prophets had announced it: Ezekiel announced it, Isaiah announced it—those ancient prophets all proclaimed that a prophet called the Christ would come. And just before Christ’s birth John the Baptist went from village to village proclaiming that the Christ was about to come. “Christ” means “Messiah”—the Messiah who would redeem all. Then one day this young man named Jesus declared, “I am that Messiah.” The Jews refused to accept that he was the Messiah; hence the crucifixion: “You are making a false proclamation; you are not the Messiah.”

No second person stood up to make that claim right in front of Jesus. But many people insisted, “You are not the Messiah; you are not the Christ. We refuse to recognize you as the Christ.” Why did they refuse? They said, “There are certain signs you must fulfill, certain miracles you must show.” One such miracle was that if they nailed him to the cross, he should come down alive. Jesus’ devotees believed that after being crucified he would come down alive, the miracle would occur, and then people would believe.

Now it is very difficult to settle this, because Jesus’ devotees still say he was seen three days later. But those who saw him were two women—two women who loved him deeply. The opponents are unwilling to accept their testimony. They think those women were so full of love that Jesus could appear to them even if he were not there. But there is no Jewish testimony that Jesus came down from the cross and provided proof. That proof could not be given. Therefore the Jews still await that Christ whose coming the prophets foretold.

But in Mahavira’s time it was very explicit: Goshalak declared, “I am the true Tirthankara; Mahavira is not.” Goshalak too had followers—not a small number, quite a substantial one. And this dispute went on for a long time: who is the real Tirthankara? In the Jain tradition it had been proclaimed that the twenty-fourth Tirthankara was to come. He was to be the last Tirthankara; twenty-three had already come, and now only one person could be the Tirthankara. And not only did Goshalak declare himself to be the twenty-fourth Tirthankara, there was a large group that accepted him as such.

This was there—and there were another five or six whom some people regarded as the true Tirthankara, though they themselves never made any declaration. Makkhali Gosala openly proclaimed that he was a Tirthankara. But Sanjaya Belaṭṭhiputta, Ajita Kesakambala—they too had devotees who believed they were the real Tirthankaras. Those who followed the Buddha also thought the true Tirthankara was Buddha; and Buddha’s followers mocked Mahavira a great deal.

This is very likely—always likely—that when a person like Krishna is born, or when a society is awaiting such a person on the basis of certain prophecies, others too will step forward as claimants. There is nothing difficult in that. But time decides whether the claimants were true or not. The truth is: the very moment someone makes a claim, he has already said he is not the right man. Claiming is done by the wrong man. Krishna has no need to claim, “I am Krishna”—he is. If someone needs to claim it, it means that his very being does not establish that he is Krishna; he has to make a claim as well. Mahavira does not claim, “I am a Tirthankara”—he is; people recognize him. Goshalak claims—he himself is in doubt. In fact, our inner inferiority turns into the claim. If a man claims, “I am a great soul,” the claim itself says he will not be a great soul. A claim always carries the opposite news. Yet it is perfectly natural, human, that someone may claim. There is no great difficulty in it.

Why then did Jesus claim?

Jesus did not claim. Jesus did not claim, “I am the Christ.” He made other kinds of statements, but not that claim. His “claim” was not in words; it was in his very presence. People recognized that this man was the Christ. Others proclaimed that this man was the Christ. The man I mentioned, John the Baptist—a very extraordinary saint who came before Jesus—had announced that the Christ was about to come, and that he himself was only the forerunner who had come to give the first news. “The day the Christ arrives,” he said, “I will take my leave.” He used to initiate people in the river—on the bank of the Jordan, standing in the water up to the neck he would baptize; thousands received initiation from him. Jesus also went to him to be initiated; Jesus received initiation from Saint John. Standing in the Jordan, water up to their throats, John baptized him and said, “Now you take up your work; I am going.” News spread throughout the land that the Christ had come, and from that day John was not seen again. There was no trace of where he went; from that day John disappeared.

Because of this, news spread across the whole country that the same John who had been crying out from village to village, “The Christ is coming; the day he arrives my work will be finished; I have waited only till his coming; I am merely clearing the road ahead, doing the pilot’s work”—that very day he was missing. With John’s disappearance the news spread that the Christ had come. Now people began to ask Jesus, “Who are you?” He did not make a claim—but how could he lie either? He did not claim; people kept asking him everywhere, “Who are you?” And in the answers he gave, he said, “I am that which always is. I am the one who was before the prophets. Before Abraham was, I am.” When people asked, “Who are you?” he said, “I am the one you seek.” But there was no claim in this. People had asked, and it was necessary to answer.

A partial avatar is just as much an avatar as a full one. In being an avatar there is no difference. Avatar simply means that the supreme consciousness has manifested. In how many dimensions it has manifested—that is another matter. So Krishna’s avatar is a full avatar in the sense that in all the dimensions of life, in all its facets, his touch is there. Buddha’s avatar, then, is not a full avatar. Kalki too will not be a full avatar. The descent will be complete—the process of descent, the coming down of consciousness, will indeed be complete—but it will not touch all the dimensions.

There are reasons for this, many reasons. The current of time, the order of development—ordinarily one would expect the full avatar to come at the end; in the order of development, fullness should arrive last. But the evolutionary order is one thing; the avatar comes from outside that order. Avatar means “penetration from the beyond.” It descends from the other shore. It is not a part of our evolutionary process, not something that has evolved within our evolution. It comes down from beyond our evolutionary stream. And whenever a consciousness… let me explain with an example. We are all sitting here; the sun has risen, and our eyes are closed. Someone opens the eyes a little and sees a little light. Then someone opens the eyes fully and sees the full light. Then someone else opens the eyes a little and sees a little light. There is no evolutionary sequence in this. In truth, one can open the eyes fully at any moment. And even after someone has opened them fully, there is no necessity that the one behind also open them fully.

Krishna’s personality is wholly open; therefore he could contain the whole of the Divine. Buddha’s personality is partially open; therefore he could contain a part of the Divine. Even today, if someone opens his whole personality, the whole of the Divine will be contained. And even tomorrow, if someone keeps the personality completely closed, the Divine will not be contained at all. There is no evolutionary sequence in this. There cannot be.

As for the order of development, if we understand it rightly we can grasp it only in a general, collective sense, not in a person-specific sense. It has been a long time since Buddha. We were born twenty-five hundred years after him; but from that we cannot say that we are more evolved than Buddha. We cannot say that. Yes, we can say this much: that our society is more evolved than Buddha’s society. Compared to Buddha’s society, our society can be called more developed. In truth, development runs on two tracks—the collective and the individual. An individual can develop ahead of the collective. Those who make no effort to develop themselves are dragged along, developing with the group. And all individuals within a group are not developing alike; each person is developing along a different stream. We are so many people sitting here, but we are not all on the same rung of development. Someone stands on the first step, someone on the tenth, someone may even be touching the final threshold. General rules hold true with regard to the collective. The law of development applies to the collective. Let me clarify with an example.

We can say how many people in Delhi, year by year, died in traffic accidents over the past decade. If fifty died each year, and the year before that forty-five, and before that forty, we can predict that next year fifty-five will die in car accidents. And for quite a long way this will prove right. But we cannot say which fifty-five they will be. We cannot search and point out, “These fifty-five will die.” If Delhi’s population is two million, then perhaps fifty-four will die, or perhaps fifty-six. But if the population is two hundred million, the figure of fifty-five will come even closer. And if the population were infinite, the figure of fifty-five would be absolutely fixed—we could say exactly fifty-five will die; neither fifty-four and a half nor fifty-five and a half. The larger the numbers, the truer general statistics become. The more we try to pin down the individual, the more the statistics go wrong.

The current of evolution is the current of the collective. Within it, individuals can come first as well. When spring comes, the chirping of a single bird announces its arrival, but it takes time for all the birds to sing. When spring comes, a single flower blooming gives the news that spring is approaching, but it takes time for all the flowers to bloom. Truly, spring is fully present only when all the flowers have blossomed, but a few do bloom earlier. From one flower blooming we cannot say, “Spring has come,” but we can say, “The first footfall of spring has arrived.” Individual flowers may bloom earlier or later, but in spring all flowers blossom.

Krishna’s becoming complete in the middle only indicates that Krishna was able to open his personality completely. Buddha does not open his personality completely. That too is Buddha’s own decision. Even if someone were to urge him to complete it, even if someone were to say to him, “There is also the possibility of your being a Krishna,” Buddha would decline. That is not Buddha’s choice. In this, Buddha does not fall behind Krishna—not at all. It is Buddha’s own choice, and Krishna’s own choice. In matters of choice, both are sovereign; it is their own decision. Buddha blooms as he wishes to bloom. Krishna blooms as he wishes to bloom. Krishna’s nature is to bloom totally. As for Buddha, the way he chooses to bloom—in that, he is totally himself. There is no evolutionary stream in this. Evolution does not apply to individuals; evolution applies only to collectivities.

One could think so, because that’s how we all are. If we flare up at the fourth insult, we know perfectly well that we had actually flared up at the very first. We merely held ourselves together through three; we had tolerance up to three—and then we ran out, and at the fourth our intolerance showed itself. But with Krishna it can be just the opposite. And Krishna is a very contrary man—he doesn’t function the way we do. So the opposite possibility suits him more.

It’s not that his tolerance lasted only up to nine hundred and ninety-nine insults. Nine hundred and ninety-nine insults are quite a lot. And if someone can bear nine hundred and ninety-nine, to say he cannot bear the thousandth is hard to imagine. The big question for Krishna is not that his tolerance ran out; the big question is that the other person’s limit had now been reached. Now his limit had come—now his limit had come. Beyond this point, enduring more is no longer about tolerance; enduring more becomes a way of sustaining evil. To endure more, now, would be to protect unrighteousness. Because one thing is very clear: nine hundred and ninety-nine insults are enough.

A disciple once asked Jesus, “If someone slaps us once, what should we do?” Jesus said, “Endure.” He asked, “If someone slaps us seven times, what should we do?” Jesus said, “Not seven—endure seventy-seven times.”

The man did not ask further, so we don’t know what Jesus would have said. He didn’t ask, “And the seventy-eighth time?” But I think Jesus would have said, “On the seventy-eighth time, now don’t endure at all.” Because it is not only about your capacity for tolerance; the other person’s unrighteousness must also be considered.

I heard a joke. A devotee who followed Jesus was passing through a village. Someone slapped him on the face. Jesus had said, “If someone strikes your left cheek, offer him the right one.” So he offered his right cheek. The man—contrary to what the poor devotee had expected—gave him another sharp slap on the right as well. Then the devotee was in a fix, because beyond this there is no explicit statement from Jesus about what to do. So he gave the fellow a resounding slap. The man exclaimed, “Hey, but you follow Jesus! And Jesus said that when someone strikes one cheek, offer the other!” The devotee replied, “But there is no third cheek. Now I’m taking leave of Jesus—because up to two cheeks I walked with him; there’s no third cheek. Now the third cheek is yours.” He said, “Now the third cheek is with you. My two are finished; now only your cheek can receive a slap.”

There comes a moment when the “third cheek” arrives. It is not that Krishna runs out then. It only seems so to us because we run out quickly. Krishna does not run out. But everything has limits, and beyond limits, to keep on enduring becomes dangerous—it becomes unrighteous. Beyond limits, endurance becomes an encouragement to evil. If I am tolerant, it is precisely because intolerance is bad; that is the very meaning of being tolerant. But if I save myself from being bad while allowing the other to go on being bad, that is no compassion for the other; that becomes excessive harshness toward him. At a certain point, one must also stop the other from being bad. This is how I see it.

Looking at Krishna’s whole being, it seems very hard to exhaust his tolerance. But it also seems impossible for him to encourage evil. Between these two he has to find a golden mean, a kind of golden rule—the point beyond which things must change.

In truth, when society’s arrangements change, many things start to look absurd. There was an age when, if a woman was not abducted, it meant only one thing: that no one had desired her. There was an age when, if a woman was not abducted, it meant her ugliness was confirmed. There was an age when honoring beauty meant abduction. And that age is no more. But even today, if on a university campus no one ever jostles a girl, her sorrow knows no end. No end at all. And when a girl comes to complain that she is being jostled a lot, look closely at her face—her delight knows no end. Women have longed that there be someone who would abduct them; someone who would want them so much that stealing them becomes a compulsion, a necessity; someone who wants them so much that he will not even ask—he is ready to steal.

So if you understand the age in which Krishna lived, then this will come into perspective. And I say it was an age of courage. What is this—getting married by consulting almanacs and horoscopes! But when Krishna even urges someone toward abduction, it is because he is saying that love is such a great thing that, if it is there, one can abduct, one can stake everything. Love acknowledges no rules. And that was an age of love. The day rules begin, take it that love’s power has slackened. Now love does not take many challenges, does not place many wagers. If you grasp the entire framework of that era, it will become clear. Krishna was born into a particular age. We have no sense of that age’s order. If we try to impose the norms of our age upon him, he will often appear immoral. But I too feel that in an age of valor—when life has edge and when life has splendor—those are ages of challenge and of daring. Lax and lifeless societies—when all challenge has been lost and everything goes slack—frame all kinds of policies, and they are dead policies. No, I would say that if Krishna were not to bring a woman away by abduction, and instead sent word to her house, fell at her father’s feet, and tried every polite expedient—then in that age it would be an insult to the woman. She would not like it. She would say, “You don’t even have the courage to steal me? Then forget it!”

We don’t realize that even today—ages do change, but some forms keep rolling on—what we call the wedding procession was once the band of soldiers who went with the lover. And just as today we seat the groom on a horse—the groom on a horse is utterly meaningless now, it has no point—and hang a little dagger at his side: once it was a sword, and once that horse was ridden to steal someone away, and there were comrades who went with him—that was the baraat. And even today you must know that when the procession arrives, the women from the girl’s side start hurling abuses. Have you ever wondered why they abuse? From the house where the girl was being carried off, abuses would have been hurled. But now, what are they abusing for? They themselves have arranged everything. Even today the girl’s father bows—today too. There is no longer any reason for the girl’s father to bow. Once upon a time he had to bow. Once, before the one who carried her off, the victor, he had to bow. Those were the rules of long ago, which still keep sliding along in a lifeless condition.

It is very meaningful for a devotee to pray to God for suffering—for two or three reasons. First, to pray to God for happiness seems somewhat selfish. One who asks God for happiness is not really praying to God; he is praying for happiness. If he could get happiness without God, he would leave God and run after happiness. Since happiness can be had from God, he goes to God as well—but he uses God as a means, while the end is happiness. Therefore a devotee’s mind will not pray for happiness—precisely because he does not wish to place anything above God. And when he prays for suffering he is making two or three declarations: he says that even the sorrow given by you is greater than any happiness received from elsewhere. We will choose your sorrow and not choose any other joy.

Now such a person has no way left to leave God. A person moves away from where there is pain and towards where there is pleasure. The devotee who has asked for pleasure can move away from God. But the devotee who has asked for sorrow—how can he now move away? He cannot leave God.

Second, there is a delightful point here: one can ask God for sorrow because sorrow does not really come from God. Whatever comes from him is bliss. If from him only happiness comes, why should we go begging for happiness? Happiness should be begged from one who cannot give it; from the one whose every gift is happiness, why not ask for sorrow? In this the devotee is being very clever; he is even giving God a little trouble. And where there is love, it is natural to put the beloved a little on the spot. He is saying, “All right then, give sorrow—let’s see how capable you are! Let’s see how omnipotent!” He has caught a point at which he could prove that you are not omnipotent, because you cannot give sorrow.

There are also other reasons, very psychological ones. Happiness is momentary—it comes and goes. Sorrow has length; happiness does not. Sorrow comes and seems never to leave. Happiness comes and, before it has even arrived, it is gone. Happiness has no depth; it is very shallow. Therefore people we ordinarily call “happy” become shallow; nothing deep remains in their life, everything becomes superficial. Sorrow carries great depth; it gives depth. Those who pass through sorrow have, in their eyes, their faces, their lives, a depth not found in the ordinarily happy. Sorrow does not only hurt; it also polishes. Sorrow does not only hurt; it refines. Sorrow does not only hurt; it deepens. Sorrow has great depth. Happiness has no depth at all—no length, no depth. If one must ask God for something, happiness cannot be asked for—something in which there is neither depth nor length, which is like Euclid’s point. Euclid defines a point as that which has no length and no breadth. Happiness is Euclid’s point. Euclid’s point does not actually exist anywhere; the moment we draw it on paper, it acquires length and breadth. Happiness too does not exist anywhere; when we try to draw it out, we discover it is not there. Until we try, it seems to be. Happiness is Euclid’s point.

The devotee asks: Give me sorrow! Give me that which has depth, which has length. Give me that which remains, which abides, which enters within me and spreads, which stays with me—give me that. Give me that which, once it comes, takes no name of going. In asking for sorrow he is saying all this: give me that which comes and does not go, which sinks to the depths of my very life-breath; give me that which keeps me from remaining shallow and makes me long and deep.

And then, the last thing: from those we love, even their sorrow is a joy. And from those we do not love, even their joy carries no delight. Sorrow has its own joy—has this ever occurred to you? Pain has its own pleasure.

Masochist?
No—I am not speaking of that.
Pain has its own pleasure, its own flavor. Not masochism. There was a man, Masoch; he used to flog and torment himself. Such people who torture themselves—who engage in self-torture—are masochists. They say, “We get pleasure by hurting ourselves.” Gandhi can be counted among the masochists. What the devotee is saying—“give me sorrow”—is about another sorrow altogether. Not the sorrow of self-torture, not the pain of persecuting oneself; he is asking for the sorrow we call the pain of love. Love has a very deep pain. And it torments more subtly than ordinary sorrow; it permeates every nerve and pore. Ordinary sorrow cannot break you; love breaks you. Sorrow cannot erase you; love erases you. In sorrow you remain behind; in love you do not remain—you are lost and you depart. Give such a sorrow that the devotee himself is effaced, in which he does not remain at all. Give such a death that he is lost, does not remain—this is the sense.

And that is why Krishna does not explain; he simply laughs. There are things that can be explained only by a laugh; explaining them breeds misunderstanding. So he laughs and remains silent; he does not attempt to explain. He understands the secret—that the one who is asking is speaking with great strategy and cleverness, putting him in quite a bind. Therefore he laughs and keeps quiet; there is nothing to explain.

The devotee who asks for suffering is not a suffering-monger. A suffering-monger creates so much suffering for himself that there is no need to ask anyone for more. Does a suffering-monger go to ask someone for suffering? He already lives in so much suffering that you cannot give him any more.

A devotee asks for suffering because he is already receiving plenty of joy; he wants to taste suffering too, with which he is completely unfamiliar. A devotee is never miserable, and even if he weeps, his tears are tears of bliss. Devotees have wept much, but their tears are not tears of sorrow.

We make a big mistake because we ourselves have cried only in sorrow; we have never cried in bliss. So we have tied tears to sorrow as if inevitably. But tears have no necessary relation to sorrow. Tears are related to overflowing. Whenever any feeling crosses the mind’s limits, it begins to flow as tears—any feeling! If sorrow becomes too much, it flows as tears; if joy becomes too much, it flows as tears; if love becomes too much, it flows as tears; if anger becomes too much, it flows as tears. But since we have mostly seen tears of sorrow—sorrow has overflowed for us, while bliss has never risen so high as to spill into tears—we have associated tears with sorrow. Sorrow has no inherent relation to tears; tears are related to overflowing. Whatever becomes too much within us flows out as tears.

A devotee weeps, a lover weeps—he weeps only in ecstasy. And this pain of ecstasy, this sting of ecstasy, this prick of ecstasy’s thorn—these tears of ecstasy—have nothing whatsoever to do with a cult of suffering.

A small point has gone amiss here, and because we don’t catch it, the question keeps returning in another form. If you remember what I said about prayer, it will become clear. As I said: not prayer, but prayerfulness. Likewise, devotion does not mean devotion to someone; devotion means a devotional attitude. Devotion means the heart of a devotee. For that, it is not necessary that there be a God. Devotion can be without God. In truth, God is nowhere first; he is born out of devotion. It is not that devotion exists because of God; rather, God begins to appear because of devotion. For those whose hearts are filled with devotion, this world becomes divine. Those whose hearts are not filled with devotion will ask, “Where is God?” And they will keep asking. You cannot show it to them, because that is a world seen through the heart of a devotee, a world seen through the path of devotion.

The world is not God; a devotional heart is able to see the world as Godlike. The world is not stone either; a stony heart sees the world as stone. What we see in the world is our projection, the reflection of what is within us. We see outside what we are inside. If the feeling of devotion deepens within, the world becomes divine. Then it is not that God is sitting somewhere in a temple; no—whatever is, is God.

Krishna is a devotee—and he is also God. And whoever enters into devotion will begin as a devotee and be fulfilled as God. One day, when he sees God outside, what fault has he committed that he should not also see God within? The devotee begins as a devotee and is completed as God. The journey starts by seeing the world, and he sees that which is in the world. With a devotional heart, a devotional mind, prayerful, full of feeling—he looks at the world. Then, by and by, he begins to see himself in the same way; there remains no other possibility. Then things like what happened once to Ramakrishna also happen—a very delightful incident.

Ramakrishna had been appointed as a temple priest at Dakshineswar. It was a very low-paid job, perhaps sixteen rupees a month. He was kept there as a pujari. But within a few days trouble began, because the trustees got word that this man did not seem quite right. The offerings he placed before God—he tasted them first himself. And the flowers he offered—he first smelled them. So the trustees came secretly to the temple to see what was going on. They saw Ramakrishna enter dancing, full of feeling; he first placed the food to his own lips, then offered it to God; he first smelled the flowers, then offered them to God. The trustees caught him and said, “What are you doing? Is this any way of devotion?” Ramakrishna said, “A way of devotion? I’ve never heard of such a thing. I have seen devotees, I have heard of devotion, but does devotion have a method, a mold, a discipline?” They said, “We will throw you out! How can you offer a flower to God after you have smelled it?” Ramakrishna said, “Without smelling it, how can I offer it at all? How do I know if it even has fragrance?” The trustees said, “Without first offering the food to God, how do you eat it yourself?” Ramakrishna said, “When my mother fed me, she first tasted the food. I cannot offer without tasting. You keep the job if you like; otherwise, if you want me here, I will taste it first and then offer it. How else can I know whether it is even fit to be eaten?”

Now such a man—how will he see God only outside? Very soon the time will come when he will say that God is within as well. So the journey begins with the devotee and is fulfilled in God. It is not that it gets completed in some God sitting outside somewhere; in the end, after traveling the whole world, we return to ourselves and find: the one we went out to seek was sitting at home.

Krishna is both. You too are both—everyone is both. But you cannot begin from God. You have to begin from the devotee. Because if you start by saying, “I am God,” there is danger. Many people create this danger—they start with God. They say, “I am God.” There is no feeling of devotion within them, yet they make the declaration of being God; then such people, ego-centered, start trying to make others into devotees—because their Godhood needs devotees. But they cannot see God in the other. They see God in themselves and a devotee in the other. There are many circles of guru-dom like this around the world. The journey must begin with devotion.

Now, Krishna can be regarded as God, because this man can be devoted even to horses. In the evening, when the horses are tired, he takes them to the river to bathe. He bathes them, cleans them, scrubs their hooves. Such a man has the stature to be called God—because he can bathe even a horse as if it were God. There is no fear from such a man, no danger. If he were the strutting type of “I am God,” he could never sit in the charioteer’s place. He would have told Arjuna, “You sit below; let me sit above! I am God, you are the devotee! God sits in the chariot; the devotee drives.”

Those who declare themselves God—just make them sit on the floor beneath the throne while you sit on the throne above; then you will see!

The journey begins with the devotee and is fulfilled in God.

As I said, devotion has no method, and love has no touchstone. If love is, that is enough—why worry about a touchstone? When love is not, one worries about the touchstone. Be concerned with love. What need is there of a touchstone? Because love is not, you think, “If only I had a touchstone, I could test it.” But if it isn’t there, what is there to test? You already know it isn’t there. Is there love? Care about that. And when love is, it is true; there is no such thing as false love. “False love” is a wrong phrase. Either it is, or it is not. Therefore there is no need for a touchstone.

Yes, to assay gold a touchstone is needed, because counterfeit gold exists. Love is never false. It either is or is not. And when it is, you know it just as you know when a thorn pierces your foot. What touchstone is needed? A thorn has gone into your foot, there is pain—what touchstone do you need to know whether there is pain or not? You yourself surely know whether it hurts or not. Yes, if someone else insists, “What is the touchstone?” then what can you do except drive a thorn into his foot as well and say, “Now see—does it hurt or not?”

When love happens, we know it in the same way we know other things. When it hasn’t happened, we also know—there is no thorn in the foot. Look within; there will be no difficulty in recognizing it. You can know whether there is love in your life or not. If there isn’t, what will you do with a touchstone? If there is, the touchstone is useless. The touchstone has nothing to do with it. Be concerned with love—whether it is there or not.

But we are afraid to be concerned, afraid to look within, because we know full well that there is no love. So we do not look inside. Instead we are always concerned about the other—whether the other’s love is directed toward me or not! Rarely does anyone ask whether my love is directed toward the other or not. So day and night we quarrel that the other loves less—the husband loves less, the wife loves less, the son loves less, the father loves less—everyone is fighting with the other that the other loves less. And no one asks, “Have I loved?” And when we cannot love the living people spread all around us, when we cannot love the flowers we can see, when we cannot love the mountains standing on every side, when we cannot love the moon and stars in the sky, how will we be able to love the invisible? Begin with the visible.

And the delightful thing is that the person who loves the visible immediately begins to experience the invisible within the visible. Love a stone, and the stone becomes divine. Love a flower, and the invisible life-energy of the flower begins to be seen. Love a person, and instantly the body disappears and the soul begins. Love is alchemy for discovering the invisible. Love is the chemical method, the chemical vision, the chemical window for finding the invisible. Care about love, and you will never again have to worry about on what touchstone to weigh it.

And never ask what the ultimate state of love is. Whenever love happens, it is ultimate. Love has no other state. Love has no degrees.

This much is worth understanding.

It never happens that I say, “I love you a little.” What meaning could “a little love” have? Or that I say, “Right now I love you a little less.” It doesn’t happen. Just as if one person steals two pennies and another steals two hundred thousand, will you say the theft of two hundred thousand is a big theft and the theft of two pennies is a small theft?

Yes, those who keep accounts of money will say that a theft of two hundred thousand is big and a theft of two pennies is small. But can theft be small or big? Theft is simply theft. There are no degrees in theft, no more or less. In stealing two pennies, a person is just as much a thief as in stealing two hundred thousand.

Love too is neither of two pennies nor of two hundred thousand; it simply is. There is no “ultimate stage”—love is the ultimate. What love is is a climax. It is always at a hundred degrees. When water heats up it is not that at ninety degrees there is a little steam, then at ninety-five a little more. No—only at a hundred degrees does it become steam. At a hundred degrees, suddenly it turns to steam. So if someone asks, “What is the culminating point at which it becomes steam?” we would say: the first point is the ultimate. The first is also the last. A hundred degrees is the first, and a hundred degrees is the last.

Love too is the first and the last—the first and the last. There is no gradation in love. Love is the ultimate. Its first step is its last step. The first stair of its journey is the last stair of the temple. But we do not know this; therefore we ask strange questions. I have yet to see anyone ask a correct question about love.

I am reminded of an incident.

A very great multimillionaire, Morgan, was conversing with a rival millionaire. He said to his rival, who was his competitor, “There are a thousand ways to make money in this world, but there is only one way to do it honestly.” The rival asked, “What is that way?” Morgan said, “I knew you would ask—because you do not know it. I knew you would ask, because you do not know it!”

It is the same with love. About love we ask questions that do not arise at all—that simply do not exist—irrelevant. Because I know we will ask, for love is the one thing of which we have no idea. Concerning it we can only ask wrongly. And remember, whoever knows it cannot ask rightly either, because there is no question to be asked—he knows.

In truth, a person like Krishna is neither anyone’s friend nor anyone’s enemy. Krishna carries no fixed notion about anyone. So an enemy can become a friend, a friend can become an enemy. Situations will decide. We live differently. We make someone a friend, someone an enemy. Then circumstances change and it becomes very difficult—yet we still try to drag along the labels of friend and enemy. Krishna drags nothing. As the situation is, so he moves. If Arjuna himself were to stand against him to fight, then a Krishna–Arjuna war would happen. There would be no hindrance in it. With the same playful ease, the same joyous mood with which he fights for Arjuna, he could also fight Arjuna.

Krishna does not make friendship and enmity fixed points. They are not certainties; they are fluidities. And in the fluidity of life, how can it be decided—who is friend and who is enemy? The one who is a friend today may be an enemy tomorrow; the one who is an enemy today may be a friend tomorrow. Therefore, even with a friend it is wise to keep in mind the possibility of tomorrow’s enmity, and with an enemy to behave keeping in mind the possibility of tomorrow’s friendship. Because there is no guarantee of tomorrow. There is no guarantee even of this moment. The moment changes, and everything changes. Life is a continuously changing pattern. Just as the sun is shining now and shadows are cast upon the ground—somewhere shade, somewhere light—an hour later the sun will be elsewhere, the shade elsewhere. Everything will go on changing. Sit and watch this garden till evening: everything will keep changing—the sun will shift, the shadows will shift, clouds will come and go, day will pass, evening will fall, night will be, there will be light and then darkness; it will all continue to happen. The whole of life is a changing pattern like this. Nothing there is fixed like the squares of a chessboard; everything is changing like sun and shadow.

So ordinarily we cannot even conceive how Arjuna and Krishna could stand face to face! But it is precisely Arjuna and Krishna who can. Krishna can stand opposite even a friend. And in that sense the entire Mahabharata is sheer delight! In it, all friends are standing face to face. The very Drona from whom Arjuna learned everything—Arjuna stands with bow drawn at him. From Bhishma, from whom he received so much, he is ready to kill. The Mahabharata is wondrous in this way. It tells us that nothing is fixed in life; everything is changing. Those who were brothers yesterday are enemies today. Those who were friends yesterday stand opposed today. Those who were gurus yesterday, today one must fight with them. And yet, even in this, two things are clear. They fight all day, and in the evening they go to ask after each other’s welfare. They fight all day, and in the evening they go and ask, “Has anyone been hurt?” Those whom they wounded all day, with whom they fought with open heart—the fight contains no dishonesty; the fight is utterly honest, filled with integrity; there is not a trace of deceit in it—if Bhishma stands before them, there will be no delay in taking off his head—but in the evening there is no obstacle to mourning that a man like Bhishma is lost. How strange! This tells us there was once an age when we could even fight in a friendly way. Today the age is exactly the reverse: today we can be friends only in a hostile way. Today even friendship runs in the mode of enmity. Today even a friend is a competitor. Then, even the enemy was a companion.

And in the larger meanings of life, this is worth contemplating. If I have an enemy, with the death of the enemy something in me also dies. Not only does the enemy die—something in me dies as well. My being, too, is with the enemy’s being. It is not only that with the death of a friend something is lost within me; with the loss of an enemy also something is lost within me. So the enemy, too, is a part of my personality. Therefore to be overly hostile toward the enemy is meaningless. In some deep sense the enemy is also a friend. And the friend, in some deep sense, is also an enemy. Why? Because in truth—as I have been saying to you continually these past days—the polarities into which we divide life, making poles, are true only in our words and theories. In the direct depth of life no polarity is true; all polarities are joined. North and south are joined. Above and below are joined.

If we can see this, then Krishna’s fighting Arjuna becomes understandable. Those who tried to explain Krishna have not understood; they have been in great difficulty, and they keep getting into difficulty. Whenever we try to explain, our preconceived notions stand in the way and say, “What is this! How can this be! This should not be!” We believe a friend must remain a friend, an enemy must remain an enemy. We slice life into segments and make them static. Life is fluid like a river. The wave that was here is now far away. The wave that was with us yesterday has moved far off today. And on this entire path of life, who is with us is a matter of the moment. A moment later, whether they will be with us or not—who can say? Who stands in opposition today—whether a moment later he will stand in opposition or not—cannot be said. Those who live life like the flow of a river make neither enemies nor friends. Whoever becomes an enemy, they accept him as enemy; whoever becomes a friend, they accept him as friend. They do not make anything; they pass through life; whatever becomes as it becomes, they accept it as such.

For Krishna there is neither enemy nor friend. Time, circumstance, occasion—whomever they push into the camp of friendship, he becomes their friend; whomever they push into the camp of enmity, he becomes their enemy. Krishna’s armies are fighting on the Kauravas’ side; Krishna himself is fighting on the Pandavas’ side. The division was made between the two, because both counted such a Krishna as friend. And both arrived together. Both arrived together, and he gave both an open choice—this is the delightful part—he gave both the freedom that, since you both have come and both are my own, on one side I will fight, and on the other my armies will fight.

He could not have said that, because the event that was about to unfold—the Mahabharata—was so vast that Krishna’s presence in it was absolutely essential; without him it perhaps could not even have happened. And if to his friends he had said, “I will remain outside,” if he had adopted the Indian foreign policy of neutrality, of being “non-aligned,” it would have been dishonest. Because in life there is no neutrality; we are always on some side. Neutrality can only be an inner feeling; in life it does not exist. In life we are always on one side or the other. There can be a show of neutrality—that he could have done—but a show is meaningless. And both parties came as friends to ask for help, not for neutrality. They came to say, “Stand with us.” The answer had to be about support. Not supporting either would not mean he was a friend to both; it would mean he had nothing to do with either—no friendship with either. That is what neutrality would mean. Neutrality means indifference: “We don’t care who wins or loses. We have no purpose with you.”

Krishna is not purposeless. Krishna is a friend to both, yet he wants the Pandavas to win. To win, because he feels the Pandavas stand on the side of dharma and the Kauravas on the side of adharma. Yet he is friendly even toward those who are unrighteous; the unrighteous too bear no enmity toward him—there is goodwill toward Krishna. They too love him. In those days accounts were very straight and clean. Whenever there was even a small war, everyone took sides. Decisions became clear. There was no need to drag things on. Once polarities became clear, decisions came quickly—and decisively.

So Krishna is not full of neglect; he is full of concern. He is not indifferent; therefore he cannot be neutral. Both are not equal to him, and yet there is friendship toward both; hence he is ready to be divided. And he also knows that the way he divides himself will decide much. So the rule he chose for that division is astonishing, very mathematical. He said: let one of you choose me alone, and let the other choose all my armies. Through this division it became very clear to Krishna whose side dharma was on. The matter became clear. For who would choose Krishna alone? Only those prepared to lose, would they not? Who would choose Krishna alone? Those who do not rely on force. Who would choose Krishna alone? The one who trusts not in material, personal power but in spiritual strength will choose Krishna.

The Kauravas were very pleased. They had been frightened, because the first choice was given to the Pandavas. The Pandavas’ representative had sat at Krishna’s feet, while the Kauravas’ representative had sat near Krishna’s head. They had gone while Krishna was asleep, and had to wait till he awoke. The Pandavas’ representative sat at his feet—that too was a sign. The Kauravas’ representative sat near his head. How could the Kauravas sit by the feet! Only the humble can sit at the feet.

These very small things become deeply telling. We do in life exactly what we are. It is not accidental. Even this small incident—that the Kauravas sat near the head and the Pandavas at the feet—is not accidental. Naturally Krishna’s eyes first fell upon the one sitting at his feet. Therefore the first choice was given to him. Certainly the humble win first; the first chance belongs to them. “Blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth.” As Jesus says: blessed are the humble, for the kingdom of the earth will be theirs. The humble had the first chance: “You choose.”

The Kauravas were frightened and flustered: “This is a big problem! Surely the Pandavas will choose the armies. Who would choose Krishna alone! And what would we do with Krishna by himself?” They felt there was bias because the first choice went to the Pandavas. But they were overjoyed when they saw that the “foolish” Pandavas chose Krishna and left all the armies to the Kauravas. Then they rejoiced and concluded that the defeat of these simpletons was certain. “They always play the card of naiveté, they always lose. Another chance to win has been missed. Now victory is assured!” But in that very moment their defeat was sealed. The Pandavas’ choice declared that the choice had become spiritual, had deepened, had become a choice for dharma—and with Krishna standing with them it became decisive.

Since I said that sitting at the feet became important, a small incident comes to mind that will make it clear.

When Vivekananda was going from India to America, he went to Mother Sharada for her blessing and said, “I am going to America.” Ramakrishna was no longer alive; only Sharada remained, so only she could be asked. Sharada was working in the kitchen. She said, “What will you do in America?” He said, “I will carry the message of dharma.” Sharada said, “There is that knife lying there for cutting vegetables—pick it up and give it to me.” Vivekananda picked up the knife and gave it to her. Sharada said, “Go, you have my blessing.” But Vivekananda asked, “What does picking up the knife have to do with it?” Sharada said, “I wanted to see how you would hand me the knife. Any one of us might have picked it up holding the handle ourselves and turning the blade toward Sharada. You held the blade yourself and turned the handle toward me. So I think the message of dharma can go through you.”

Ordinarily, the chance that you would hold the blade is very small. Who holds the blade of a knife? One holds the handle. This is not accidental. Vivekananda could not have prepared a ready-made answer for this. It is not written in any book that when you go to America and Sharada asks you, hold the knife like this. It is not written in any scripture. And a personality like Sharada’s is not one to be taken on faith lightly. Was this any way to test? Could this be an examination of religion? But Sharada said, “You have my blessing. Go. There is dharma in your heart.”

In the same way that day, by sitting at Krishna’s feet, the Pandavas gave the sign that dharma was with them, that they had the courage to sit at the feet. Then by choosing Krishna they proclaimed: we are ready to be defeated, but we are not ready to abandon dharma. We will lose while standing with dharma, but we will not win while standing with adharma. And only one who is ready to lose can be with dharma. As I said, only one who asks for suffering, who chooses suffering, can be with the Divine. Only one who is ready to lose can be with dharma. The one who is restless to win at any cost will inevitably side with adharma, because adharma suggests the easy, shortcut way: “You will win from here.” The path of dharma becomes long. Adharma is always looking for shortcuts. The path of dharma is long, laborious, arduous. With dharma there can be defeat. With dharma there can be destruction. But the one who is ready to be destroyed with dharma, who is ready to lose, never in truth loses. But that readiness has to be there.

Adharma says, “Here is victory—just stretch out your hand and it is yours.” The juice and allure of adharma lies in its assurance, its promise. It says, “Just reach out and you will have it. Why take the path of dharma? The road is long, the mountains are difficult, there is no guarantee of arrival—and who has ever reached!” Here is adharma, here is the nearby arrangement: “Just do this and you will arrive!” Adharma’s assurance is always of victory. In that allure of victory a person grasps adharma. But having grasped adharma, no one ever truly wins. Dharma’s challenge is always the possibility of defeat. Knowing the fear of defeat, the one who remains with dharma never loses. These are very inverted, very contradictory statements. And yet it is so.

There is another saying of Jesus: Blessed are those whose hearts are pure, for the kingdom of heaven shall be theirs. There is a slight difference between the two. Blessed are the humble—the earth will be theirs, the kingdom of the earth. Blessed are the pure—the kingdom of heaven will be theirs, the kingdom of heaven.

In truth, humility is the beginning; purity is the culmination. Humility is the first step; purity is the fulfillment. Those who are humble have stepped onto the first rung. They have opened the door to purity. They are not yet pure, but by becoming humble they open the door to becoming pure. Those who are not humble can never be pure, because there is no greater impurity than the ego. The ego-filled can never be pure; but those who become humble, who drop the ego, who bow down, who surrender—they open the door to purity. Yet merely bowing down is not the attainment. By bowing you only become the doorway.

A man stands in the river; water flows below; he is thirsty. If he bends down he can fill his cupped hands, but he refuses to bend. He stands stiff. He is thirsty; the water passes by his feet, yet he will not bend. Let him stay thirsty; the river will keep flowing. The river is not at fault for his thirst—his rigidity is. He is not ready to bow. If he bows, water will come into his palms. Bowing is the beginning; it opens the doorway to the water.

Exactly so, the humble open their door to purity; and when purity happens, humility has ripened into purity in every way. For humility cuts off everything by which one becomes impure. The humble person will no longer be egoistic. The humble person will no longer be aggressive. The humble person will no longer be angry. The humble person will no longer be greedy. The humble person will no longer be lustful. All these require aggression; humility removes the pathway to them. In place of anger, the humble one becomes available to forgiveness. In place of greed, to generosity. In place of attack, to the readiness to lose. In place of possessiveness, to non-possessiveness. Instead of self-proclamation, the humble one withdraws into the shadows, becomes invisible. The day humility becomes total, that day purity becomes total. Therefore, in the second saying Jesus declares: Blessed are the pure; they shall inherit the kingdom of God. Those who are pure will become the masters of God’s kingdom.

There is yet another saying of Jesus in the same vein: Blessed are the poor in spirit. What an astounding phrase—poor in spirit! It contains both: humility and purity. So poor within—one needs something even to be impure! Nothing is left; one has become a vacuum. So poor within that nothing remains. To be arrogant, you need something—some possession, some ownership, some wealth, status, title, name, fame—something! Even to be impure you need something—anger, for example. And note well: anger is “something”; non-anger is merely absence. Non-anger is not a thing. Greed is something; non-greed is just absence. Violence is something; non-violence is only absence. The person has become so inwardly poor that there is no violence left, no anger left, no greed, no status, no prestige, no name, no wealth—nothing at all: poor in spirit. Destitute in the soul. Yet there is no comparison for his richness! Therefore, in the other saying it is declared that he shall be the owner of all. The one who has become most destitute within will become the owner of everything; he will attain all. All that is worth attaining will come to him.

Jesus has a saying in this context: Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all else shall be added unto you. First seek the kingdom of God, and then everything else will be given. But when someone asks him, How to seek the kingdom of God? he replies: Become humble, become pure, become poor in spirit—and the kingdom of God will be attained. And when the kingdom of God is attained, then all else shall be added unto you; everything that is will follow after it.

It is a strange condition: Lose all, and you will gain all. Save even a little, and you will lose all. Those who are willing to lose themselves will become the masters of all; those who insist on saving themselves will lose everything.

This is the meaning of sannyas in my vision: the one who is ready to lose everything becomes worthy of gaining everything.

Yes—this is not a matter for you to think about. It happens. If you start thinking, you won’t be able to lose at all. If you become humble in order to attain the kingdom of God, then you have not become humble. That which is being said is not a promise; it is a consequence. That “second part” is the result. It is not an assurance for you. Because if someone says, “I am ready to renounce everything in order to get everything,” then how will he renounce? He is renouncing in order to get. He cannot really let go.

No, that second part is not an assurance; it is a result. It has been seen that those who have left everything have found everything. But those who wanted to get everything have not been able to leave anything.

Yes, and I will not remove your dilemma either. Because the humility that is worn, cultivated, contrived, remains humble all the time. But a natural humility is so humble that it even has the courage to be unhumble. Only a truly humble person can dare to be ruthlessly unhumble. Only a lover can be hard.

So it will constantly appear—the same as I say about Krishna—it will constantly seem that in me there are opposite things, many kinds of opposites. But I accept life in its totality; that is my humility. If within me there arises a sense to be harsh, I do not stop it—for who is there to stop? I become harsh. If sometimes I feel like being humble—what can I do? I become humble. Whatever happens, I allow it to happen. On my part there is no attempt to be anything. I make no effort. Therefore your dilemma with me will continue; it is never going to disappear.

And those whom we have called sthitaprajna—would you call Krishna sthitaprajna or not? The matter is dilemmas all the way. Many times Krishna seems to have completely lost his wisdom. When he lifted the Sudarshan in his hand, it seems to us he lost his wisdom, the steadiness was gone. This notion we have of the sthitaprajna—that his wisdom has become steady—what does it mean? Does it mean that he does what we think is right, that he has become steady on our side?

The whole meaning of becoming steady is only this—becoming steady does not mean becoming inert. It means wisdom has become available, and now he does what wisdom makes him do; he does nothing on his own. Now neither the faults are his, nor the virtues. Now neither honor is his, nor dishonor. Now he does not say, “What I am doing is right,” nor does he say, “What I am doing is wrong.” Now he neither repents nor does he atone—he does not even look back. Now whatever happens, happens; and he allows it to happen. Now there is no one standing above this allowing who will stop it or decide, “Do this and don’t do that.” He has become nirvikalpa—choiceless.

Therefore, if ever you find that I seem very hot, you may find it so. There is no remedy. When heat comes, I am hot; when cold comes, I become cold. And I have dropped trying to be anything from my side—I have dropped the insistence that I should be this and not that. This is what I call the steadiness of wisdom.