Krishna Smriti #3

Egolessness can be arrived at in two ways.

One way is by continually erasing yourself, cutting yourself down, negating yourself, until a moment comes when there is nothing left to cut. Then egolessness appears—but it is negative, by negation. And deep down some subtle pride still lingers: “I have cut down my ego.”

There is another way: to expand yourself, to spread so vast that nothing remains outside of you; everything is included. Then too egolessness—egolessness—happens. But now not even the statement “I have become egoless” remains.

Those who proceed by cutting the ego will ultimately realize the soul, the atman. And for them the “soul” will still be a last, purified “I am”—the final vestige of ego. Everything else will be gone; only the pure “I” remains. Such a one will not know the Supreme, paramatman. But the one who expands the ego—so vast that all dissolves into it—won’t retain even the sense of soul; only the Supreme remains.

Krishna’s personality is affirmative, positive. He is a legislator of life, not a denier. He doesn’t negate anything—not even the ego. He says: make the ego so vast that everything fits within it. Let “you” disappear; then there is no way to say “I” either. We can say “I” only as long as there stands a “you” opposed to it. The voice of “I” rises against the “you.” If “you” falls away, “I” too cannot remain.

Let “I” become that vast... This is why the Upanishadic seer could declare: aham brahmasmi—“I am Brahman.” It does not mean “you are not Brahman.” It means: there is no “you” left at all; only I am—and that “I” is the wind moving, the trees swaying, the one who is born and the one who will die, the earth and the sky. Other than me there is none. So there is no room left even for “I” to survive as a pronoun. Against whom could I assert “I am”? Krishna’s whole being is a movement of expansion into the vast. Thus Krishna can say, “I am Brahman.” There is no ego in it. It is only the language of “I”; there is no separate “I” behind it.

The other path is the way of negation, denial, rejection, renunciation: keep dropping. Wealth strengthens the “I”—so drop wealth. But don’t fall into the illusion that the rich have egos while the poor do not. The poor also have egos—a poor man’s ego—only he cannot boast of riches. Don’t imagine the householder has an ego while the sannyasi does not. The renunciate has an ego too. If by dropping I keep discarding everything that props up the ego—wealth, house, wife, children, home—then no pegs remain on which to hang my ego and claim “I am rich,” “I am learned,” “I am a renunciate.” Yet I do not disappear. When no outer peg remains, the ego will cling to itself in an extremely subtle way. In the end only “I” remains.

This subtlest experience of “I” comes through negation. Many can get stuck here—and many do—because it is invisible and very subtle. The rich man’s ego is visible; the renunciate’s is not so easily seen. What is the rich man’s ego? “I have wealth.” The renunciate’s? “I have renounced.” The householder’s boundaries are visible; the monk’s are not. But he too has labels: Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain; he belongs to an order, has ties and bonds. It does not show. In this phase of negation one can get stuck; he will seem utterly egoless, won’t even use the word “I”—but that makes no real difference. He still has to go beyond.

Mahavira and Buddha do go beyond—but crossing that last, subtlest “I” is exceedingly arduous; that is their real tapascharya. What was “mine” has been dropped; only “I” remains—how to drop that? Therefore, if a thousand walk the path of negation, perhaps one reaches true egolessness; nine hundred and ninety-nine stop on the ledge of the subtle “I.” Mahavira will pass through, but the renunciates who follow him will get stuck. This is supremely difficult. Breaking supports is easy; breaking the supporter is hard.

So the seeker of negation faces his greatest ordeal at the last moment. The affirmative seeker faces his at the very first step. How to deny the “thou” that stands so clearly before the senses? Krishna’s way has its crucial difficulty at the beginning; after that, no real difficulty remains. Buddha and Mahavira’s way is easy at the beginning; its real difficulty comes at the end. When all supports of “I” are gone and a purified ego remains—how will you drop that? What will you do?

What the affirmative seeker must do at the first step, the negative seeker must do at the last. At the first step the affirmative seeker tries to find the “I” in the “thou.” At the final step the negative seeker must find the “thou” in the “I.” If he can discover the “thou” dwelling in the “I,” all is well. But it is far harder to find “thou” in “I” than “I” in “thou”—and in the purified “I” it is hardest of all, because it has become so rarefied there seems no room left for “thou.” Hence Buddha and Mahavira’s crisis comes at the end—and one can fall even just before the last step. Having saved the “I” throughout the practice, to drop it at the very end is immensely difficult.

It can be dropped—by one route: let the “thou” be seen within the point of “I.” Thus the last link in Mahavira’s path is called keval-jnana: not the knower, only knowing; not the knowledgeable one, only knowledge. In that pure knowing the vision of oneness can flash. The final freedom is freedom from “I,” not freedom for “I.” But followers coming later stumble, forever asking, “How will I be liberated?” The “I” has never been liberated. Whenever liberation happens, it happens from “me.” Therefore Mahavira’s tradition offers much nourishment for ego—renunciation and austerity can harden it. In the end everything goes, and one tight knot of “I” remains. Breaking that knot is very hard—though it has been broken; Mahavira broke it. There are special devices for that last release.

In Krishna’s way the knot of “I” is cut at the outset. A sickness that must be cured at the end should not be carried so long; in the meantime it becomes infectious and chronic. Cut it early. Thus what Mahavira calls “keval-jnana” at the last moment, Krishna calls “sakshi-bhava” (witnessing) at the very first. From the first step, know: I am not separate. But if I am not separate, renunciation becomes meaningless. Whom will I leave? I alone am. Who will leave whom? That which is being left is also me. Where will I run from—and to where? What I flee is me; where I flee is me.

Rabindranath tells a deep jest that Yashodhara made at the Buddha’s expense. When Buddha returned enlightened, Yashodhara asked a single question: “What you found in the forest—was it not present here in this house?” Buddha is in a bind. If he says, “Yes, it was here too,” Yashodhara will reply, “I told you not to go.” He had left at night without telling her. But if he says, “No, it was only in the forest,” that is false; now he knows that what was found there is also here.

Krishna never goes anywhere. What the Buddha sees in the last moment, Krishna sees from the first. What Buddha realizes at the end—that it is the same everywhere—Krishna knows from the beginning.

I have heard of a fakir who lay all his life on the edge of a village. When asked, “Why don’t you practice anything?” he would say, “What shall I practice? That which I would practice is already accomplished.” If asked, “You are seen going nowhere,” he would say, “Where shall I go? Where I had to arrive, I am arrived.” “Do you not have anything to attain?” “That which is to be attained is eternally attained.” For such a fakir, what practice?

This is why Krishna’s “practice” never developed as a system. You will not find Krishna’s followers busy in practices. Practice is for what is not yet but could be; it is for possibility. There is no practice for what already is. When Buddha was asked after enlightenment, “What did you gain?” he said, “Nothing at all. Only a recognition of what always was. It was with me; I didn’t know. Now I know.” But Buddha says this at the last. Krishna says it at the first: “Where are you going? Where you wish to arrive, you already stand. The goal you name is your present home.”

Thus, in Buddha and Mahavira’s lives there is a period of practice and then attainment. Krishna is always siddha—already accomplished. When did Krishna “practice” the truth? Which meditation? Which yoga? Which forest? Which austerities, which fasts, which postures? In Krishna’s life there is no thing resembling “practice.” There is none.

Buddha and Mahavira become siddhas in the final moment; Krishna is a siddha from the beginning. Hence, in the state from which he speaks you may see “ego” only because he uses the word “I.” But the connotation is utterly different. When we say “I,” we mean the one imprisoned in this body. When Krishna says “I,” he means that which pervades everywhere. Therefore he can say to Arjuna, “Abandon all and come into my refuge.” If this “I” were confined to a body, such a statement could not be made—and Arjuna would balk. Whenever one “I” speaks, the other “I” resonates in reply; “I” recognizes its own language and springs to defend itself. But Krishna can say, “Take refuge in me” because “my refuge” means the refuge of the Whole. It means: surrender to That which is spread everywhere—drop your separate self.

Egolessness comes to Mahavira and Buddha too, but after a long journey—and many who walk their road may never get it, because the last step may or may not happen. In Krishna’s current, it is the first thing; if you cannot do it, you cannot even step into that stream. With Mahavira you can walk very far preserving your “I.” With Krishna you cannot take the first step. To walk with him you must leave the “I” immediately; otherwise you cannot walk at all. With Mahavira our ego can harmonize for a long way; with Krishna it cannot. For Krishna, the first is the last. For Mahavira and Buddha, the last is the first. If this fundamental difference is understood, everything falls into place.

What “practice” can you do with Krishna? You can dance, sing, drown. If you call that practice, so be it. Krishna expects nothing else. When the very first step is egolessness, what further expectation can there be? If you go to Mahavira or Buddha saying, “I am egoistic, what shall I do?” they can give you steps: “Drop this first, drop that next; we shall deal with the ego later.” Go to Krishna and say, “I am egoistic,” and he will say, “Then there is no way; the ego must go first—that is the beginning.” Hence Krishna could not build orders of practitioners. A seeker will say, “That first step is too much. I can drop money.” Krishna will say, “Drop money and what changes? The disease remains.” A man says, “I have cancer; I cannot drop the cancer, but I can shave my head.” Shave it—but the cancer remains. Mahavira will say, “Fine, start with what you can. We’ll see the last thing later.” At their door everyone can enter. But Krishna says, “Only do the last thing first—then enter.” Thus Krishna’s house is almost empty. With Mahavira fifty thousand monks could walk—possible. With Krishna it is hard: where will you find fifty thousand men who are egoless on the first day?

If we speak precisely, Mahavira and Buddha present gradual enlightenment. Gradation we understand—one rupee becomes two, then three. But that a beggar becomes emperor in a single stroke is beyond our habit. Krishna speaks of sudden enlightenment. He says: why all this needless trouble? With one rupee you are poor; with two, still poor; with three, still poor; with a million, a millionaire poor. We make you emperor—indeed, we remind you that you are emperor. Mahavira and Buddha’s method is sadhana; Krishna’s method is remembering. Remember who you are—and the matter is finished. Just remember!

A story. An emperor banished his only son in anger. What do princes know? He was uneducated, knew nothing practical—except a taste for song and dance. So he begged on the streets, dancing for alms. The command was to leave the realm, so he went abroad. Years passed; his father aged. The boy forgot he had been a prince. Begging ten years, how would he remember? In truth he became each day more the rightful heir, for his father was growing old. Barefoot in the desert heat, blisters on his feet, he stood before a shabby inn rattling a tin bowl: “Give me some coins for shoes.” The emperor sent ministers to find him. The prime minister finally reached that town. The chariot drew up while the boy was shaking his tin bowl. The minister recognized his face, the tattered remnants of his old clothes, his darkened skin. He alighted, touched the boy’s feet, and said, “Your father forgives you; he calls you back.”

In a fraction of a second the tin bowl flew from his hand. His eyes changed—he was no longer a beggar; he was a prince. “Go,” he ordered, “buy shoes, bring fine clothes, arrange a bath.” He mounted the chariot. Those to whom he had been begging gathered round: “Have you forgotten us?” “I could remember you only so long as I had forgotten myself. Now that I remember, forget that beggar.”

Krishna’s process is just this: only a reminder of who you are. It is not sadhana; it is remembrance. In that instant everything changes: the tin bowl flies, the hand withdraws from begging; you are emperor. But this emperorhood is sudden. Remember, only emperorhood is sudden; beggarhood is gradual. If there were steps to become an emperor, then on the last step you would only be a well-appointed beggar. Alms would continue. One day you must leap beyond the staircase you’ve climbed; that moment comes at the end in Mahavira and Buddha’s path. With Krishna, it comes first. “Leap—then we’ll talk.” After the leap, there is nothing more to do.

Throughout the Gita Krishna is not “explaining” much to Arjuna; he is reminding him who he is. He does not preach; he prods. He shakes Arjuna awake: “Open your eyes and see who you are! Why fuss over ‘this one will die, that one will die’? No one has ever died. When did you die?” But Arjuna dreams—“my brother, my kin, my teacher—how can I kill them?” Krishna is not instructing; he is jolting him: “Wake up! Either everyone belongs to everyone, or no one belongs to anyone. In either case, it comes to the same. Either all die—then killing or not killing makes no difference. Or none die—then again it makes no difference.”

Krishna’s vision is remembrance, not sadhana. It is a direct leap into siddhahood. We lack the courage; we say, “Not for us—let us go someplace where we can move step by step.” But each step preserves the “I.” That is why you avoid the leap: the leap threatens not-surviving. You say, “We will go step by step—preserving ourselves.” But what you preserve will still remain at the last step and ask, “Can we somehow sneak into liberation while preserving ourselves?” No one enters moksha preserving the self. Only by losing it. If the ultimate difficulty must come, let it come at the first. Why waste time?

The final remembrance that dawns for Buddha and Mahavira is remembrance—not the fruit of practice. But we observe: “He circled the village twenty times; then he remembered.” Another went one time; he remembered. Another went not at all; he remembered. From outside we conclude: “He remembered after twenty rounds—let us also do twenty.”

There is no causal link between Mahavira’s doing and his awakening. If there were, then Jesus could not awaken—he did none of what Mahavira did. Nor the Buddha—he didn’t do what Mahavira did. If water boils at one hundred degrees, then in Tibet, India, China, America—wherever—you will get steam at one hundred. That is causal law.

Spiritual life is not causal. Therefore it can be free. Causality is bondage—each thing bound to what precedes and to what follows. If water becomes steam, it was bound by the laws of water; now by the laws of steam; if ice, then by the laws of ice—bound both ways. Liberation means stepping outside the chain of cause and effect. If fasting caused liberation, anyone who fasted would be free. But it doesn’t happen. Many stand naked; they do not awaken. Mahavira stood naked and did. Does nudity cause freedom? If it did, all would have to do it. There is no such relation. Liberation is an explosion outside causality. Mahavira awakened not because of what he did, but in spite of it.

Krishna says: if this is understood, it can happen now. Worthy or unworthy, all are worthy. Some people must take a roundabout path—even to reach their own house they tour the whole town. Let them. But please take your own roundabout way, not another’s. If you adopt someone else’s detour, you will be in trouble. He came to himself that way; you are not he. You cannot come by his path.

When the Upanishads were first translated into Western languages, readers were puzzled: there is no “practice” given. What to do, what not to do; what to eat, wear, drink; what is good, what is bad—nothing is laid down. “What kind of scripture is this?” The Bible is clear—commandments: do this, don’t do that. That is a moral code. The Upanishads are true religion; they have nothing to do with morality. They speak of remembering. “Remember what you have forgotten—what you already are right now. There is nowhere to go to get it. Just remember.” It is only forgetfulness.

For Krishna, what is to be attained is not lost, only forgotten. Therefore from the very first step, remember—and leap. So all the “practices,” ethics, and codes that religions offer, Krishna does not. Krishna’s “ego” is absent from the first moment. And anyone who looks with open eyes will lose his ego. We live with eyes closed; that is why ego remains. Don’t say, “It happened to Krishna—why not to me?” You live with eyes shut. Have you ever asked who gave you birth? Did you? At least this is certain: you did not. You did not make yourself what you are. Yet we have “self-made” crazies among us: “I made myself.” Not even our being is in our hands. Such simple truths we do not see. My being is not in my control. If I were not, to whom would I complain? Those who are not—where are they complaining? If I were different—what then?

Look honestly at life and you will see: neither birth nor death is in our hands; our hands are not in our hands. Try to grasp your own hand with your own hand—you will understand. Nothing here is in our control. Where nothing is in our control, what is the meaning of saying “I”? Here everything is co-arising—sanghat—happening together. You cannot say: “Even if the flowers in the garden had not bloomed today, I would still be here.” We commonly think: “What have flowers to do with it?” Not necessary. But the blooming of that one flower and my being here are two ends of the same One.

If the sun were to become still right now, we would all become still here. The sun is millions of miles away; we depend on it. The sun depends on greater suns; they depend on others—everything depends. Life here is interdependent; nothing is separate. We are not islands; we are an ocean where all is together. See this with even slightly opened eyes, and will anyone have to remind you that “I” and “you” are human inventions—and poor ones? When this is seen, remembrance dawns. Until it is seen we will continue to take ourselves as “I,” others as “you,” and live in a myth.

Krishna says at the first step: remember—do nothing else. Remember who you are, what you are, where you are—and everything will be revealed.

A few points.

First, Buddha arrived at emptiness—as I was just saying, Buddha arrived at emptiness. That was his achievement; he attained it. He became empty. The emptiness that is attained becomes one-dimensional. It acquires a direction. It becomes dependent on the attainer.

Understand it this way. In fact, whatever I negate within myself, whatever I cut off and set aside, will be finished, removed from within me. A certain kind of emptiness will be available. But that emptiness will come as the absence of something. There is another emptiness that we do not bring about; it is born in the very awareness of our being. We are emptiness—we do not become empty. Emptiness is our nature. That is how we are. The day emptiness is our nature—no discipline, no practice, no attainment—on that day emptiness becomes multidimensional. We have not emptied out anything to become empty; we have simply remembered that we are emptiness.

So the emptiness we see in Buddha is a brought-about emptiness. And only a brought-about emptiness is visible to us. In Krishna we never see emptiness. Krishna we would call a man, but a very full man, very occupied. With Krishna one experiences presence; one does not experience absence. In Krishna you sense that something is present; you do not sense that Krishna is empty. With Buddha we sense emptiness. The reason is that whatever fills us, Buddha has removed it; therefore Buddha appears empty to us. If there is anger in us, he has removed it; if there is violence in us, he has removed it; if there is attachment in us, he has removed it; if there is delusion in us, he has removed it; whatever we are filled with, Buddha is empty of it. Hence we feel, “This is emptiness.” Buddha became empty. In truth, what fills us is not in him. We recognize his emptiness.

We cannot recognize Krishna’s emptiness. Because even if this man has no greed, he can still sit down to gamble. If this man has no anger, how does he take up the discus and step into war? If he has no violence, why does he incite Arjuna to violence? If he has no attachment, why does he love? That which fills us is what we see in Krishna; Krishna’s emptiness cannot fall within our grasp.

If we rightly understand Buddha’s emptiness, it is the absence of that which is present in us. So we can recognize it. In truth, all those we call human maladies are absent in Buddha. As far as human sickness is concerned, Buddha is absolutely empty. Up to this point Buddha is visible to us. After this Buddha takes another leap, which we never see. That leap which Buddha takes after this emptiness never becomes visible to us. Buddha is dying, and even in the last moment his disciples ask him, “When you die, where will you go? You must be somewhere! Will you be in moksha? In nirvana? How will you be?” Buddha says, “I will be nowhere; I will not be.” This does not enter their grasp. For they believe that one who has let go of greed, anger, and delusion must be somewhere—yes, not on the earth, but in liberation—yet somewhere! Buddha says, “I will be nowhere. I will simply vanish like a line drawn on water.” When we draw a line on water, while it is drawn it is there, and when it vanishes—Buddha asks—where is it then? Does it go somewhere? Does it remain anywhere? “I will vanish like a line drawn on water. I will be nowhere.” This statement does not make sense to his disciples. Krishna lives like a line drawn on water his whole life long; therefore he finds no disciples—this does not make sense to anyone.

Buddha and Mahavira, in their last moments, complete that leap as well—the leap from a one-dimensional nothingness into the supreme void—but we cannot catch hold of that void, we cannot see it. And with Krishna our difficulty increases, because he lives in the void. It is not that the line will be drawn someday and then erased; he draws it every moment and it is erased. Not only does he draw and erase it, he also draws its opposite. Lines upon lines are drawn; everything happens and everything dissolves. Buddha attains emptiness one day; Krishna is emptiness. And that is why Krishna’s emptiness is hard to grasp.

On the day Buddha becomes empty, the consciousness that was imprisoned within—the being—becomes free and merges with the vast. But on that day he is no longer “Buddha”—on that day he has no connection with the one who was born as Gautam Siddhartha and died. That inner void of being has become one with the vast existence. Therefore we have no story about that void which has become one with the vast. But Krishna lives in such a way that we do have a story of that void—of how Buddha would live in the world after that void. We don’t get that chance with Buddha; we get it with Krishna. Buddha’s becoming empty and his disappearing happen together; Krishna’s being empty and his being happen together. If Buddha were to return after attaining the final nirvana, the great nirvana, he would be like Krishna. Then he would not choose—he would not say, “This is bad and that is good.” He would not reject or cling. He would not do anything—he would live. Krishna lives just so.

So what is the ultimate attainment for Buddha is Krishna’s natural way of life. And that is why it is very difficult. Those who reach the ultimate disappear; in attaining, they are lost—and thus they do not put us into much trouble. While they are here, our moral notions seem to find confirmation in them. But this man—Krishna—is emptiness itself, and therefore none of our moral assumptions gain confirmation from him. He throws our whole order into disarray. He leaves us in great confusion: What to do and what not to do? In truth, from Buddha and Mahavira come the formulas for doing; from Krishna comes the formula for being. From Buddha and Mahavira we get a path for doing; from Krishna we get only a path for being. Krishna simply is.
A man once went to a Zen fakir and asked, “Teach me meditation.” The fakir said, “Look at me—and if you can learn by watching, then learn.” The man was perplexed, because the fakir was digging holes in his garden. He watched for a while and said, “I’ve seen a lot of hole-digging; I’ve dug many myself. Please be kind and teach me meditation.” The fakir replied, “If you cannot learn by watching me, how else can I teach you? I am meditation! Whatever I am doing is meditation. Watch my digging properly.” The man said, “People sent me to a great knower—where have I landed? If watching hole-digging is all, I could have watched that anywhere.” The fakir said, “Stay a day or two.”
Sometimes the fakir would sit down to eat, sometimes he would sleep, sometimes he would bathe, sometimes he would dig, sometimes he would sow seeds. In two days the man grew anxious. He said, “I have come to learn meditation; all this has nothing to do with me.” The fakir said, “I don’t teach doing; I teach being. If you watch me digging, understand how meditation digs. If you watch me eating, see how meditation eats. I don’t do meditation—I am meditation.” The man said, “What kind of madman have I come to! I had always heard that meditation is done; I’d never heard that someone is meditation.” The fakir said, “It is a very difficult question—who among us is mad? And we two won’t be able to decide it.”

We have all loved, but we have never been love. So if someone comes among us who is love, he will put us in difficulty, because we only do love. ‘Love as an act’ is what we know. ‘Love as being’ has never been ours. Loving this person, loving that person—sometimes loving, sometimes not loving—that is our occupation. But a person who is love will embarrass us. His very being is love. Whatever he does is love. What he does not do is also love. If he fights, it is love; if he embraces, it is love—whatever he does.

Such a person will confound us. We will plead with him, “Brother, love us.” He will say, “How can I love? I am love! Love can be done only by those who are not love.”

This is Krishna’s difficulty. Krishna’s very existence is emptiness; he has not become empty by emptying himself. He has not thrown anything out, nor made space by removing something. He simply accepted what is—and by acceptance he became empty. In this emptiness, there will remain, up to the very last instant before the final moment, a difference from the emptiness of Buddha and Mahavira. Buddha and Mahavira will remain something until the last moment; in the final leap they will become no-thing. But Krishna is no-thing throughout his life. This emptiness is what one could call a living nothingness. The emptiness of Buddha and Mahavira is not living. Until the last moment of life they are filled with the very emptiness we can recognize as “this-and-this was emptied out.” In the last instant they take the leap.

Therefore Mahavira and Buddha both say: there is no returning. No returning. But Krishna can say to Radha, “We have come many times before and danced, and we will come many times again and dance.” For Buddha and Mahavira, emptiness is the great death; after that there is no return, only dissolving—an end of the cycle of coming and going. Krishna can say, “What fear have I of coming and going? I am emptiness already. What more will I gain in liberation? Wherever I am, there is liberation.” He will keep coming. That is why he says a most astonishing thing. He tells Arjuna, “Whenever there is trouble, I can come. Whenever there is a decline of dharma, I will come.” Buddha and Mahavira cannot say such a thing. They have no such statement that if there is trouble, darkness, disease, suffering, unrighteousness in the world, they will come—because they will say, “How can I come? I will have been liberated!” But Krishna says, “Don’t worry—if there is trouble, I can come.” “I can come” does not mean “I will come.” It only means that for this man there is no difference between coming and going; nothing obstructs him. He is already emptiness—so what can coming spoil? Nothing at all.

This is the difference in emptiness.

And Mahavira and Buddha can only take emptiness in the sense of liberation, because the yearning for liberation has been the very effort of their whole lives. So when emptiness arrives they will say, “We are liberated, we have gone to rest. Now there is no return—the point of no return. There is no question of coming back.” For them, returning would obviously mean the same anger, the same greed, the same attachment, the same entanglement, the same world, the same turmoil, the same misery. “Now there is no return. Now we are beyond all this.” Therefore, when the event of emptiness happens in their consciousness, they will sink into it, disappear into the vast. They can only speak of not returning. But for Krishna it makes no difference. He is the same in anger, the same in love, the same in passion—he is the same in everything. So he will say, “If returning is to be, we will return gladly. There is no trouble in it.” For him there is no restlessness, no difficulty here. Coming and going can happen; there is no obstruction. Therefore he can say it. His emptiness is living.

But in the taste of it, there will be no difference. Whether you attain the emptiness of Mahavira and Buddha, you will arrive at bliss; or whether you attain the emptiness of Krishna, you will arrive at bliss. Yet the bliss of Mahavira and Buddha will lead into rest, while Krishna’s bliss may lead into vast activity. If we can coin such a phrase, “active void,” it would apply to Krishna. And if we can coin another, “passive void” or “non-active void,” it would apply to Mahavira and Buddha. The experience is of bliss in both cases—but one bliss becomes creative, and one bliss becomes absorptive. That is the difference.

Let us take one or two more questions, and then we will sit.

Buddha lived on. Mahavira also lived on for forty years; Buddha too for forty, forty-two years. But before dying Buddha says: the nirvana that happened to me forty years ago—that was nirvana; what is happening now is mahanirvana. In the first nirvana Buddha found the same emptiness that is visible to us. In the second, the great nirvana, Buddha attains the emptiness that is not visible to us—which could be visible to Krishna. So Buddha lives on for thirty–forty years. Even in that living he is not yet the ultimate void. In that living there remains a small obstruction. In that living there is still some suffering. The process of becoming is still going on.

Therefore, if Buddha goes from village to village, he goes out of compassion, not out of bliss. If he explains to others, it is because of compassion: that what has happened to me I should tell you, so perhaps it may happen to you as well. But if Krishna says something to another, it is out of bliss, not out of compassion. You will not be able to find compassion in Krishna. Buddha’s very persona is compassion. For forty years he is coming and going out of compassion. Yet he is awaiting that last moment when this coming and going will also drop—there will be liberation from this too. Hence Buddha says there are two kinds of nirvana. One nirvana is that which comes through samadhi. And there is mahanirvana, when the body too is lost; not only the mind is lost, the body too is lost. That alone is the ultimate nirvana. The supreme emptiness is attained only through that.

For Krishna it is not so. For Krishna, nirvana and mahanirvana are not two; they are one.

The questions will now be in the morning; therefore the breeze will give only bliss.