Krishna Smriti #16

If Aurobindo’s Krishna-vision was in the prison walls, in the bars, in the jailer, in himself—if one sees Krishna everywhere—then who is it that knows Krishna has been seen? Who recognizes it? If the recognizer remains standing behind, it is projection. If someone says, “I had a vision of Krishna,” at least one thing is certain: I am not Krishna. The one who has a vision remains other than that which is seen.

No, the oceanic Krishna I speak of is not a matter of “I saw Krishna.” It is that I am no more, and what remains is Krishna. Call it Krishna, Christ, Buddha—it makes no difference. That is merely a matter of the vocabulary into which we were born.

Once such vision happens—and if it is not projection—there is no return; it cannot be lost. And the amusing thing is that Aurobindo’s whole sadhana begins after that. He meets Yogi Lele later. He learned meditation from Lele—and he did learn from Lele. If someone still needs to learn meditation, how can he already have had the vast vision of Krishna? And if one truly has had it, what is the point in learning meditation then? From whom would one go to learn?

And what Lele taught him was a very small process. Very small, with nothing very deep in it. After that, there was no further movement in his meditation; what he learned from Lele was the last step. He sat with Lele for three days only. It was a very simple experiment in witnessing, sakshi-bhava. Lele said, “Just sit and watch your thoughts.” He began watching thoughts. A terrible swarm of thoughts descended on the mind. He became very frightened. Lele told him only this: “Understand your thoughts just as if flies were buzzing around your head; sit in the middle and watch, let the flies buzz.” If anyone watches continuously for three days, thoughts thin out, quiet down. The mind becomes thoughtless. After that he learned nothing further from Lele, and he took that to be the last word. There Aurobindo made his greatest mistake. It was purely the primary stage. Witnessing is the first step; witnessing is not non-duality. Through witnessing, ultimately, non-duality is realized—but one must go further. Witnessing, too, must disappear. As long as I am the witness and there is something to be witnessed, duality remains. A moment must come when neither I remain nor that which I witness remains. A moment must come when only pure consciousness remains, and in that consciousness it becomes impossible to decide who is subject and who is object—who knows and what is known. So long as it is clear who knows and what is known, duality continues. And until then one does not go beyond the mind, does not transcend it. Therefore I will not say Aurobindo’s experience was real, because that which comes and goes is not real. It is dreamlike; it is a projection. That which comes and comes to stay, which cannot leave, that alone is the real.

In meditation, too, he never went beyond the practice of witnessing. And he kept no further relationship with the man from whom he had learned. That man had the possibility to take him further, but when Aurobindo met Lele the second time, Aurobindo himself had become a guru. And his conduct in that second meeting is surprising. All his effort seemed to be to erase the fact that he had learned anything from this man. And indeed he had learned very little, not much at all.

But this has happened many times—not only with Aurobindo. Often a little experience itself proves to be an obstacle. It is so pleasurable, so blissful, that the mind settles there. The greatest hindrances in spiritual practice do not come from outer wealth or relationships. The greatest hindrances come from the inner, preliminary experiences. They are so pleasant, so blissful, that one wants to stop there. And the mistake of taking a wayside stop for the destination has happened not only with Aurobindo; it has happened to thousands. When the halt is pleasant, one is tempted to take it as the goal.

And whatever sadhana Aurobindo later prescribed to others did not go an inch beyond what Lele had taught him. For life, to all the seekers he advised, nothing went beyond those three days’ instructions. That is why I say he never went further—because he never told anyone anything beyond that. Only that much. But Lele was a simple, straightforward man; he said it in two words. Aurobindo was a complex intellect, a master of the mind; he painted the same thing across thousands of pages. But he did not say an inch beyond what Lele had shown him—nowhere in any book or discourse. That is why I say he never went beyond what Lele taught him in three days. Nothing fructified beyond witnessing. And I think he even lost that, because then he got entangled in…

It will surprise you to know what Lele himself later said to Aurobindo. Lele said, “You have gone astray.” You will be surprised! He said, “What you had, you have lost; you have fallen into idle talk and theories. These have no relation to experience.” This statement of Lele is remarkable. But Aurobindo’s followers do not discuss it, because it is too disturbing. The man from whom he learned says this. It is very telling. Lele met Aurobindo and said, “Please do not get entangled in this web of writing and reading; you have not yet reached that of which you have started to speak.” But Aurobindo paid no attention—and if he did not, why would his devotees?

When I said that a fundamental discovery originates in a person, therefore the chance of error increases, that does not mean it is necessarily an error. I also said: what comes through tradition is liable to rot and decay, to become filthy; yet behind all that stench there is very probably some truth. People cannot carry sheer garbage for thousands of years for no reason. Yes, because of a diamond, the pebbles may be carried too; perhaps the diamond got lost and only pebbles are now seen.

Let me connect this to another point. Aurobindo says there are hints of the supermental he speaks of in the Vedas. In this country a great unethical habit has persisted: even those who discover something new cannot muster the courage to say, “This is my new insight.” Why? Because this country knows that new ideas may well be wrong. So a contrivance grew up in this long tradition: however new the idea, base it on some ancient scripture. Always say it is in the Vedas; always say it is in the Upanishads; always say it is in the Brahma-sutras. Thus it has become impossible to determine the meaning of the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Brahma-sutras. Everyone imposes himself on them. These are just ways to borrow the credit of an old shop—nothing more. Whether it is in the Vedas or not is not the point. Dayananda will show one thing in the same aphorism—whatever he wants to prove. Aurobindo will show another. Shankara, something else. The very life has been squeezed out of those sutras. We have created terrible confusion around the Vedas, the Brahma-sutras and the Upanishads—and the same with the Gita. Everyone tries to prove that what he is saying is exactly what the Upanishads, the Gita, the Vedas say. Thus a very strange kind of intellectual debauchery has arisen in this country—an intellectual prostitution. Things are not stated straight; they are foisted upon the ancients, because only by leaning on them can one stand.

I call this a lack of self-trust. If Aurobindo truly experienced a truth, and even if the Vedas say the opposite—let the Vedas go to hell; what have they to do with it? If Aurobindo sees a truth, he can say in utter privacy, “This is the truth. I have seen and known it.” But if doubt remains within, then one cannot do without the crutches of the Vedas, the Gita, the Upanishads. One must sit on their shoulders and line them up behind oneself to show that what I know is what they know.

Remember: a Vedic rishi does not seek anyone’s support. His statements are direct. The author of the Brahma-sutras does not seek support. He says, “It is so.” But then there is a long story of intellectual decline in India, in which no one dared say, “It is so; I know.” They said, “It is so because the Vedas say so—and what the Vedas say, I also know.” The direct statement was lost. Aurobindo is a late link in that chain.

Hence I say Ramana is more honest. Krishnamurti is more honest. Even if you must err, don’t pin it on the Vedas; take it upon yourself. Even if you are right, take it upon yourself. Then a decision becomes possible—tomorrow or someday—whether there was substance in what you knew or not. Otherwise everything is thrown into confusion by marshaling witnesses.

Therefore Indian philosophy could not evolve with the kind of honesty that Western philosophy did. If Socrates speaks, he is his own authority. If Kant speaks, he is his own authority. If Wittgenstein speaks, he is his own authority. None of them goes searching for someone else’s sanction. From that honesty, science was born—the result of that same honesty. Science cannot be born of dishonesty. In India, science could not be born because we are ensnared in a very deep intellectual dishonesty. Here it is difficult to decide who is saying what, because everyone speaks in someone else’s voice, lives by someone else’s words, stands upon someone else’s scripture.

I would say Aurobindo’s insistence that “it is also in the Vedas” arises from a sense of inner inadequacy. It is not grounded in deep experience; it is about finding easy supports. This country’s mind is influenced by the Vedas, by Mahavira, by Buddha; it is tradition-bound. So once someone proves the simple point that “this is also said in the Vedas,” we accept him. Then we need not examine the man himself. Behind the Vedas’ cover, the man is accepted.

But why take cover at all? What need has truth of a cover? If something is seen by me, I will say, “This is how I see it.” If the Vedic seers also saw it thus, they were right; if they did not, they were wrong. I cannot become right or wrong because of the Vedas. For me, it may be that because of me the Vedas are right or wrong—that is another matter. If someone tells me, “You say this, and Mahavira said that,” I say, “If Mahavira said that, he was wrong.” How can I confirm what Mahavira actually said? I can only be sure of what I am saying. Even if the whole world says otherwise, I will still say what I see. I can only be a witness to my own seeing; I cannot be a witness to the world’s.

But the trick is very easy and convenient. If you plant your naked person face-to-face before truth, history may take thousands of years to judge whether you attained anything. But if you stand behind the Vedas, it becomes very easy. If the Vedas are right, then you are right—because you say what the Vedas say. Let me explain with a small story.

A French countess, a royal lady, very fastidious, bought an ashtray from China. She wanted the exact colors of the ashtray on the walls of her drawing room. Great painters were called, but the shades always differed a little; Chinese pigments weren’t available; however much they tried, the perfect match didn’t come. One painter said, “I can do it, on one condition: for one month no one may enter this room.” She agreed. He locked himself in; did something for a month; then called her in. The walls matched the ashtray precisely. She rewarded him lavishly. On his deathbed the painter wrote in his memoirs, “There was only one way: first I painted the walls, then I painted the ashtray to match the walls. The match was perfect.” That is what Aurobindo and Dayananda and others do: first they paint the walls with their theory, then they repaint the ashtray—the Vedas—so it matches, and then extract everything from there.

Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Arabic—all ancient languages—are poetic languages, not scientific. In poetic languages a single word carries many meanings. This is a boon for poetry, a danger for exact thought. One can never be sure what the original speaker intended. For science, language must be exact: “A” must mean only “A.” That is why physics gradually stopped using ordinary words and began using mathematical formulae. Formulae can be exact; words are suspect. Einstein’s books can be understood only by those who know higher mathematics; language no longer suffices because language is becoming mathematics. Thinkers like Einstein imagine that the future language of science will abandon words and take mathematical symbols, because only there can things be said precisely; otherwise anyone can read any meaning.

This convenience exists wherever there are old scriptures, written in such languages. Even medical texts in India are in verse. There were reasons—writing came late; texts had to be remembered; verse is easier to memorize than prose. Hence the Vedas, Upanishads, the Gita, the Quran—poetic and metrical for ease of memory. But while poetry gave the convenience of memorization, it lost the convenience of exact meaning. Now everyone can draw any meaning from the Vedas. But no one should do so. It has become a childish game, purposeless. Why seek support? Why not simply say, “This is how I see it”? Perhaps the Vedas say the same; then they were right. If not, they were wrong. Have the Vedas taken a contract to be forever right? That later people must only prove them right? I do not see it so.

As for what I said—that what is happening in Pondicherry is the most futile experiment in the field of spirituality—there is no need to leave it to the future. Spiritual process itself makes it clear today. If a man heats water with fire beneath, we need not wait for future children to decide that it will turn to steam; we can say it now. If he puts ice in the stove instead of fire, we need not wait for the future to decide that the water won’t steam but freeze; we can say it now. Spirituality is also a science, not astrology or palmistry. It has its own mathematical principles. Through reverse processes nothing will be solved—this can be said today. If the future decides anything, it will only decide whether what I have said was right, or what Aurobindo did was right. Nothing more.

All development in the world is individual. Attainment is cosmic, but the movement is individual. The expression of consciousness in the world is always individual. The source is collective; the expression is personal. The ocean is the totality; the wave is always the individual. Wherever consciousness appears to us, it appears as a person. Yes, when the person loses personal consciousness, the consciousness of the total is experienced—but I will experience it by losing my own. My experience will not automatically become yours.

An old argument must be remembered. Those who first said there is one soul in all were challenged by those who believed in many souls: if there is one soul in all, then if one man dies all should die; if one man suffers all should suffer. Their logic is neat. If the consciousness within us is one, like electricity in a house being one, and there are no partitions in it between person and person, then when I suffer how can you remain happy? If my consciousness is joined to yours, my suffering will enter you. When I die, how can you live? Therefore they believed the soul is not one in all but many.

I do not accept their argument fully. Electricity in a house is one, but if one bulb is smashed the others do not automatically break. If the main switch is turned off, all go out; but each bulb has its own switch too. Turn off one, that one goes off. Even without a switch, smash one bulb and that one is gone. The waves are many; the ocean beneath is one. So we cannot say that if one wave falls, all must fall; if one rises, all must rise. One wave falls, another may rise; nothing prevents it.

If, thinking the opposite way, the consciousness of the total—the Brahman-consciousness—were to descend, then how would it distinguish between me and you? The main switch would be off!

Therefore what Aurobindo imagines—I say imagines—is pleasant, but pleasant imaginings do not become true by being pleasant. It is a very sweet fantasy that the Divine will descend upon us all. But if I have decided to remain ignorant, neither Aurobindo has the power to bring the Divine down upon me, nor does the Divine Himself have the right to force Himself upon me. Will you at least grant me the freedom to remain ignorant? The day the freedom to remain ignorant is gone, how much value will knowledge have? Knowledge would become coercion, a slavery that sits upon your chest. Aurobindo’s vision, pleasant to look at, is inwardly frightening.

I do not see it that way. Human history says otherwise: individual consciousness rises and dissolves into the Divine. When it dissolves, the Divine-consciousness also “descends” into it. Then it is difficult to decide whether the drop fell into the ocean or the ocean fell into the drop—once the drop has fallen. But the dropping is always the drop’s. The ocean has never been seen to fall into the drop. After the union it is hard to say who merged into whom; before the union, it has never happened that the ocean fell into the drop.

Aurobindo longs for the ocean to fall into the drop. But if the ocean were ever to fall upon a drop, I say the drop would refuse: “Please have mercy—you will annihilate me!” The ocean does not object to the drop’s falling, because the drop’s falling changes nothing for the ocean. The ocean does not even notice. Only the drop notices—“I fell into the ocean; I became one with the ocean.” The ocean has never made the statement, “I became one with the drop.” All such statements are by persons: “I became one with the Divine.”

So I am not ready to accept that cosmic consciousness, Brahman-consciousness, will descend upon the person as Aurobindo imagines. It is contrary to the whole experience of humankind. I will not leave it to the future. And Aurobindo, in one sense, is already the past. He made other statements too which proved utterly naive.

Aurobindo said, “I am physically immortal.” His blind followers—who still hope that the Divine will descend upon them—also believed that Aurobindo, physically, bodily, was immortal, that he could not die. And if the Divine has descended into a man—and Aurobindo’s idea was that the Divine would not only descend into the soul but into the physical body, that the very atoms of the body would become divine—then how could death occur? The logic is consistent within that frame. Many have spoken of immortality, but of spiritual immortality. Aurobindo is the first on earth to speak of physical immortality.

Such talk has one great advantage: as long as I have not died, you cannot defeat me; after I die, whom will you defeat? While Aurobindo lived, the argument stood. How could you prove it wrong? And when he died, whom could you go and argue with? The wonder is not that he died. For twenty-four hours after his death the woman called “Mother” in that ashram refused to admit that he could die. She insisted he had gone into deep samadhi. For three days they tried to preserve the body, in the hope—because there is an old belief here—that a yogi’s body does not disintegrate after death. But after three days, when the body began to stink, there was great difficulty; they had to bury it quickly. For if the news spread—given that this country prides itself on discernment and does not call just anyone a yogi—they would say, “If a yogi dies, his body should not smell; we were greatly mistaken—this man was not a yogi.” So they buried him quickly and did not let the news spread. Even today there are many naive people sitting in the Aurobindo Ashram who believe he will return, because he is physically immortal.

These foolishnesses, these blind beliefs of ours, are worth deep consideration. The madness we will embrace! I do not accept that a yogi’s body acquires some special property, that it will not rot. It will rot. Because if a yogi’s body will not rot, why should it die at all? Death comes through disintegration. Our aging is the beginning of disintegration. If a yogi’s body follows all the other rules—childhood to youth, youth to old age, old age to death—will only one rule fail, that it should not decay after death? It will decay. Whether the soul realized knowledge or not has nothing to do with the body’s decay. There is no relevance. The soul is present in both cases—whether you are a yogi or not. What differs is only awareness: the yogi knows “I am the soul,” you do not. But that awareness has nothing to do with whether the body decays. Yogi also fall ill; then we fabricate tales and invent difficulties.

Six months before dying, Mahavira had dysentery. The Jains had to invent stories—how can a great yogi have dysentery, especially one who has done great fasting? At least his stomach should be perfect! Dysentery and Mahavira—then what of us? The tale says he ate only 365 days in twelve years—sometimes after three months, sometimes after two, sometimes after four he would eat once. And this man got dysentery! In my view, precisely such a person is likely to—these abuses of eating damage the stomach. For me it is consistent that he had six months of dysentery. But for those who make him superhuman, it is a big problem, so they had to say it was no ordinary dysentery; it was a dysentery cast by Goshalak’s mantra, which Mahavira compassionately absorbed and endured. When a yogi falls ill, we must say it is someone else’s illness he has taken—so much so that you will not even allow a yogi to be sick on his own! He must be carrying someone else’s illness.

What childish talk we engage in! It has no meaning. Aurobindo died, the body decayed; physical immortality became meaningless—it was meaningless from the start. But before, people said, “As long as he has not died, how can you say anything?” I say I can say it even then; there is no need to wait for his death. It is straightforward mathematics and science. Imagination and conjecture do not change it. And after he has died, to whom will you say it? Now that he is gone, there is no way to discuss it with Aurobindo. And you say what is happening in Pondicherry should be decided by future generations. Then this generation will be fooled there—what of that? Shall we let that happen? The future may decide, but this generation will die.

No, one cannot wait for the future. The people sitting there are valuable; they must be told as well: reconsider what you are doing. The Divine never descends to the person; the person goes to the Divine. But when one goes and experiences, it can feel as if the Divine has descended—that is quite another matter.

It is very possible. There is much truth in this. In fact, there are beings who have dropped the body, but whose compassion has not withdrawn from this world. Such beings, even from their disembodied realm, continually try to send messages for this world. And whenever a medium becomes available, they use it.

It is not that this happened for the first time with Bailey. A. P. Sinnett served in exactly this way earlier. Before him, Leadbeater did, Colonel Olcott did, Annie Besant did, Blavatsky did—all worked as such mediums. There is a long history of this. Through relating with such beings who, in the course of spiritual evolution, stand on steps ahead of us, much can be known and much can be transmitted, communicated.

A very large experiment of the same kind—one that failed—was attempted by the Theosophists with J. Krishnamurti. Great arrangements were made to bring Krishnamurti into close contact with those beings who were eager to give messages, but who could not find a medium. Krishnamurti’s first books, At the Feet of the Master and Lives of Alcyone, are from those days. Therefore J. Krishnamurti can deny being their author—and he does. He did not write them in his conscious awareness. At the Feet of the Master—at the feet of the guru—is a very wondrous book. But Krishnamurti is not its author; he is only the medium. Messages given by a certain being are compiled in it.

Bailey’s claim is the same. Western psychologists will deny it, because psychology as yet has no means by which it can accept such things. Western psychology still knows nothing of the other bodies beyond this body. It does not know that something remains even after this body is gone. Western psychology still cannot see clearly—I am speaking of psychology, not of the psychic sciences; I mean official psychology, the psychology taught to students at Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard. That psychology knows nothing of man being able to exist in a disembodied state, that messages can be given from disembodied states, and that many such beings have continued to give messages—not only in this century.

There are many references in Mahavira’s life. Mahavira was standing silently at the edge of a village. A cowherd left his cows near him, saying, “I’ll be back shortly—please watch them,” and went into the village. Mahavira was silent, so he could neither say yes nor no. He said nothing. The cowherd, in a hurry, thought, “This man will watch; he has no work—he stands naked at the village boundary,” and went inside. When he returned, the cows had wandered off into the forest and were lost. He concluded, “This seems a very dishonest man; he has had the cows stolen—my cows are gone.” So he beat him, thrashed him, struck him; he drove nails into his ears and said, “Are you deaf?” But still Mahavira remained silent, for he was standing in silence.

There is a story that Indra came and said to Mahavira, “Shall I make some arrangement for your protection?” Now, this Indra is not a person. This Indra is an incorporeal being, who was pained by the pointless atrocity inflicted upon such an utterly innocent, absolutely simple man. But Mahavira said, “No.”

It is very interesting that Mahavira did not speak to the cowherd, and yet said “no” to Indra. Certainly this “no” was said within, not outwardly. Otherwise he would have spoken to the cowherd too—what difficulty was there in that? Therefore, this conversation with Indra is inner; it is inward; it is psychic, astral. Mahavira’s lips still did not open; his lips remained closed. This happened on another plane; otherwise Mahavira’s silence would have been broken—he remained in silence for twelve years—and that silence did not break. This creates a great difficulty for those who follow Mahavira: how to resolve it? For if this Indra were some human being, then Mahavira spoke and his silence was broken. And if he could break it with Indra, what harm had the poor cowherd done—he could have broken it with him too! But the silence did not break, because there are pathways where speech without words is possible, where one can speak without sound, where one can hear without ears—and there are such disembodied beings.

Mahavira said, “No—because if you protect me, I will become dependent. Let me remain unprotected; at least that is my freedom. If I accept protection from you, I will be bound to you. So let me remain unprotected.” In truth, Mahavira is saying: the cowherd cannot harm me as much as accepting protection from you would. Let him beat me; it does not truly harm me. But if I take protection from you, then I am finished—then you become my security.

When Buddha first attained enlightenment, there is a story that the devas came and prayed to him—because for seven days after enlightenment Buddha did not speak. He had attained, but speech was lost. Often it will be so: when enlightenment happens, speech is lost. In ignorance, talking is very easy, because there is no fear of what one is saying. About that which we do not know, speaking is very convenient—there is not even the fear of being wrong. Buddha attained; speech was lost; for seven days he sat silent. Devas stood around him with folded hands and prayed, “Speak.” Only after seven days could he hear them. The devas prayed, “If you do not speak, the world will be greatly harmed. Such a person is born but once in hundreds of thousands of years. Do not remain silent—speak!”

These devas are not persons. They are those beings who are eager, for someone has become available. What they themselves would like to say to the world, they cannot—for they no longer have bodies. This person still has a body and can speak—and he has attained that which is worth saying. Such an event occurs on earth only rarely, rarely. So those beings pray, “Speak! Speak!” They barely manage to persuade Buddha to speak. But they are not using Buddha as a medium. The message is not theirs and Buddha’s voice; it is Buddha’s own message, his own voice.

People like Alice Bailey are not speaking falsely. But to prove that they are right is very difficult for them. They are only mediums. A medium can only say, “It is heard within me, in the inner sky.” But how will one prove that what is heard in the inner sky is true? How will one prove that it is not the play of one’s own mind? How will one prove that it is not one’s own unconscious speaking? How will one prove that one is not deceiving oneself? It is very difficult. To establish the medium is difficult. Therefore, the psychologists can defeat Bailey.

No, I don’t do borrowed work. My connection is only with myself. So whatever I am saying, I am the one who is saying it. The entire responsibility for its errors or correctness is mine. I have nothing to do with any master. And if I were to appoint someone as a master, the fear is that then I might become someone’s master. I don’t do that kind of work. I am neither anyone’s disciple, nor is there any question of making anyone a disciple. I simply say what I see directly. Therefore I don’t need to prove whether masters exist or not. I have simply spoken to you. Whether they exist or not has nothing to do with me.

This much I say: after the body is dropped, bad spirits remain, whom we call ghosts; good spirits also remain, whom we call devas. In the West a new term for these devas—“masters”—has caught on. These devas have always sent messages. Even today they are ever eager to send messages. Ghosts too, evil spirits too, have sent messages. If the condition of your mind is such that a ghost can deliver a message to you, it will do so consistently. And many times people have done things that they themselves did not do—someone made them do it. Wicked people can also make you do things. Evil spirits, too, can get work done through you that you would not otherwise have done.

So it is not necessary that when a man says in court, “I did not commit this murder; it happened in spite of me,” he must be lying. It can be so. There are spirits who have continually had murders committed. There are houses on this earth in which such spirits dwell that whoever lives in that house, they will make him commit a murder. Vendettas are long; quarrels do not just run across generations—they run across births.

A person was brought to me—a young man. The house in which he was living—some two or three years earlier they had bought it and moved in—since then something began to go wrong in that boy and his whole personality changed. He had been gentle, humble—that was all lost. He became arrogant, egotistical, violent, eager to break things, ready to fight at the slightest provocation—suddenly, from the very day he entered that house. Had it happened gradually, it might not even have been noticed. It was an abrupt personality change. So they brought him to me. They said, “We are in great difficulty.” And as soon as they took him out of the house, he would be fine again. When they brought him to me he was fine. He said, “I myself am in trouble. Right now I am perfectly okay. But I don’t know what happens when I go into that house—I go completely haywire.”

We rendered him unconscious, hypnotized him, and asked. And an eleven-hundred-year-long story! Some man, eleven hundred years ago, was the owner of the field where that house now stands. And for eleven hundred years he has kept on having some thirty-five murders committed. He gave the full statement: “I am not going to leave him until I make him commit a murder.” And for eleven hundred years he has continually been arranging the murders of the people of the family by whom he was killed eleven hundred years ago. He was killed—and since then he is a ghost sitting in that place. Of those who killed him—the family, the ten or fifteen people who had a hand in his killing—he remains engaged in their murders; in whatever form and wherever they are born, he gets them killed.

Evil spirits also try to convey their messages. Many times you are under the impression that you are doing something—you are not. Many times such a good act happens through you that you yourself could not imagine you were capable of it. Leave others aside—others never accept that someone has done good—even you cannot believe you could have done something so good. Even there, some messages are at work.

There is no mistake in Bailey’s statements, but Bailey will not be able to prove them. No one can. Blavatsky could not prove her statements. And I said something in passing; let me explain it a little more. I said that a very big experiment was being conducted with Krishnamurti, which failed. It was a great experiment: among those we call beings of the deva-loka, many souls were eager together to bring forth in this person a consciousness like that of Buddha, Mahavira, or Krishna—that such a great consciousness should enter this person. Such a consciousness is eager. In fact, one assurance of Buddha’s is still awaiting fulfillment. Buddha has an assurance: “Understand well that I myself will return once more by the name Maitreya.” So the Buddha-incarnation called Maitreya is eager, but a suitable body is not becoming available. The right setup and medium are not becoming available.

The entire Theosophical arrangement—nearly a hundred years of continual effort—was to search for a person into whom Maitreya’s soul could enter. So they began to work on three or four individuals, but all failed. The greatest effort was made on Krishnamurti, but it could not happen. And among the reasons it did not happen, over-effort itself became the cause. People became so zealous, so much pressure was applied from all sides, that naturally Krishnamurti’s own personality became rebellious. He reacted. In the end he refused: “No!”

And forty years have passed since, but Krishnamurti is not completely free of that reaction. He is still speaking against those who are no longer there. Even now, whatever he says, the opposition to them is present in it. Very deep down that pain is still there; that wound has not quite healed. But a small mistake was made: a man of Krishnamurti’s stature cannot be persuaded to allow another soul to enter. A somewhat weaker soul should have been chosen. Then they chose souls weaker than Krishnamurti, but that has its own difficulty: such a weak soul cannot become fit to receive that soul’s entry. The vessel proves too small, and Maitreya’s soul cannot enter it. And the vessel that could be big enough is itself so deep in its own soul—why would it consent to the entry of any other soul? So in childhood they somehow kept Krishnamurti compliant, but as his age increased, his awareness increased, as his own consciousness was born, the refusal kept increasing. A very great experiment could not succeed, and Maitreya’s soul is still wandering today.

But the difficulty is great; and it is this: those who can consent are not qualified, and those who are qualified cannot consent. Therefore it cannot be said how long it will take for Maitreya’s personality to descend. That it could descend soon—this possibility is shrinking day by day. Because now there is no large arrangement for its preparation. Now only a spontaneous arrangement can work. Such an arrangement has always worked in the past. No one had to be persuaded for the Buddha: a womb became available and the Buddha entered. And for Mahavira, no one had to be persuaded: a womb became available and Mahavira entered. But such excellent wombs have become increasingly difficult to find.

Quite right. Please sit down.

Yes, these are people with exceptional memory. I was speaking about ordinary memory; these are people of special memory. And among us, too, there are people with special memory.

Curzon has written an incident in his memoirs. He writes that a man with extraordinary memory was brought to him from Rajasthan—extraordinary is too small a word for his memory. He knew no language except Rajasthani. Thirty people who each spoke a different language were seated in Lord Curzon’s Viceroy’s House—thirty speakers of thirty languages. Each of the thirty was asked to hold in mind one sentence in his own language. Then that Rajasthani rustic, a simple villager, would go to the first person, and that person would tell him the first word of his sentence in his language. Then a loud bell would be rung. He would go to the second person, who would give him the first word of his sentence; a bell again. In this way he would take the first word from each of the thirty people and then return to the first person for the second word; again the bell, and so on. Over hours of this long circuit, those thirty men, word by word, would have given him their thirty sentences—each word separated from the next by an interval of thirty other words. And later that man recited each of the thirty sentences back, separately: “This is this man’s full sentence; this is that man’s full sentence,” and so on. Now, if such a man were to become a ghost, eleven hundred years would be very little. For such a man even 1.1 million years would be easy to remember. It is a matter of special memory.

And what you ask is a very valuable question. You are right to ask it. “It took four hours!” If we read the Gita, it seems it would take four hours. Would the war really have halted for four hours?

It doesn’t seem possible. Someone would have raised a question: What is going on? We came here to fight a war, not to listen to a long recitation of the Gita. This is not some Gita-gyan yajna where a four-hour reading will be held. Four hours is a lot to ponder.

If we ask a historian, he will say something must have happened such that the Gita was actually spoken briefly, and later it was expanded.

If we ask Mahabharata experts, they will say the Gita is an interpolation. The place isn’t appropriate at all. It seems the Mahabharata was written first, and some poet later chose this spot to insert his entire poem. The battlefield does not seem a fitting setting for such a vast message—no occasion, no means for it.

What will I say? I accept neither that the Gita is an interpolation, nor that it was first spoken briefly and then enlarged. Let me explain with a small example.

Vivekananda went to Germany and was a guest in Deussen’s home. In those days, in the West, Deussen was the greatest scholar of Indology, of Indian wisdom. Of that rank you can count perhaps one or two—Max Müller’s name can be given. Even so, in many matters Deussen’s insight is deeper than Max Müller’s. He was the first in the West to understand the Upanishads; he was also the first to truly understand the Gita. Schopenhauer danced in the street with Deussen’s translation. When Schopenhauer read Deussen’s translation of the Gita for the first time, he placed it on his head and danced in the market. He said, “This is not a book to read, it is a book to dance to.” And Schopenhauer was no ordinary man; he was extraordinarily melancholic. In his life, dancing was very difficult—utterly gloomy, a pessimist. He believed life is suffering, and that pleasure is merely a trick that delivers you into the next suffering. Just as we bait a hook with dough for a fish: the dough is pleasure; the real thing is the hook, which is pain. If you get caught in the dough, the hook will pierce you. He valued pleasure only as much as the dough is worth to the fish. That Schopenhauer danced with Deussen’s translation.

Vivekananda was a guest in Deussen’s home. Deussen had a book in German that he had been laboring over for many days; he had read half of it. When Vivekananda arrived, he was halfway through. Deussen said, “This is a very wonderful book.” Vivekananda said, “Lend it to me for an hour.” Deussen said, “But you don’t know much German.” Vivekananda replied, “Do those who know more German necessarily understand?” Deussen said, “No, not necessarily.” Vivekananda said, “The reverse can also be true—that someone who knows little German may understand. Anyway, give it to me.” But Deussen said, “You are here only two or three days as a guest; I have put in fifteen days and have read only half.” Vivekananda said, “I am not Deussen; I am Vivekananda.”

Well, the book was given, and an hour later Vivekananda returned it. Deussen asked, “What? You have read it?” Vivekananda said, “Not only read it; I have understood it.” Deussen was not the sort to let that pass. He asked a handful of questions about the part he himself had read, and when Vivekananda explained, Deussen was astonished. He said, “So you did understand! How did this happen? What kind of miracle is this?” Vivekananda said, “There are ordinary ways of reading, and there are extraordinary ways. We all read in ordinary ways; that’s why, in a lifetime, if we can read and truly understand even five or ten books, it is a lot. But there are other ways, and there are high rungs of extraordinary ways. There are people who will hold a book in their hands, close their eyes, and then throw the book away. But those are psychic ways, very inner methods.”

So my own understanding is this: Krishna did not speak the Gita to Arjuna in overt, spoken words. It was a deep psychic communication; no one around even knew it was happening. If it had been heard openly by those standing for battle, a crowd would have gathered there. At least the Pandavas would have gathered. If the Gita had gone on for four hours, anything could have happened in the meantime. If someone like Krishna were speaking, at least the Pandavas would have gathered; the Kauravas might have gathered too; an attack could have occurred—anything. But no, between Krishna and Arjuna it was an inner communication—a psychic communication. It was not spoken outwardly in exact words; it was spoken within, asked within. And the first to be aware of it were not those standing nearby; the first was Sanjaya.

Now this is most interesting, because Sanjaya is seated far away and speaks to the blind Dhritarashtra. Dhritarashtra asks, “What are my sons doing in the war? In what is transpiring between the Kauravas and the Pandavas there, what is happening?” There is a great distance of many miles. Sanjaya narrates, “There, in the field of dharma, in Kurukshetra, they have assembled. This is what is happening there. Arjuna has fallen into doubt. Arjuna is asking questions. Krishna is explaining thus.” This too is telepathic communication. Sanjaya has no ordinary means to report what is happening in Kurukshetra. So two people first heard the Gita: first Arjuna; along with him, Sanjaya; after that Dhritarashtra; after that, the world. Then it spread. Otherwise, it was not something spoken outside. That is why it takes us four hours to read the Gita—because we read it outwardly. It could have happened in four moments; it could have happened in a single moment; perhaps it did not take even a moment.

Neminath is Krishna’s cousin. And this is from a time when Hindu and Jain had not yet become two separate streams. Hindu and Jain split clearly and became distinct streams after Mahavira. Neminath is Krishna’s cousin and the Jains’ twenty-second Tirthankara. But there is no esoteric connection of any kind between Neminath and Krishna—no connection of any hidden teaching. There is a reason: Neminath belongs to a very different kind of one-dimensional tradition. In the Jain tradition of twenty-four Tirthankaras—perhaps the most extensive experimentation on this earth in the dimension of renunciation—nowhere else on earth has there been such a long lineage and such a great chain of extraordinary individuals.

The first Jain Tirthankara is contemporaneous with the Rig Veda, or a little earlier. Because in the Rig Veda there are such respectful words for the first Tirthankara that contemporaries rarely show such courtesy to one another. The words are so reverential that it feels this man had already been widely honored—some time must have passed. For a contemporary, such respectful language—humanity has not yet become that civilized! But this much is certain: they are contemporaries, because his name is available, and with reverence. From the Vedas to Mahavira there is a gap of thousands of years. History cannot decide how many thousands. The Western methods of measuring time at first could not stretch beyond a span of a thousand, fifteen hundred years. Because Christianity was filled with a deep bias that creation itself happened only four thousand years before Jesus, so the world is just about six thousand years old. In that framework, how could Hindu and Jain calculations of vast stretches of time be accommodated? If creation itself happened only six thousand years ago, where is the room for reckonings that run into hundreds of thousands of years!

So those who first began thinking here using Western chronology tried to fit everything into a span of a thousand or fifteen hundred years. But that is not true. And now Christianity has had to abandon its way of reckoning time. But people are quite amusing—superstitions are very hard to drop. Now bones have been found in the earth that are hundreds of thousands of years old. But let me tell you something curious—no evidence can shake a superstitious mind. When these bones three, four, five hundred thousand years old were discovered, what did a Christian theologian say? “For God everything is possible. When He created the earth, He also put in it such bones as would seem five hundred thousand years old.” Such is the human mind!

But scientific chronology has now lengthened. Tilak determined that the Vedas are at least ninety thousand years old—at least. Even if not ninety, still a long span. For thousands of years the Vedas were only memorized. Then for thousands of years they have been written. And the period they have existed in written form is far shorter than the vast period they existed unwritten. In that Rig Veda the first Jain Tirthankara is present. And the twenty-fourth Tirthankara is, by very solid historical evidence, twenty-five hundred years ago. This long lineage of twenty-four Tirthankaras is the greatest tradition on earth in the dimension of renunciation. There is no comparison anywhere. And in the future it is very difficult that there will be. Because that dimension itself has gradually thinned out. Hence it seems very meaningful that after the twenty-fourth there will be no twenty-fifth Tirthankara. Because the dimension of renunciation has dried up. For the future it no longer has the same relevance. But in the past it was a very meaningful dimension. Neminath is the twenty-second link in that chain. He is Krishna’s cousin. Sometimes Krishna even meets him. When Neminath leaves the village, Krishna goes to pay his respects. This too is quite amusing: when Neminath leaves the village, Krishna goes to honor him. Neminath never went to honor Krishna.

It is very difficult for a renunciate to honor someone. Very difficult. The renunciate becomes hard, stony. For him, personal relationships and attachment lose all value. So understand it this way: from Krishna’s side Neminath is a cousin; from Neminath’s side there is no cousin-brother at all. Neminath never even went to inquire about Krishna’s well-being. There is no such connection. He is outside the world of attachment; he belongs to the dimension of dispassion where all relationships are to be dropped, to be unattached—where no one is “one’s own,” where there is no one with whom any relationship could be forged.

But if someone thinks that some esoteric, some hidden teaching reached Krishna from Neminath—that is not so. Because Neminath cannot give Krishna anything. If he wished, he could have taken something from Krishna. There are reasons. Krishna is multi-dimensional. Krishna knows many things that Neminath does not know—cannot know. What Neminath knows, Krishna can know and recognize—there is no difficulty in that. Krishna’s personality encompasses the whole. Neminath’s personality lives one direction completely. Therefore Neminath was a precious person in Krishna’s age, but he leaves no imprint on history. A renunciate leaves no imprint on history. What imprint will a renunciate leave? His one story is that he renounced. The one event history will record is that he left everything. Krishna’s personality overshadowed all of India. The truth is, with Krishna, India saw a height it has never seen again. With Krishna it fought the war of the Mahabharata; never again could such a war be fought. Afterwards we remained entangled in small, petty fights. A war like the Mahabharata was possible with Krishna.

And remember, ordinarily people think wars destroy peoples. But after Krishna, after the Mahabharata, India fought no great war. India should then have become most prosperous; there is no reason for destruction. Yet today the nations that are prosperous are precisely those that have passed through great wars. Wars do not only destroy; they awaken sleeping energy. In truth, only in moments of war does a nation touch the peaks of its consciousness, of its being, of its existence. Only in moments of challenge do we awaken fully. After the Mahabharata no such moment of awakening came when we fully knew ourselves.

Where the last two world wars passed, the common story is that they broke and ruined those nations. But that story is incomplete. Japan was terribly destroyed. Yet in just twenty years it reemerged as it had never been before. Germany was shattered and scattered. Two wars went across its chest. The first in 1914, and twenty years later it was again able to fight the second war. And now no one can say that in ten or five years it would not be able to fight a third. It is quite striking that we have seen only one aspect of war—that it destroys. We have not seen the other aspect—that it awakens all our dormant, sleeping consciousness. We have not seen that under its challenge those parts of us that lie unused become active, become creative. In truth, in the shadow of destruction, along with destruction, the capacity and the soul of creation are also born. They are two aspects of life—together. And Krishna—so full of rasa, so intoxicated with dance and song, who lived in music and flute—accepts that war. In this acceptance there is no inner contradiction. He becomes the cause of so great a war.

Persons like Neminath leave no line on history. Therefore it is very interesting that among the Jains’ twenty-four Tirthankaras the first Tirthankara is mentioned in Hindu scriptures; then Parshvanath, the twenty-third, is mentioned a little in Hindu scriptures; and regarding the twenty-second Tirthankara it is surmised that the person referred to as the sage Ghora Angirasa is Neminath. Up to Mahavira there is no mention in Hindu scriptures. So influential—yet they leave no line on history.

In fact, renunciation means precisely this: to bid farewell to history. To bid farewell to that sequence of events where things happen, are made, and unmade. To move toward that where nothing is made and nothing is unmade, where all is emptiness.

There could be something to learn from Krishna for Neminath, but Neminath will not learn. There is no need; no purpose. And Neminath has a heritage. Behind him are twenty-one Tirthankaras—a great inheritance, a distilled essence of vast experience. And on the path on which he is walking, he has ample provisions. He has no need to learn anything. Therefore there may be salutations and such, but there is no give-and-take, no exchange. If Neminath speaks somewhere, Krishna will also go to listen. This only reveals Krishna’s dignity. It reveals his greatness, his natural ease in learning. That is, only Krishna can do that. One who has rasa in all aspects of life can go anywhere to learn. He can make anyone his guru. He can learn from anyone. But that something should be inwardly available to Krishna from Neminath—there is no such need. There is no such reason.

One who is deeply a theist is inevitably a deep atheist as well. Only shallow theists are opposed to shallow atheists. The quarrel is always of shallowness. In the depths there is no quarrel. The fight is only between unintelligent theists and unintelligent atheists. An intelligent theist will not go to quarrel with an atheist. An intelligent atheist will not go to quarrel with a theist. Because understanding, from wherever it arises, arrives at one.

What does the theist say? The theist says only this much: there is God. But as the depth of theism grows, God ceases to be the other; I myself become God. The unintelligent theist says, God is over there—somewhere else. The intelligent theist says, God is here—right here. The atheist says, there is no God anywhere. If the atheist goes deeper into understanding, his meaning too is that there is no God anywhere—meaning, other than what is, there is no God; what is, is. He gives it the name “nature.”

There is a saying of Nietzsche—and Nietzsche is among the deepest of atheists, as deep as any theist has ever been. Nietzsche says: “If anywhere there is a God, I will not be able to tolerate it—because then what will become of me?” He is saying: if anywhere there is a God, I won’t be able to bear it; then where do I stand? And if someone must be God, what is the harm if it is me? I myself will be God.

Now, this is a thoroughgoing atheist. He says there is no God—because his meaning is that what is, is God. The very idea of an extra God is wrong. A deep theist says the same: there is no extra God. What is, is God.

I have never seen any difference between deep theism and deep atheism. In fact, the theist uses affirmative language; that is all the difference. And the atheist uses negative language; that is all the difference. Therefore the affirmative theists have called Buddha and Mahavira atheists. Buddha and Mahavira are not willing to accept themselves as atheists. Sankhya or Yoga appear atheistic to the shallow theist. But Sankhya and Yoga are not atheistic—not in the sense they appear to be. Only the words they employ are words of negation. A person like Krishnamurti may seem atheistic to shallow theists, because the words he uses are of negativity; his emphasis is on the negative mind. And the trouble is: whatever words we use, there are only two options—either use positive words or use negative words.

The theist says, what is, is God. He gives an affirmative statement. The atheist says, what is, is not God. He gives a negative statement. There have also been people who touch both these depths. The Upanishads, for example, say: neti-neti—this too is not, that too is not. And what is, has not been said. The atheist says half, the theist says half. Neither this, nor that. Both speak in halves. We speak the whole—and the whole cannot be spoken. Therefore we fall silent. There are such ones too.

Krishna has no need to pass through any atheism, because Krishna is not eager to cling to any shallow theism. In truth, Krishna accepts what is with such depth that it makes no difference what name you give it. Call it God, call it nature—even call it godless—what difference does it make? What is, is. These plants will still smile, these flowers will still bloom, these clouds will still move, this earth will still be; the moon and stars will keep revolving; life will arrive and depart; waves will arise and subside. Whether God is or not is only a dispute of the unintelligent. What difference does it make to that-which-is!

I was staying in a village, and two old men came to me. One was a Jain and one a Brahmin Hindu. They were neighbors. Both were old, and their dispute was long-standing. In fact, all disputes are long, because no end ever comes through disputation—they just go on. People exhaust themselves; the disputes continue. Their quarrel was long. Both were over sixty. They said, “We have come with a question that has been going on between us for fifty years. I don’t believe in God; this gentleman believes in God. What do you say?”

I said, “You have completed the dispute; where is any space left for a third? You have already divided it half-and-half. Where should I stand?” Then I asked them, “You’ve argued forty or fifty years—has anything been decided?”

“Nothing gets decided. My arguments seem right to me; his arguments seem right to him. Neither can I prove him wrong, nor can he prove me wrong.”

So I said, “Do you see—this dispute has gone on forty or fifty years in your lives. In the span of human history, has any theist ever convinced an atheist? Has any atheist ever convinced a theist? Does this not suggest that perhaps both have only half-and-half of the arguments? That perhaps both are holding one end of truth? That is why each sees a rope-end in his hand—and how can he accept that the opposite end also exists!”

I said, “If I do not enter your dispute, I can be of help—because if I enter, at most I will stand on one side and give arguments. What difference will that make? So I say: now both of you go and try to see whether what the other is saying also contains truth. Stop worrying about whether what you are saying contains truth—it does; I am ready to grant it. Now only this remains: do not proceed by assuming the other is false. Search instead: what truth is there in what he is saying?”

Then I said, “And if it were decided that God exists—definitely, guaranteed, someone writes it down and certifies it—what would you do?” They said, “Do? What is there to do?” I said, “And if it were decided that God does not exist, what would you do?” They said, “Nothing—what is there to do?” “Then why fall into this futile quarrel? You breathe even if God is not; he breathes even if God is. You love whether you believe in God or not; they love whether they believe or not. You do not believe, and God does not throw you out of the world; he accepts you. They believe, and he has not seated them on any throne. He does not bother about them either. In such a situation, what meaning has this dispute?”

About Ishwar and anishwar, about theist and atheist, a linguistic mistake has occurred—only an error of language. And most of our “philosophy,” what we call metaphysics, is not metaphysics at all; they are mistakes made in philology—in linguistics. And such linguistic mistakes, if we take them as truth and proceed, become big calamities.

Suppose there is a dumb man who is an atheist, and a dumb man who is a theist. How will their dispute proceed? What will they do to say, “I am a theist,” “I am an atheist”? Imagine that for one day, for twenty-four hours, our language is lost—where will our disputes be then? If for twenty-four hours your language is taken away—no need to throw away religion; keep your scriptures hugging your chest, keep your doctrines, believe whatever you want—yet if your language is taken away for twenty-four hours, where will be the Hindu? Where the Muslim? Where the theist? Where the atheist? And you will still be there without language. What will you be then? That being is religiousness.

One small incident, and I will finish.

I have heard that Mark Twain used to tell a joke. He would joke that once it was decided by all the people of the earth that if we all, together, shout loudly at the same instant, the sound could reach the moon. And if anyone were on the moon, they would hear and might answer together. Human eyes have been fixed on the moon for ages. The urge to connect with the moon is very old. A child is not even born and already begins to relate to the moon. So a special day was set for all the people of the earth, and at exactly twelve noon everyone would roar together—make a great “Hooo” sound, in unison. The sound would reach the moon; perhaps a reply might come; if anyone were there, they would hear.

The day came. And at twelve, with great eagerness, people gathered on roads and in villages, spread across the earth—on mountains, peaks, everywhere. Exactly at twelve—and suddenly a profound silence fell. No one shouted. Because everyone thought, “Let me listen first to this Hooo! When the whole earth shouts, I must not miss hearing it—let me listen.” So that day at noon there was a silence on earth such as had never been.

If such a silence ever happens, whatever is seen then is truth. If such a silence happens within, and language and words are all lost, whatever is seen then is truth.

Half of truth is with theists; half of truth is with atheists. And half-truth is always worse than untruth. Because untruth can be dropped; half-truth cannot be dropped—it looks like truth. And remember, truth cannot be broken, cannot be cut. Therefore if you have half-truth, what you have can only be a doctrine of half-truth. A doctrine can be cut; there is no way to cut truth. Therefore neither the atheist is truth nor the theist is truth. Both cling to words about half-truths and go on fighting.

Krishna accepts the whole. Therefore, if you call Krishna a theist, it will be a mistake. If you call Krishna an atheist, it will be a mistake. What to call Krishna without making a mistake—it is difficult to say.