Krishna Smriti #2

If one wants to think, to speak, to understand, it is hard to find a figure more significant than Krishna. Not that there have not been other significant people, nor that there will not be more. Many have been, many will be. But Krishna’s significance is less for the past and much more for the future. In truth, Krishna was born at least five thousand years ahead of his time. All significant people are born before their time, and all insignificant people are born after their time. That, precisely, is the difference between the significant and the insignificant. And all ordinary people are born with their time.

A significant person arrives far ahead of his age. Krishna arrived far ahead of his age. Perhaps in the coming future we shall become capable of understanding him. The past was not.

And understand this too: whatever we are not yet capable of understanding, we begin to worship. What escapes our understanding, we start to idolize. Either we abuse or we praise—both are forms of worship: one of the enemy, one of the friend. What we cannot understand, we make into a god. In truth, it is very difficult to admit our own lack of understanding; it is much easier to make the other a god. But both are two faces of the same coin.

When we cannot understand someone, what do we call him? We start calling him God. To call someone God is to confess that just as we cannot understand God, so too we cannot understand this person. As God is unfathomable, so is this person unfathomable. As God is a mystery, so is this person a mystery. As God cannot be grasped, touched, held, so this person cannot be grasped or held. As God always remains to be known, so this person always remains to be known.

Those who are born before their time begin to be worshipped. But now the time is approaching when worshipping Krishna will have no meaning; Krishna can be lived, Krishna can be embodied. Precisely for this I chose Krishna for discussion, because in the context of the future his is the most meaningful personality I know. Let me say two or three things in this regard.

First, except for Krishna, all the other wondrous figures of the world—Mahavira, Buddha, Christ, and others—were living for the other world: for some future life, some other realm; for the afterlife, for moksha, for heaven. Humanity’s past on earth was so full of suffering that living here seemed impossible. There were such pains, such sufferings, such hardships, that to accept life on this earth was difficult. So all the religions of the past are religions that deny the earth—except Krishna. Krishna accepts the totality of earthly life. He is not one who lives in some other world; he lives here, in this very world. For Buddha and Mahavira, liberation is somewhere beyond, far from this earth; for Krishna, liberation is here and now.

No one has ever given such a deep affirmation of this life as we know it. In the future, suffering on earth will diminish and happiness will increase, and for the first time it will become difficult to affirm ascetic figures. A suffering society can accept renunciation; a happy society cannot. In a suffering society it may make sense to renounce—to leave society and life—because one can say, “What is there in life but suffering? I am going away.” In a happy society one cannot say there is nothing but suffering; such talk will become meaningless.

Therefore, the language of renunciatory religion has no relevance for the future. Science will remove those sufferings that once seemed inherent in life. Buddha said: birth is suffering, life is suffering, old age is suffering, death is suffering. All this will be erasable. Birth will not be suffering—neither for the mother nor the child. Life will not be suffering; diseases will be eliminated. Old age will not be what it was; soon man will be saved from it. Life can be lengthened—so much lengthened that the key question will no longer be, “Why does man die?” but “Why should man live so long?” This is all going to happen in the very near future. On that day Buddha’s dictum—birth is suffering, old age is suffering, life is suffering, death is suffering—will be hard to understand. On that day Krishna’s flute will become meaningful. Krishna’s song and Krishna’s dance will become meaningful. On that day the event will dance everywhere: life is bliss. The flowers of life-is-bliss will bloom in every direction. Among such flowers, the context of a naked, unmoving Mahavira is lost. Among such flowers, the meaning of turning your back on life disappears. Among such flowers, only the one who can dance will be meaningful. As suffering decreases and joy increases, Krishna’s relevance will grow day by day.

Till now we could not even imagine a religious man with a flute at his lips. We could not imagine a religious man dancing with a peacock feather on his head, loving, singing. In our minds a religious man is one who is leaving life, renouncing it. From his lips songs cannot arise; only the sighs of sorrow can. A flute on his lips seems impossible. Hence Krishna was impossible for the past to understand. He could not be understood—he seemed absurd, incongruous to the past. In the context of the future, Krishna will become more and more congruent with each passing day. And a religion will soon arise on earth that can dance, sing, and rejoice. All the religions of the past are weeping, sad, defeated, tired, escapist. The religion of the future will accept life and its juice, laughing and dancing in joy and grace.

Seeing this possibility of life—this future possibility—I decided to speak on Krishna. It will still be difficult for us to understand, because we too are filled with the samskaras of a sorrowful past. We too connect religion with tears, not with flutes. Rarely have we seen anyone who became a sannyasin because there was too much bliss in life. Yes, someone’s wife died and life became painful, and he became a sannyasin. Someone lost his wealth, went bankrupt, eyes full of tears, and he became a sannyasin. Someone is sad, suffering, wounded—and becomes a sannyasin. Renunciation has arisen from suffering. But from bliss? Renunciation has not arisen from bliss. Krishna, for me, is the one person who is a sannyasin out of bliss.

A sannyasin born of bliss will, of course, be fundamentally different from one born of sorrow. As I say the religion of the future will be of joy, so I also say the sannyasin of the future will be a sannyasin of joy—not because a family caused pain and he fled, but because a single family was too small for his bliss, and he became a sannyasin to make the whole earth his family. Not because one love became a bondage and he abandoned love, but because one love was too small for so much bliss; the love of the whole earth was needed, so he became a sannyasin. Whoever can understand renunciation born of the affirmation of life, of life’s joy and juice, will also be able to understand Krishna.

No—if in the future someone says, “I became a sannyasin because of suffering,” we will say, “How can one become a sannyasin from suffering?” A renunciation born of suffering will not lead to bliss. At most it can lead to melancholy, not to joy. Sannyas born of suffering can at most reduce suffering; it cannot create bliss. By leaving situations of pain you can lessen pain, but you cannot arrive at joy. Only a sannyas born of joy—a Ganges springing from joy—can reach the ocean of bliss. Then the very practice will be to increase joy. The practices of the past aimed at reducing suffering. Such a seeker may lessen pain, but it remains negative; his highest attainment will be melancholy, the thinnest form of sorrow. Hence our sannyasin is sad, defeated, fleeing—not victorious, vibrant, dancing in joy.

Krishna, for me, is a sannyasin of joy. Knowing the possibility of such joyous sannyas, I chose to speak on him. It is not that others have not spoken on Krishna; but those who spoke were sannyasins born of sorrow. Therefore, the interpretation of Krishna till today has been unjust to Krishna—and must be. If Shankara interprets Krishna, it is an opposite kind of man interpreting him. Shankara’s interpretation cannot be just to Krishna.

Krishna’s exposition could not be congruent in the past because the interpreters came out of sorrow. They wanted to prove this world as maya, to call it insubstantial. Krishna calls this world substantial; Krishna calls this world bhagavat—divine. Therefore, for Krishna, everything is accepted; nothing is rejected. Such total acceptability, such a complete yes to the whole, has never appeared before.

As we proceed day by day, many things will come into view. But for me, the word Krishna is a great pointer and signal for the future. That is why I decided to speak on him.

No, I did not call Mahavira and Buddha sorrow-centered sannyasins. Sannyas in the past was sorrow-centered. Yet if you look at the personalities of Mahavira and Buddha, they are life-renouncing. I did not say Mahavira and Buddha are sorrow-centered, because I accept that they attained. Mahavira’s sorrow is of a very different kind—it is the ennui of pleasure. Buddha’s sorrow is growing weary of happiness. Their sorrow is not the lack or absence of pleasure. It is not that Mahavira turned sannyasin because he was deprived of pleasures—no. When pleasure becomes excessive, it turns futile. And yet they still left pleasure. For them, the act of leaving retained meaning, even when pleasure lost its meaning. For Krishna, pleasure is futile and so is renunciation. In Krishna, the depth of meaninglessness goes much farther.

Understand.
If I cling to something, it still holds some meaning for me; and if I drop it, that too carries a negative meaning—that if I don’t drop it, I will suffer. At least that much meaning remains. I am not saying Mahavira’s and Buddha’s sannyas arose from sorrow; it arose from pleasure—from boredom with pleasure. They set aside this happiness in search of a greater bliss. In Krishna there is a difference from them: Krishna does not set aside this happiness to search for a greater one—he makes this very happiness a step toward the greater. He does not abandon it. In this happiness and that happiness he sees no opposition; the greater bliss is but an expansion of this. It is the next verse of the same song, the next step of the same dance. That greater bliss, that ananda, is not the enemy of this happiness. For Krishna, even in this happiness there is a glimmer of the greater; it is its very beginning.

Buddha and Mahavira also move from happiness, but their vision is of renunciation. That vision of renunciation appeared more important to us sorrow-prone people. They grew weary of pleasure, but we who are unhappy imagined they renounced because of sorrow. Even our interpretations of Buddha and Mahavira have been sorrow-centered. Just as injustice was done to Krishna—though a little less—so too injustice was done to Buddha and Mahavira.

We are unhappy. When we renounce, we do it out of sorrow. When Buddha and Mahavira renounce, they do it out of happiness. There is a difference between us and them: the root of our renunciation is sorrow; the root of theirs is happiness. So they too became sannyasins moving away from pleasure, but there is a difference between them and Krishna: they abandon pleasure, Krishna does not. Krishna accepts whatever is. In fact, he does not even find pleasure fit to be renounced. The question of “fit to be enjoyed” does not arise—he does not even find it “fit to be renounced.” Krishna has no desire to alter or rearrange life as it is.

Some fakir once prayed, “O God, I accept You, but not Your world.” All fakirs will say this: “I accept You, but not Your world.” They are the reverse of the atheist. The atheist says, “I accept your world, not You.” The theist says, “I don’t accept your world, I accept You.” These are the two faces of the same coin. Krishna’s theism is utterly unique. It should be said: only Krishna is truly theist. “I accept You and I accept Your world.” And this acceptance is so deep that it becomes impossible to mark where Your world ends and You begin. In truth, Your world is Your outstretched hand, and You are the hidden innermost of Your world. There is no greater difference than this.

Keep in mind: Krishna accepts the Whole—he does not abandon sorrow, nor does he abandon pleasure. He does not abandon anything that is; there is no mood to renounce at all, no talk of renunciation. If we understand rightly, the very moment we renounce, the person, the “I,” begins. The instant we drop something, the “me” starts. But if we drop nothing, there is no way for the “me” to assert itself. That is why it is hard to find a more egoless presence than Krishna. And precisely because he is egoless, he can also speak of the ego without any difficulty; he can say to Arjuna: “Abandon all and come into my shelter.” It is quite a marvel—what a grand declaration of ego! What could be more egotistic than someone saying, “Leave everything and come into my refuge”?

We too can see it as an egoic declaration—could Krishna not have seen it? He had at least as much intelligence as we have. He would have seen that it sounds egotistical. Yet he could say it with complete ease. Only a person with no ego can say this. Only one who has no sense of “me” can say, “Come into my refuge.” When he says, “Come into my refuge,” he is really saying, “Enter refuge.” Drop everything. Drop your very being and accept life as it is.

It is quite a marvel—Krishna tells Arjuna to go to war. If you look at both, Arjuna seems more religious; Krishna’s words do not seem religious at all. Krishna says, “Fight.” Arjuna says, “If I kill, there will be sorrow and pain. They are my own—beloved ones, relatives, friends, teachers. To kill them will bring great sorrow. Even the greatest happiness gained by killing them I would not want. Better I run away and beg. Suicide would be simpler than killing them.” Who would be so religious as to say that what Arjuna is saying to Krishna is wrong? All religious people would say, “He is right; a sense of righteousness has arisen in Arjuna.”

But Krishna tells him, “You have become unsteady; your righteous discernment is lost.” Krishna says, “You madman, you think you can kill someone? Does anyone ever die? You think you can save those who stand before you? Has anyone ever saved anyone? You think you can avoid war, be nonviolent? Where there is ‘I,’ where there is the urge to save oneself—can there be nonviolence? No. Accept what has come. Drop yourself and fight. Immerse yourself in that which is before you. Before you is war. There is no temple in front of you, no prayer going on there, no hymn being sung for you to immerse in. Before you is war. Krishna says: immerse in this. Drop yourself. Who are you?” And he says something remarkable: “Those you think will die—I know they are already dead. They are merely waiting to die. At most you can be a vehicle. Do not take yourself to be the killer, for then you will cease to be a vehicle and become a doer. Nor think that if you run away you will have saved them—that too is delusion. They will not be saved because you ran, and they will not die because you fought. Be total in this. Fulfill what has come to you completely. And you can fulfill it only if you drop your intellect, drop the standpoint of ‘I,’ and stop seeing from the ‘me.’”

If we understand this rightly, what does it mean?
It means that if one drops the ‘I’-centered standpoint, one ceases to be a doer and can only be an actor. If I am Rama and my Sita is lost, the way I will weep—if I perform in a Ramleela and Sita is lost, I will also weep. It may be that my weeping on stage is more skillful than the real Rama’s. It will be—because the real Rama has no chance for rehearsal. Sita is lost only once. Only when she is lost does he find out; there is no prior preparation. And Rama, as a doer, becomes fully submerged—he cries, weeps, is pained and afflicted. That is why this land has never called Rama a “complete incarnation.” He is not a complete actor; the acting remains incomplete. He becomes a doer. Hence we call Rama’s personality “character.” An actor has no “character.” An actor’s is a play, a lila. That is why we call Krishna’s “charitra” a lila—Krishna-leela.

Krishna’s is leela—play. Rama’s is character. Character is a very serious thing. In it one must be, one must choose—this is to be done, that is not; this is auspicious, that inauspicious. Arjuna wanted to be a man of character, and Krishna is eager to make him a man of play. Arjuna said, “I will not do this; it is bad. I will do that which is good.” Krishna says, “Whatever comes, do not stand yourself in the middle; let what comes, happen.” This is total acceptance. In total acceptance there is nothing to renounce.

It is very difficult. Because total acceptance means there is no inauspicious, no auspicious; no good, no bad; no pleasure, no pain. Total acceptance means our dualistic mode of thinking—the way we think by splitting everything into two—has gone. Krishna says there is neither birth nor death. None has been born, none will die. So jump in with abandon. No one kills, no one saves; play with abandon. Krishna is saying: drop that habit of thinking in dualities—“this is right, so I will do it; this is not right, so I won’t.” Whatever is on this earth is the Divine; the distance between right and not-right cannot be made.

This is very difficult for the moral mind. Hence Krishna is more difficult for the moral mind than the immoral man is. The moral man can dismiss the immoral: “He is bad.” What will he say of Krishna? He cannot call him bad—the man does not appear bad. Few have the courage to call him good, because if you say “good,” then this man is leading Arjuna into things that seem bad.

So when Gandhi began to speak on Krishna, he ran into great difficulty. In truth Gandhi’s kinship was with Arjuna, not with Krishna. Krishna calls for war; what is Gandhi to do? If only Krishna were clearly bad, Gandhi could be done with him. But that cannot be settled, because Krishna accepts both good and bad. He is supremely good—and supremely bad too, and both together. His goodness is clear enough. His “badness” is also there. What is Gandhi to do with that?

Gandhi had no option but to say, “This whole war is a parable, a story, a myth—an ancient tale; the war never happened.” Because how could Krishna send Arjuna into a real war? If the war was real, then it becomes violence. So Gandhi’s only way was to say it is all a story. And the war being waged is not an actual war. And Gandhi returns to the old dualism against which Krishna stands: he says, “It is the war between good and evil. The Pandavas are good, the Kauravas evil,” and he re-establishes the old duality: the war is between good and bad, and Krishna is saying, “Fight on the side of the good.” He had to find this route. He had to call the whole story untrue—poetry.

But Gandhi was far removed in time; there are five thousand years between Krishna and Gandhi. So calling a five-thousand-year-old story “myth” is not hard. The Jains did not have such distance, so they could not call the story a tale—the event happened. Jain thought is as ancient as the Vedas; the first Jain Tirthankara is mentioned in the Vedas. The antiquity of Hindus and Jains is equal. The Jains could not deny the war, nor that Krishna had it fought. So what could they do? Had they had Gandhi’s convenience, they would have done what Gandhi did—who, in the body a Hindu but in mind deeply Jain—dismissed it as myth. The Jains could not; it was contemporaneous. They had to consign Krishna to hell. Their scriptures had to say that Krishna went to hell. If someone causes so great a violence and does not go to hell, then what of the one who crushes an ant? And if someone commits such a violence and still does not go to hell, how will the one who ties a cloth over his mouth get to heaven? It becomes very difficult. Krishna must be sent to hell.

But this is the statement of contemporaries. If more time had passed, Krishna’s goodness is so great that sending him to hell would have become difficult. It was difficult for them as well. So they had to fabricate a second story too. The man was extraordinary. He did have the war fought—that is true. He danced with women—that too is true. He took their clothes and sat up in a tree—leaving them naked—that too is true. The man was good, the deeds were “bad”—that too is true. So even sending him to hell did not bring peace, for if such a good man is sent to hell, then good men too become suspect—how can a good man be certain of heaven? Hence the Jains had to decide another thing: Krishna will be the first Jain Tirthankara in the next cycle. They had to send him to hell, and also grant him the place of the first Tirthankara in the next creation. They had to find this balance, this compensation, because this is not a man one can send to hell. Yet he must be sent, because morality says he is not “right.” And his personality says he is worthy of being a Tirthankara. So only this path remained: for now, consign him to hell; in the future, make him the first Tirthankara. This is compensation, a consolation—to their own minds; it has nothing to do with Krishna—so that if they send such a man to hell, they must also compensate.

Gandhi had the convenience to settle both at once: neither send him to hell nor make him the first Tirthankara; call the whole story a story. The war never happened—it is only an instructive tale. The same difficulty Gandhi has that the Jains have—the difficulty of nonviolence. Nonviolence cannot concede any place to violence. It is the same difficulty that the “good” has—how can it admit any place for the “not good”?

But Krishna says the world is a confluence of polarities; both are together. It has never happened that there is no violence, nor that there is no nonviolence. Whoever chooses one chooses incompleteness and can never be fulfilled. It has never happened that there is no darkness, nor that there is no light. Whoever chooses one chooses the incomplete—and the chooser of the half will remain in tension, because the other half cannot be erased—it is always present.

And the irony is that the half we choose stands only upon the half we reject. All nonviolence stands upon violence. All light is by virtue of darkness. All goodness is born and lives against the background of the inauspicious. Every saint is bound to those “bad men” on the other pole. Polarities are interbound: above is bound to below, bad to good, hell to heaven. These are poles of one truth. Krishna says: accept both, because both are. Be reconciled to both—because both are. Do not choose at all. If it be said, Krishna is the first to speak of choicelessness. He says: do not choose. Choose—and you err; choose—and you lose your way; choose—and what of the other half? That half too is. And it is not in our hands to make it “not be.” Nothing is in our hands; it is. It was before we were; it will be after we are gone.

But the moral mind—the one that has hitherto been called religious—has a great difficulty. It lives by division, by cutting reality into good and bad. Its entire savor lies in condemning the bad; only then can it relish the good. A saint’s joy is perched upon the condemnation of the non-saint; otherwise he cannot relish it. The bliss of going to heaven rests on the suffering of those sent to hell. If the residents of heaven suddenly learn there is no hell, they will become immediately miserable: “If there is no hell, our labor was in vain; and those thieves and rogues we wanted sent to hell are all here in heaven—where else could they go?” The relish of heaven rests upon the pain of those in hell. The rich man’s joy lies in the poor man’s poverty—not in his own wealth. The good man’s joy lies in bad men being bad—not in his own goodness. Therefore the day all become good, the saint’s pleasure will be finished; he will appear pointless. He might even need to prepare a few people to become ungodly, or else, “What shall become of me?” The meaning of this world, as we live it, lies in opposition. And one who sees the whole will find that what we call bad is the other end of the good, and what we call good is the other end of the bad.

Krishna is choiceless, Krishna is total, integrated—and therefore complete. That is why we have not called anyone else “complete.” Because the one who chooses is bound to be incomplete. How can Rama be complete? He will remain incomplete. He has chosen a half. Only the one who does not choose can be whole. But one who does not choose will run into difficulties, because in his life there will sometimes be the appearance of what is dark and sometimes of what is light. His life will be a harmony of sun and shade. It cannot be straight and uniform. Uniform lives belong only to choosers. They can keep one corner of life clean and tidy, but the trash they remove will keep piling up in some other corner of life. But one who accepts the whole house—trash and sunlight and darkness—what then?

About such a person, we will judge from our own standpoint. Our choice will be our lens. We may say, “This man is bad,” and if we want to see the bad in him, we will find it. We may say, “This man is good,” and if we want to see the good, we will find it. He contains both. “Both” is only our language; in him there is one—whose two faces we see.

Therefore, I accept that Buddha and Mahavira have chosen. They are auspicious—wholly auspicious—and therefore cannot be complete. For in the Complete, what place will the inauspicious have? If we place Buddha, Mahavira, and Krishna together, Buddha and Mahavira will appeal more to us; they will appear more attractive, cleaner, more polished—no stain at all on their sheet—spotlessly white, not even a black border. If Mahavira and Krishna stand together, even we will prefer Mahavira; Krishna will leave us in doubt. In this man, both exist at once. He is as pure as Mahavira, and—and whom shall we place as the opposite of Mahavira? He also has the courage to be as “inauspicious” as a Genghis or a Hitler. If we could make Mahavira stand in war with a sword—which we cannot—Krishna is like that. Or if we could persuade Genghis to become like Mahavira—drop everything, stand naked, peaceful and pure—which we cannot—Krishna is like that. But what shall we do with this man? What decision can we make? With Krishna, all decisions break; with Krishna one must remain undeciding. Therefore, only those can stand with Krishna who do not take decisions. A decision-taking mind will quickly run from Krishna. When he sees the auspicious he will grasp his feet; when he sees the inauspicious—what then?

So even Krishna’s devotees have chosen. If Surdas talks much of Krishna, he talks of Krishna’s childhood, and leaves out the later part; it is beyond his courage. Sur is a timid sort; he put out his own eyes for fear of looking at a woman. Think: Surdas feared his eyes might fall in love or get caught in desire, so he blinded himself. Could such a man accept the whole Krishna? Sur’s love for Krishna is great—few have loved so—but what can he do? He will have to split Krishna in two. He will clasp the child Krishna and leave the youth. Youthful Krishna is beyond his understanding. He could have understood the youth if Krishna had put out his eyes; then Sur would find kinship. But the youthful Krishna’s eyes—few have had eyes like those. So many women were drawn—such eyes are very rare. The big question is not how so many women were attracted; the big question is that it was to one man’s eyes. That magnetism was extraordinary. Those eyes must have been a great magnet. Surdas did not have such precious eyes—Sur was the one who was eager; whether any woman was eager, I do not know. How would Sur choose? He will take the child—“Bala-Krishna.”

Hence even the scriptures written on Krishna are selective. Surdas takes one Krishna; Keshavdas takes another. Keshav has no interest in the child Krishna. His mind is of raga and rang—of color and passion—the mind of youth. He is not one to blind his eyes; he would rather not close them even at night. What will Keshav do? He will forget the child Krishna, has nothing to do with him. He will choose the Krishna who is dancing—not because he understands Krishna’s dance, but because his own mind wants to dance. He will impose dance upon Krishna and pick the one who climbed the tree with the women’s clothes—not because he understands what Krishna did by leaving those women naked, but because he wants to undress women. So Keshav has his choice, Sur has his. The Bhagavata speaks of a different Krishna, the Gita of a different one. These are all divided by choice. Because this man is total—and only a total person can digest him whole. The partial man will cut and prune: “Up to here is fine; beyond this I close my eyes; beyond this you do not exist. Or if beyond this you exist, that is only a story. Or if you exist beyond this, you will reap hell. If you were beyond this, you are no use to us. Up to here you are useful.” So they have put milestones on Krishna’s personality. Everyone has taken his share. Each picks what pleases him. But Krishna is like an ocean; the ghats we build are our own—they do not enclose the ocean, they reveal our understanding.

Therefore I will speak of the whole Krishna. So at many points the talk will become incomprehensible, and at many points it will trouble you, and at many points it will go beyond your understanding. There, gather the courage to go a little beyond your understanding. Otherwise you will remain with your understanding, a milestone will arise, and beyond it Krishna will no longer be of use to you. And if Krishna is of any use, he is useful only as a whole. Any person is meaningful only as a whole. Cut him to pieces and you hold dead limbs in your hand—the living person is gone. All who have cut Krishna—someone holds his hand, someone his foot, someone his eye, someone his throat. But the whole Krishna cannot be held. The only way to hold the whole Krishna is to agree to understand the whole without choosing. And this understanding will be a journey of great joy, because in it you too can become whole. In this very understanding, your own wholeness will begin. If you agree to this understanding and do not choose, you will suddenly find that your own opposing poles begin to melt, your own sun and shade begin to become one. Within you too, that fragmented personality grows whole. You too begin to attain yoga.

For Krishna, yoga has only one meaning: to become undivided, one. The vision of yoga can only be of wholeness. Yoga means the total, the union. Therefore Krishna could be called the great yogi. There are many yogis, but they are not yogis either—because there is no union there; all is selection; there is no choicelessness. This discussion of the whole Krishna will be difficult—very difficult. Because the categories of the intellect, its measures for thinking, are divided. The weights of the intellect are cuts. It makes decisions: this is right, that is wrong. It matters little whether one has old weights or new ones—old seers and tolas, or the metric system. Whether the intellect is ancient or modern, scriptural or scientific—it makes no difference. The nature of intellect is one: it proceeds by division and cutting; it decides—this is right, that is wrong.

If you wish to understand Krishna, then for these ten days do not decide. In these ten days, listen, understand—but do not decide. And wherever you reach the point where you do not understand, do not worry—have the courage to enter that not-understanding. The irrational will arise in many places, because Krishna cannot be made rational. Krishna cannot be confined to intellect. That which is non-intellect, beyond intellect, is also there. That which transcends, goes beyond the intellect, is also there.

Therefore it is impossible to seat Krishna inside logical frames. He does not accept logic; he does not accept fragments. He flows through all fragments. He does not accept our ghats; he touches all ghats. So you will face difficulty. The great difficulty will be that your ghat will come to an end, but Krishna will not. He will say, “I am farther still. I touch your ghat, and I touch other ghats as well. I send waves to the ‘bad’ ghat too, and to the ‘good’ ghat too. My peace has no boundary, and in war I can stand with discus in hand. My love has no end, and I can also sever a head with a sword. I am a complete sannyasin, yet I have no pain in being a householder. My love for God is immense, but my love for the world is not a whit less—just as much. I can leave neither the world for God nor God for the world. I have sworn to be for the Whole. I will live in every color.”

That is why Krishna has not yet found a complete devotee. Not even Arjuna. Otherwise there would not have been so much labor. If in the battlefield one has to deliver a discourse as long as the Gita, we can imagine how skeptical, how doubting, how argumentative Arjuna must have been—he must have tried every kind of resistance. The war-moment had come, the conches had blown, armies stood facing one another, the war-bell had rung—and there the long Gita had to be explained. So Arjuna did not agree easily. His intellect kept pressing: “You say this—and you also say that.” Again and again his questions are about contradictions: “There is inconsistency in you. On one hand you say this, on the other you say that. You say both!” All his questions in the Gita are highly logical—he is saying, “You say this and also that—both at once—so I cannot understand. Explain again.” Krishna cannot explain. Even one as complete as Krishna cannot. When he is tired of explaining, he resorts to another way: he reveals himself in full. Because there is no way to explain; the man will not accept; and the arguments he raises are right.

Krishna too understands that the arguments are right—one statement is contradicted by another; they are inconsistent. How to explain? Arjuna wants consistency: “O Krishna! Give me coherence. Do not throw me into a web of confusion; do not confuse me.” But Krishna keeps confusing him. He gives one statement and immediately another that negates it. He keeps expounding compassion and love—and also insists on violence.

A man like this has only one way left. He gets tired—badly tired. Arjuna does not accept, time for war keeps advancing, all charioteers and warriors are ready, reins are drawn—and this man will not agree. And all depends on him. If he runs, everything is spoiled. The whole play, this whole drama, this great arrangement—all goes to waste. Krishna keeps explaining. Finally he tires and shows him his total form. Seeing the total form, Arjuna trembles. Anyone would. The very meaning of the total form is that all contradictions are present together. Within him everything becomes visible: birth and death, together.

We have the convenience that our birth is seventy years earlier, death seventy years later. With such a gap, we arrange that birth is one thing and death another. Within him, birth and death appear at once. Within him, creation and dissolution are seen together. The seed and the tree together. Pralaya arrives and creation begins—together. Arjuna is terrified. “Now stop this form! I will die! I cannot look at it any longer—stop it!” After that, he does not raise questions. After that one thing is seen by him: what we call inconsistencies and contradictions are parts of one truth. Then questions cease, and he goes into the war. Do not think he goes convinced—he cannot. He has seen, but his intellect keeps asking. The job of intellect is to ask.

So, raise as many questions to me as you like—but do not raise questions in order to understand Krishna. Ask me whatever you wish, use your entire intellect upon me. But with Krishna your intellect will in many places have to be left behind—there will be entry into no-mind. There you will need great patience, great courage—no courage is greater. There, be willing to walk. Your lit-up zone will vanish; darkness will begin. Your familiar doors will not be visible, there will be no clear, tidy paths—everything will become mysterious. Things will no longer retain old shapes and outlines—forms will wobble; coherence will fall, oppositions will fall—and only then will you have a chance to approach the Vast. And if you agree, it is not that Arjuna possessed some special qualification to see the Vast. He was not uniquely qualified; all are equally qualified. And the questions Arjuna raised can be raised by anyone. But if you too are willing to walk into the mysterious, into that which goes beyond the intellect, then the perception of the Vast can be yours too. The Vast can appear before you as well. I will try to bring that Vast—that which is the sum of all. “Krishna” is the personal name for that Vast; Krishna himself is not the point.

Therefore if our discussion of Krishna sometimes slips here and there, do not be alarmed. I will be seeking only that Vast the whole time. And if you agree, that event can happen. It need not happen only on Kurukshetra; it can happen in Manali too.

Suffering is a fact of life; but suffering alone is not the only fact—happiness is also a fact. And as much as suffering is a big fact, happiness is not a smaller one. When we settle on suffering as the only fact, it becomes a non-fact—a fiction. Where, then, have we left happiness? If life were only suffering, the Buddha wouldn’t need to persuade anyone. And even though the Buddha explains so much, no one actually runs away. We live in suffering too, and yet we don’t run away. There must be something other than suffering that makes us stick, that holds us back. To love someone involves suffering—love has its difficulties and complexities. But if there were no joy in loving, who would agree to endure so much pain? And if a person bears a mountain of suffering for a grain of joy, we must admit the intensity of that grain of joy surpasses the mountain of suffering. Happiness is true as well.

All renunciates insist only on suffering; thereby they become untrue. All hedonists insist only on pleasure; thereby they become untrue. Materialists insist on pleasure and thus become untrue, because they say suffering does not exist, only pleasure is real. Remember: half-truths turn into falsehoods. Truth, if it is truth, must be whole; it cannot be half. If someone says only birth is, that becomes false, because with birth comes death. If someone says only death is, that too becomes false, because with death comes birth.

If “life is suffering” is preached alone, it becomes a non-fact. Yes—but “life is both pleasure and pain”: that is factual. Look more closely and you’ll see that with every pleasure some pain is tied, and with every pain some pleasure is tied. Look deeper still and it becomes hard to tell when pain turns into pleasure and pleasure into pain. They are transferable, convertible—continually changing into each other. This happens every day. In essence, perhaps it is only a matter of emphasis. What feels like pleasure today may feel like pain tomorrow; what felt like pleasure yesterday may feel like pain today. If I embrace you now, it feels joyful. Keep holding you for another minute or two, and discomfort begins. Hold you for half an hour and you’ll start looking around for a policeman. How will you ever get free? Therefore, those who know, let go before you want to be let go; those who don’t know turn their pleasure into pain—nothing easier. The moment you take someone’s hand, start preparing to release it; otherwise pain will begin very soon. We all turn our pleasures into pains. We don’t want to let go of pleasure, so we grip it tightly, and gripping tightly turns it into pain. Then, having clutched so hard, even letting go becomes difficult.

We want to drop pain at once. And because we want to drop it, the pain deepens. Hold on to pain a bit, and soon you may find it has become pleasure. Pain means perhaps we are unfamiliar; give it a little time and we will become familiar. Pleasure too means perhaps we are unfamiliar; give it a little time and we will become familiar. And familiarity changes everything.

I have heard about a man who went to a new village and asked someone there for a loan. The man said, “You are strange! I don’t know you at all, and you ask for money.” The visitor said, “Am I strange, or are you? I left my old village because there they used to say, ‘We know you too well—how can we lend you money?’ And here you say, ‘We don’t know you, so we won’t lend.’ So will you lend when you know me well? But in my old village everyone knew me well—that’s exactly why they wouldn’t lend. Now where shall I go? Is there any village where I can get a loan?”

We are the same way. Wherever we pull things apart, difficulties begin. No, there is no such village. All villages are alike. There is no place where there is only pleasure; there is no place where there is only pain. Hence heaven and hell are merely imaginations—projections of our fantasy. We collect only pain in one imagined place and only pleasure in another. No: wherever life is, there is both pleasure and pain. In hell there will be the relief of rest, and in heaven, the fatigue of delight.

Bertrand Russell said somewhere, “I would not want to go to heaven, because where there is only pleasure, how would one even know it as pleasure? Where no one ever falls ill, how would health be known?” And where whatever you want is instantly obtained, how could there be the joy of obtaining? The joy of obtaining comes from the long stretch of not obtaining. That’s why, the moment we get something, we are finished with it. All the thrill lies in the waiting. As long as it hasn’t come, hasn’t come, hasn’t come—there is only sweetness. When it comes, your hands suddenly feel empty. You start asking, “Now what shall I be miserable for? Meaning: for what shall I now ask and wait to feel joy? What shall I look forward to acquiring, in which there is delight?”

There is a story about a great billionaire named Rothschild. True or not, I don’t know. As he was dying he said to his son, “You must have seen from my life that even billions do not bring happiness. Wealth is not happiness; property is not happiness.” The son replied, “I have seen that from your life. But I have also seen one more thing: if you have wealth, you can choose your own suffering—and the choice is blissful.” He said, “That choice itself is very pleasant. I know you were not happy, but whatever suffering you wanted, you could choose. A poor man cannot choose whatever suffering he likes.” The difference between the suffering of the poor and the rich is not very great; it is only a difference of choice. The poor man must suffer with the woman he happens to get; the rich man chooses the women with whom he will suffer. That’s all. But even that is no small pleasure!

If we go very deep into what we call pleasure and pain, they are two forms of the same thing, two sides of the same coin—perhaps densities of the same substance. And what is pain to me may be pleasure to you. If I have ten million and lose five million, I still have five million left, yet I become miserable. If you have nothing and gain five million, our positions will be identical—you will also have five million—but I will be beating my chest in grief while you will be beating your chest in dance. Our situations are the same; we both have five million. But I have lost five, and you have gained five. How long will you keep dancing, though? Because whoever gets five million acquires the possibility of losing five million. And how long will I keep mourning my lost five? Whoever loses five million gets busy producing or finding them again.

No, neither my pleasure can become your pleasure, nor my pain your pain; nor can today’s pain of mine become tomorrow’s pleasure of mine with any certainty. Nor can I say that the pleasure I have right now will remain pleasure a moment later. Pleasure and pain are like clouds drifting across the sky—they come and go. And yet both are true. We also have to say both are true because our whole language runs on twos. There is, in fact, one truth, which sometimes appears like pleasure and sometimes like pain. Pleasure and pain are our interpretations. Everything depends on how we interpret. Pleasure and pain are less conditions and more interpretations—and interpretations depend on a thousand things; on us, on myriad factors.

If you remember that both are true together, then the Buddha’s truth will begin to look incomplete—overemphatic. Though it is effective. The Buddha will get disciples by the millions; Krishna will not. Charvaka will get followers by the billions; Krishna will not. Both choose, and each chooses an extreme, and states flatly “this is how things are.” And when things appear that way to us, we say, “Exactly right!” Even you will not find the Buddha right under all conditions. You will find him right when you are suffering. If you are not suffering, the Buddha will not seem right. One who feels happy will pass him by. The moment you grow miserable, the Buddha’s words begin to seem meaningful. In that, is the Buddha becoming meaningful, or are you drawing near to his words?

But Krishna will remain puzzling—whether you are miserable or happy. Krishna will begin to make sense only when you are equally at ease with both. The day you can say, “If there is pain, I consent; if there is pleasure, I consent,” the day you can say, “Pain is the coming pleasure; pleasure is the coming pain,” the day you can say, “We no longer give them separate names; we have stopped interpreting—whatever comes, comes,” where will you be that day? You will be in bliss. You will not be in pleasure, nor in pain—you will have stopped interpreting. One who has stopped interpreting events enters into bliss. And only one who is in bliss can understand Krishna. Only such a one.

Bliss does not mean pains will no longer come. Bliss means you will no longer interpret them in a way that turns them into pain. Bliss does not mean only pleasures will keep coming. Bliss means you will drop the interpretations that used to turn experiences into “pleasure,” or fuel the constant demand for pleasure. Things will be as they are—sunlight will be sunlight, shade will be shade. Sometimes sunlight, sometimes shade. You will stop being affected by them, because you now know things come and go. Everything comes upon you and passes away, yet you remain yourself. And this remaining, this witnessing—the consciousness that abides—this is Krishna-consciousness. What is called Krishna-consciousness is that moment when pleasure and pain come and go and you keep watching. You say, “Pleasure came, pleasure went”—and even that is others’ interpretation, not yours. “Others call what came ‘pleasure’; others call what came ‘pain’—that too is not my interpretation. It is happening; it is passing through me.” Then you will be in bliss.

For Krishna, the meaningful word for life is “bliss.” Pleasure and pain are not meaningful in themselves. They are born by dividing bliss. The bliss you accept you call pleasure; the bliss you do not accept you call pain. It is a split interpretation of bliss. As long as you accept that bliss, it appears as pleasure; when you don’t accept it, it becomes pain. Bliss is true—the complete truth.

Therefore bliss has no opposite. Pleasure’s opposite is pain. Love’s opposite is hate. Bondage’s opposite is freedom. Bliss has no opposite word. There is no opposite state to bliss. If anything is “opposite” to bliss, it is only the pleasure–pain duality. That is why there is a hell against heaven, but nothing against moksha. Moksha is the state of bliss. There is no way to construct an opposite to it. Moksha means a single, equal consent toward both pleasure and pain.

Now move on, otherwise you will get into difficulty.

No, there is no other reason to call one “complete.” Whoever becomes zero becomes complete. Emptiness is the prelude to the complete. To be precise, the zero alone is the only complete. You cannot draw half a zero—not even in geometry. If you say, “I have drawn half a zero,” it is no longer a zero. There is no such thing as half a zero. The zero is always whole, entire. The incomplete has no meaning. How will you split zero into two parts? And if it can be split, how will you still call it zero? Zero is not cut, not divided; it is indivisible. From where division begins, number begins. That is why after zero we must start with one. One, two, three—this is the world of number. All numbers arise from zero and are lost back into zero. Zero alone is the complete.

Who can be zero? Only that one can be complete. To call Krishna “complete” means: this man is utterly zero. One can be zero only when there is no choice. The moment there is choice, you become something. You accept somebodyness. You say, “I am a thief”—you have become something; the zero is broken. You say, “I am a saint”—again the zero is fragmented. You have accepted to be something; somebodyness has entered, nothingness is lost. If someone asks Krishna, “Who are you?” Krishna cannot give any meaningful answer. He can only be silent. Any answer will begin choice; he will become something. In fact, one who wants to be everything must be nothing in preparation.

Among Zen fakirs there is a code: One who longs to be everywhere must not be anywhere. One who wants to be all cannot be something. How can “something” and “everything” fit together? No choice. Choicelessness brings emptiness. Then you are what you are—but you cannot say what or who you are. That is why when Arjuna asks, “Tell me who you are,” Krishna does not answer in words; he reveals himself. In that revelation he is all. The profoundest reason for calling him complete is his zero-personality. Whatever is “something” will someday become a hindrance, because life will take you to a place where that “something” becomes bondage. If I determine to be anything at all, life will also bring those moments when that “something” will be troublesome.

Many people stayed at Kabir’s house, and Kabir would say to everyone, “Have your meal.” One day it became a big problem. Kabir’s son said, “How long can this go on? We are weighed down by debts.” Kabir said, “Keep taking on debt.” The son said, “Who will repay?” Kabir said, “The One who gives will also repay. Why should we worry?” But the son could not understand. He was a man of arithmetic and accounts. He said, “This will not do; this is no spirituality. Those from whom we take, they ask for it back. If they stop giving, we will be branded thieves, proven dishonest.” Kabir said, “Then be proven so—what is the harm? And if people call us dishonest, what will be spoiled for us?” But the son said, “No, this is beyond my tolerance. Please, out of kindness, stop putting us in such turmoil. Stop insisting that people eat here.” Kabir said, “If it has to be, it will be.”

The next day, people came again, and Kabir again said, “Eat before you go.” They ate, and the son said, “This won’t do.” Kabir said, “I cannot give any promise, because I cannot be bound. If it happens, it happens. Some day I won’t say it; I won’t. And as long as it happens, as long as the words arise, I say them.” The son said, “This cannot continue. Now I will have to steal. No one in the village will lend to us anymore.” Kabir said, “Fool, why didn’t you think of this earlier? We would have been spared the hassle of borrowing.” But the son was in great confusion, because Kabir—the saint, who always spoke the good—what had happened to him? The son thought, “Let me test him; maybe it is a joke.” That night he woke Kabir and said, “I am going to steal. Will you come along?” Kabir said, “Since you have woken me, let’s go.” The son thought, “Will he really agree to steal?” But the son was Kabir’s son after all. He said, “We should not return too soon; it might be a joke.” He went and started breaking the wall, making a hole. Kabir stood by. The son watched—Kabir still did not say, “Stop now, enough, the joke’s over.” The son was afraid. Kabir said, “Why are you afraid?” He said, “How can I not be! We are stealing!” Kabir said, “You are afraid, therefore you think yourself a thief. Otherwise, what else makes you call yourself a thief? Don’t be afraid. Dig properly, otherwise the people of the house… their sleep will be unnecessarily disturbed.” Somehow the son dug through. He thought perhaps the joke would end there. He said, “Shall we go in now?” Kabir said, “Let’s go.” They went in. They pulled out a sack of wheat—no money was to be stolen; food was the issue—and dragged it outside. When it was out, Kabir said, “It is near morning now. Their sleep should not be disturbed. Wake the people of the house and inform them that we are taking one sack.” The son said, “Have we come to steal or to do moneylending?” Kabir said, “But the people of the house will be troubled, wondering where it has gone, what happened, and will suffer the difficulty of searching.”

Followers of Kabir usually omit this incident, because it seems senseless. Is Kabir a saint or a thief? Hard to decide. There is no doubt theft has been done. There is no doubt he is a saint—because he says, “Why are you afraid?” Because he says, “Wake the people and inform them, so they are not worried, do not search, and are not put into trouble.” The boy says, “If I go and tell them, they will take us as thieves.” Kabir says, “We have stolen; we are thieves. If they take us so, they will not be wrong; they will be right.” The boy says, “The whole village will hear that you are a thief. Who will come to you then?” Kabir says, “Your trouble will end—no one will come, and I will not ask anyone to eat.” But the son cannot grasp it; everything is turning upside down.

The second meaning of Krishna’s completeness is that in Krishna’s life there is everything that in a single life seems impossible—opposites, stark opposites. There is no personality more inconsistent than Krishna’s. In Jesus there is a consistency, in Mahavira there is a consistency, in Buddha there is logic, a consistent order, a system. Understand one part of Buddha, and you can understand the whole Buddha. Ramakrishna said that if you understand one saint, you can understand all saints. This will not seem true about Krishna. As Ramakrishna said, if you understand one drop of the ocean, you understand the whole ocean. This will not fit Krishna. The ocean is homogeneous: taste one drop, it is salty; taste the next drop, salty—it is all salt. But in Krishna you may find sugar; and it’s not certain the neighboring drop will have sugar. Krishna’s personality contains all rasas, all flavors.

Just so, within him are all the arts. Krishna is not an artist, because an artist has one particular art. Krishna is art itself. Then all is complete. Therefore those who saw, knew, recognized him were compelled to exaggerate in every direction. With the rest of us, one can avoid exaggeration, or exaggerate only in a single direction. With Krishna a difficulty arises: we must use the last, utmost words we have. And a further difficulty appears—we must also use the extreme words on the opposite end. He is cold and hot at once. Water too can be cold and hot at once. Our interpretations create the problem, because we separate cold and hot. But if we ask water, “Are you cold or hot?” what will water say? “Put your hand in, and you will know. The real question is not whether I am cold or hot; the real question is whether you are cold or hot.”

If you are hot, the water may feel cold; if you are cold, it may feel hot. The warmth or coolness of water is relative to you. If you warm one hand on the brazier and chill the other on ice, then put both into the same bucket, you will face the same difficulty that arises with Krishna. The water will feel both cold and hot. One hand will say, “Cold,” the other, “Hot.” You will beat your head: “My hands give contradictory reports.” The hands are reporting correctly. They always report correctly—relative to themselves. They are saying, “What is the relationship between me and the water?”

Ask a Radha who loves Krishna who he is, and she will give a different report. She may or may not call him the complete God. It will depend—on her, not on Krishna. If Radha sees Krishna dancing with another woman, it will be very hard to call him God then. Now the water will feel utterly cold. It may not even feel like water. But if Krishna dances with Radha, he dances so completely that she feels he is wholly hers. Then she can call him God. Every Radha, when someone dances wholly with her, calls him God. But in a moment that man can become a devil too. All these statements are relative. Ask Arjuna, ask the Pandavas—Krishna will seem God. Ask the Kauravas—how will this man seem God? Who could be more devilish—he becomes their defeat, their death.

There can be a thousand statements about who Krishna is. But about who Buddha is, there will not be a thousand statements. Because Buddha separates himself from all relative relations; he is homogeneous. Taste him from anywhere—salty. Hence there is not much controversy about Buddha. He is of one taste; we can recognize him as “thus.” Our statements about him carry meaning. Krishna will deceive our statements. And because he has deceived every statement, I call him complete. No single statement can encompass him; something remains out, and we must bring in the opposite statement as well. Only all statements together can surround him—and they become mutually opposed.

Krishna’s completeness means simply this: Krishna has no personality like his own. He is empty existence—just existence, empty. Like a mirror. Whatever comes before him appears in it. He is just a mirror. Whatever appears—appears. And when your face appears there, you think, “He is like me.” And the moment you move away and the image is gone, Krishna is empty again. Whoever stands before him reports, “Krishna is like me.” Whoever has peeped into the Gita has said, “The Gita is like me.” Therefore there are a thousand commentaries. On Buddha’s words there are not so many. On Jesus’ words there are not so many. Where there are ten or five, their differences are small.

In truth, a thousand meanings can be imposed on Krishna; they cannot be imposed on Buddha. What Buddha says is definite, precise—clean, clear, logical. There can be small differences according to our intellect, but not large ones. Even the biggest quarrel about Mahavira produced only two sects—and even there the quarrels are not great; they are over small things, like whether Mahavira was naked or not. There is no dispute among Shvetambaras and Digambaras over Mahavira’s teachings; his statements are clear. You cannot raise many sects upon Mahavira. Nor, in another way, can you raise sects upon Krishna—although for the opposite reason. If you try, millions of sects could arise—and still Krishna would remain, with fresh ground for new sects.

So, on Krishna sects did not arise; interpretations did. A very unique thing happened. On Jesus, sects arose; a few interpretations gave rise to two or three sects. On Krishna, no sect could be formed in that sense; interpretations stood up. There are a thousand commentaries on the Gita, and one can be the enemy of another. Ramanuja can say to Shankara, “You are utterly deluded; you know nothing of Krishna.” Shankara can say of Ramanuja, “Completely ignorant; you understand nothing.” And both can be right—no difficulty. The only reason is that Krishna’s personality is indeterminate, not determinate. It has no outline—formless. In this sense too he is complete, because only the complete can be formless.

Therefore I say: no commentary on the Gita is a commentary on Krishna; every commentary is a commentary on its author. Shankara finds in it what Shankara knows—illusionism, that the world is maya. Ramanuja finds the path of devotion. Tilak finds the gateway of action. Gandhi even finds in the Gita nonviolence and truth. No one is hindered; Krishna hinders none—everyone is welcome. He is like a mirror: see your face and move on. The mirror has no fixed image of its own. A photographic film also does the mirror’s work, but only once; then it is fixed. Once your picture flashes there, it is finished. The film is finished; the picture is caught. Therefore with a photo we can say whose it is. But whose is a mirror? Whoever looks into it, it is his. And when no one looks, whose is it? Then it mirrors emptiness. It shows emptiness, reflects the empty room. If there is no room, it will reflect whatever is there. If there is void, it will reflect void. Whatever is, it reflects. In this sense I call Krishna complete.

And in many more senses—slowly, day by day, the thought will come—he is complete. He must be complete in many senses; if only in one or two senses, he becomes incomplete. For in one sense, Mahavira is also complete; in one sense, Jesus is complete. Jesus is the completeness of a personality of a certain kind: perhaps nothing of that kind is left unexpressed that is not in Jesus—like a rose is complete. Not like jasmine—a rose is complete as a rose. How can a rose be complete as jasmine? Jasmine is complete as jasmine. But jasmine cannot be complete as a rose.

Buddha is complete, Mahavira is complete, Christ is complete—in many senses, and incomplete in many other senses. In one direction of personality they have touched the end; in that direction nothing remains. But Krishna’s completeness is very different. It is not one-dimensional; it is multi-dimensional. He enters all directions. If he is a thief, he is a perfect thief; if a saint, a perfect saint. When he remembers, he remembers totally; when he forgets, he forgets totally. Therefore, when he leaves a place, he forgets it completely. The people there are troubled, weeping, crying, calling him hard-hearted. But the poor fellow is not hard at all—or, he is perfectly hard in hardness. He is not hard in the sense that one who remembers totally also forgets totally. The one who remembers half remembers half. The mirror reflects you fully; the matter is over—you go, it is empty. Where Krishna has arrived, he becomes a mirror there; where he was, he becomes a mirror there too? No—where he is, he is. Now whatever appears before him appears; whoever is to be loved, he loves; whoever is to be fought, he fights. What is before him is. This is multi-dimensionality.

So Krishna’s completeness is multi-dimensional. Even being complete in one dimension is arduous—not easy. To be complete in many dimensions—“difficult” is not the word; one should say “impossible.” Yet the impossible happens—and then it becomes a miracle. Krishna’s personality is sheer miracle.

We can find comparisons among many kinds of persons. Mahavira and Buddha are very near—neighbors; the differences are small. If we go in search of differences between them, they are few, almost negligible—and even those are outward differences; inwardly, the soul is one, alike. But look for a comparison for Krishna—you will be in trouble. It has not happened yet on this earth.

Naturally, such an impossible personality will carry some advantages and some disadvantages. One who is complete in all dimensions will look pale, in any single dimension, before one who is complete only there. Naturally, because Mahavira’s entire energy is concentrated in one dimension. If Krishna stands with Mahavira in that same dimension, he will look pale—his energy is spread multi-dimensionally. If we set Krishna one-on-one against each, Krishna will not “win.” With Christ, in Christ’s dimension, he will seem to lose. But if we think of the total personality, then the difficulty reverses—Mahavira, Buddha, Christ cannot “win” before that multi-dimensionality.

Imagine a flower that sometimes becomes jasmine, sometimes lotus, sometimes rose, sometimes a grass flower, and sometimes a sky-flower—becoming all things. Whenever you go, you find it has become something else. Set any single flower against it, and that single flower will “win,” because the rose is nothing but rose; its entire energy is rose-ward. This one sometimes has to be jasmine, sometimes rose; its life-force is spread wide, not dense.

So in Krishna’s personality there is vastness, extension; hence there cannot be density as in Mahavira or Buddha. There is an endless spread. Therefore Krishna’s completeness means infinity. Mahavira’s completeness means the total attainment of one direction; in that direction he has left nothing. No future saint can surpass Mahavira in that direction.

Thus, understand Krishna as complete in the sense of infinity, breadth, vastness, multi-dimensionality. One who is complete in one dimension will, of course, be unfamiliar, ungainly, in another; he will have no movement there. Krishna can steal skillfully; Mahavira would be a useless thief—sure to be caught. Krishna can wage war skillfully; Buddha cannot. We can hardly imagine Jesus playing the flute; but Krishna could be crucified. Krishna would have no difficulty in being nailed to a cross—he could mount it smiling. There is no inner difficulty in imagining Krishna crucified. But Jesus playing a flute—that is hard. Christians even say Jesus never laughed. If he never laughed, then the flute… And to cross one leg over the other, raise a flute to the lips, don a peacock-feather crown—Christ would say, “Better the cross!” He would find that harder than crucifixion. The cross was perfectly at ease for Jesus; he mounted it joyfully. Hanging there, he was perhaps never so happy in life. Hanging there he could say, “Forgive them all.” Hanging there, he passed with great serenity. That dimension is his; there he had no hindrance. It was simply being completed—what was to happen, the journey he was on, was arriving. He is a rebel, a revolutionary. Such a rebellion could end on a cross; if not, it would feel as if he had failed. The cross had to come.

Krishna’s case is very difficult. With Krishna, there can be no prediction of what will happen. Nothing can be said. Will he die on a cross, or die amidst garlands and flowers, or in a huge crowd—what? He died in such a way: lying silently under a tree, nothing to do with dying—someone mistook his foot for a deer, shot an arrow, and he died. No death is as accidental as this. Everyone’s death has some definiteness; Krishna’s is utterly indefinite. And he dies so uselessly, in a way seemingly without any utility. His whole life was non-utilitarian; so was his death. Jesus’ death was useful. In truth, had Jesus not been crucified, there would be no Christianity. Not because of Jesus, but because of the cross. Who knew this man? No one even thought of him. The cross became significant; hence the cross is the symbol of Christianity. Because that event gave birth to it. If Jesus is in the world today, it is because of the crucifixion.

But Krishna’s death is meaningless, strange. Is this any way to die? Are there such deaths? Lying under a tree… If one had to choose dying, would one choose to be felled by a stray arrow without any exchange of words? No historical event is created by Krishna’s death. He comes and goes as flowers bloom and wither—who knows at dusk when they fall, with which passing breeze they dropped—no seal upon it.

Because of multi-dimensionality, nothing can be said of what will happen. Which flowers will bloom in Krishna’s personality—cannot be predicted.

Consider the last point like this: If Mahavira had lived fifty more years, we could tell how his life would be. If Jesus had lived fifty more years, we could tell what would happen. Predictable—within the astrologer’s grasp. If Mahavira were given even ten more years, we could write the story of what he would do. When he would rise in the morning, when he would sleep at dusk—we could set the menu, what he would eat or drink, what he would say or not say. The next ten years would be a repetition of the previous ten. Homogeneous, like the salty ocean. But give Krishna even ten days—ten years is a long time—and what will happen in those ten days cannot be said. For there will be no repetition of the past. This man is not living by any calculation, but without calculation. Whatever happens, happens. In this sense there is an infinity too—things never feel concluded.

So this last meaning I give: only that is complete which never seems finished. That which seems finished, in some sense ends. This will sound paradoxical, because we commonly think “complete” means “that after which nothing remains.” If this is your meaning, you have an idea of one-dimensional perfection. Krishna’s completeness is not of the sort that finishes. His completeness means: however long he lives and moves, it will not be finished; something will always remain. Hence the Upanishads define the Complete rightly: From the Complete, even if you take away the complete, the complete still remains. If we go on taking a thousand Krishnas out of Krishna, still that one remains—and can produce further Krishnas. No difficulty will arise, because he can be anything.

We cannot “produce” Mahavira today. It would be difficult—because he attained completeness in a particular situation, a particular dimension; that dimension can be complete only in that particular climate. We cannot produce Jesus today. If we did, no one would crucify him, first of all. However much noise he made, we would say, “Neglect him.” Having once made the mistake of crucifixion—making a billion Christians possible—no Jew today will crucify Jesus. They will say, “Don’t get entangled. Let him say what he wants; let him do what he wants.” Because alive, Jesus could excite very few; by dying he excited many.

In Jesus’ time, on the day a crowd of a hundred thousand gathered to crucify him, there were only eight or ten who loved him among them—and even they lacked the courage to admit, when asked, that they were his companions. They said, “No, we don’t even know him.” After Jesus was crucified, the one who took his body down was not a lady from a “good” family—Jesus’ influence could hardly reach there—but a prostitute. She could gather the courage: “What more can anyone do to me?” So she took him down. Even today, I think, a “respectable” woman would still not do it.

Today Jesus can be neglected, because his statements are innocent. Otherwise we would take the other course and call him mad. The quarrel then was that he said, “I am God.” We would say, “Let him say it—what harm?” For Jesus to happen requires precisely that moment; therefore Jesus is historical. Not accidentally, only those who follow Jesus created history. Others did not. History begins with Jesus. Not accidental either that years and centuries are counted from him. He is a historic event—and can only be in a particular historic moment.

We have written no history of Krishna. No firm date when he was born or died. Keeping such dates is useless—he can happen at any time. He can function in any situation. He has no insistence about his being. In any situation he will become that. If you insist, “I will be this,” then you need a special situation. Krishna will not insist—he will say, “Whatever comes will do.” Mahavira will insist on nakedness. Krishna can wear a slim, narrow-hemmed pair of modern trousers—no difficulty. He would even say, “Why didn’t someone invent these earlier? I’d have worn them then.” This capacity-to-be is infinity. No age can hinder him. In any age he will stand up and be content—become of that age. And in that age his flower can bloom.

Therefore I say: Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus are historical personalities. This does not mean they happened and Krishna did not. Krishna also happened. But he is not historical in that sense. Krishna is a purana-person, a mythic, a story-being—an actor. He can be at any time. He has no attachment to a fixed character. He will not demand a special Radha—any Radha can work. He will not demand a special time—any time is meaningful. It is not necessary that he plays only the flute; the instrument of any age will serve him.

In this sense he is complete: however much we take away from him, that being remains; he can happen again.

If there are more questions, tomorrow.

This afternoon also, from three to four, there will be questions. Whatever questions you have in your mind, write them and hand them in.