Krishna Smriti #9

To understand raas, the first necessity is to see that life itself is raas. As I have said, all of life is the meeting of opposing forces. The joy of life is hidden in the union of opposites. The whole bliss and mystery of life is concealed in the meeting of opposites. So first it is proper to understand the metaphysical, the cosmic meaning of raas; then we can understand its reflection in Krishna’s life.

Raise your eyes and look around—what else is happening but raas? Clouds racing across the sky, rivers rushing toward the sea, seeds traveling toward flowers, bumblebees singing, birds chirping, human beings loving, positive and negative electricity attracting, the ceaseless play and love-story of woman and man—if we look at this vast expanse, nothing is happening but raas.

Raas has a profoundly cosmic meaning. It has vast metaphysical dimensions.

First, in the orchestration of this world, in its construction, in its creation, the fundamental basis is the meeting of opposing forces. When we build a house, when we make a doorway, we set bricks against each other in an inverted curve and an arch appears. Bricks set against each other support the whole building. If we wish, we can lay every brick identically. Then no doorway will be made, and the building will not rise. When energy divides into two poles, the play begins. The very division of energy into two is the beginning of play on all layers and in all aspects of life. When energy becomes one, the play stops. When energy becomes one, dissolution happens. When it divides into two, creation begins.

The meaning of raas points directly, and most deeply, to the current of creation. Life is a play between two opposites. These opposites can fight—then there is war. These opposites can meet—then there is love. But whether fighting or meeting, two are indispensable. Creation without two is difficult. What, then, is the meaning of Krishna’s raas in this context?

It is not enough merely to see Krishna dancing with the gopis. Our very gross eyes can see only that much. Krishna’s dancing with the gopis is not an ordinary dance. It is a small drama of that vast raas, a molecular reflection of the cosmic. It is a tiny glimpse of that dance which is going on in the whole. Because of this glimpse, no sexual meaning remains in that raas. It has no sexual meaning. Not that sexuality is prohibited—nothing of the sort; it simply falls far, far into the background. Krishna is not dancing there as Krishna the individual; he dances as the male principle. The gopis are not there as women; in the depths they become Prakriti—nature itself. It is the dance of Purusha and Prakriti.

Those who have understood it only in a sensual sense have not understood; they will never be able to. If we see rightly, what is moving there is the dance of male and female energies. It has nothing to do with persons; individuals are irrelevant. That is why it was possible that one Krishna could dance with many gopis. Otherwise, one person cannot dance simultaneously with many women; one person cannot play the game of love with many at once. And yet each gopi could experience that Krishna was dancing with her. Each gopi found her own Krishna. As if Krishna were divided into thousands. If there are a thousand gopis, then there are a thousand Krishnas.

Certainly, if we take it personally, we will be in difficulty. It is the dance of the vast nature and the vast Purusha in union. And why was dance chosen for this expression?

As I said in the morning, dance is closest to nonduality. Dance is closest to celebration. Dance is closest to mystery.

Look at it from another side.

Humanity’s first language is dance, because our first language is gesture. Even before man spoke, he spoke with his hands and feet. Even today a mute person speaks through gesture and posture. Language develops much later. Butterflies do not know language, but they know dance. Birds do not know language, but they know dance. They recognize gesture, posture, signal. The whole of nature recognizes it.

That is why dance came to be central to raas.

The language of gesture, of signal, is the deepest. It touches the innermost layers of human consciousness. Where words cannot reach, dance reaches. Where grammar cannot go, the sound of anklet-bells goes. Where nothing seems comprehensible, dance still makes something understood. Therefore, a dancer can go to any corner of the world and be understood; no common language is required. No particular civilization or culture is required either. Wherever a dancer goes, he will be understood. Even in the collective unconscious of humanity, the idea of the language of dance is present.

The dance that is happening under the moon, under the sky, I do not call an ordinary dance because it is not for anyone’s entertainment, it is not being performed to show anyone anything. In a sense it is overflowing. So much bliss is filled within that it spills in all directions. And for this bliss to overflow, if both opposing energies are present together, there is a natural ease. The man cannot flow if the woman is not present—he becomes inhibited and closed. He cannot become a river; he becomes a pond. The woman cannot flow if the man is not available—closed. Their mere presence immediately turns the hidden energies within them into a current. What we have incessantly understood as the love between woman and man is that same flow. If only we would not make it personal, that flow would take on a profoundly transcendental meaning.

The attraction between woman and man is the flowing away, in each other’s nearness, of the energies hidden within them. That is why a man feels light near a woman, and a woman feels light near a man. Apart, they become tense and full of stress. What is that lightness? Something within them was full and has flowed away; weightlessness remains behind. But we keep trying to bind woman and man. As soon as we bind them, impose rules and order, the flow diminishes, the flow stops. Life’s deep play has nothing to do with regulation. And Krishna’s raas is utterly unregulated. One could say utterly chaotic. Chaos.

Nietzsche has a very wondrous saying: Only out of chaos are stars born.

Where there is no imposed order, only the play of energies remains. Very quickly Krishna vanishes as a person and remains as energy. Very quickly the gopis vanish as persons and only energies remain. That dance of male and female energy brings deep fulfillment, deep bliss. It becomes overflowing, and that bliss begins to flow. From that dance the bliss spreads in all directions to every particle of the world.

The moon under which Krishna danced is still here; the trees beneath which he danced still exist; the mountains near which he danced still are; the earth on which he danced is also here today. What flowed from Krishna in those moments is hidden in all this; all this has drunk it in.

Now scientists say something very new: persons depart, but the waves they leave remain forever. Persons depart, but the imprints of what they have lived—their waves—permeate the whole existence and become absorbed into it.

On the earth where Krishna danced, if someone dances there today, Krishna’s echoes are heard. Where he played the flute, the mountains that heard that flute—if someone plays a flute there today, the echo is heard. On the banks of the Yamuna that saw and knew him and felt his touch, if a dance happens there today, the person melts and that impersonal surrounds again.

I take raas to be the symbol of the union—and the overflowing—of the vast energy that is divided between woman and man. In this language, raas has relevance even today, and will always have. Let me tell you what I have recently and continually experienced.

When we sit for meditation, many friends have asked me to separate the women from the men. “If they are kept apart, it will be easier.”

Their idea of “ease” is filled with unawareness. They do not know that if you gather women on one side and men on the other, you bring together homogeneous, same-kind energies, and the possibility of flow between them is reduced. This does not occur to them. My understanding is that if we are meditating, women and men should be entirely together, mixed. Events beyond their understanding, with no obvious connection to their minds, will happen. Their mere presence, and a causeless presence—you are not standing next to your wife—this causeless presence will help something flow out of you, manifest, be released; it will help catharsis. It will help something flow out of the woman too.

The enormous tension of humanity’s psyche has arisen from splitting woman and man into two “castes.” In schools and colleges we teach boys and girls, seating them in two parts. Wherever there are women and men, we are separating them. Whereas the whole order of existence depends on the nearness of opposing forces. And the more natural and simple this nearness, the more effective it is.

The value of raas will remain forever. Its value lies in the deep principle hidden within: woman and man are incomplete in themselves, halves. In nearness they become whole. And if they are near unconditionally, they become whole in very wondrous ways. If they come near with conditions, those conditions become obstacles, and their fulfillment does not happen. As long as there are men on earth and as long as there are women on earth, raas will continue in myriad forms. It may be that it does not attain the same significance, depth, and height as it did with Krishna. But if we can understand, it can be attained. All primal tribes have known it. After a day’s work, they gather at night; then there is no question of husband and wife—only woman and man remain. They dance till midnight, till the night is far spent, and then they sleep under the trees or in their huts—tired from dancing, they sleep. And that is why there is a certain peace in the mind of the tribal, a certain exuberance, and even in his poverty and humility a certain dignity, which even the most civilized person, with all his comforts, is not able to attain. Somewhere a mistake is being made; somewhere a very deep truth is not being understood.

Not everything in life happens all the time; there are moments one must wait for; there is time whose coming must be watched for; there are occasions for which one has to pause. It is necessary to see this in many, many dimensions.

A woman lying there like a stone... No, I would say she must have become stone; becoming stone is the poet’s imagination. But a woman who will blossom only through Rama—and only by Rama’s touch—will remain stone until Rama meets her. It is not that someone was literally lying there like a rock. That is the poet’s device, a way of speaking, his metaphor. But a woman who can bloom and become alive and conscious only through Rama’s touch—anyone else’s touch will leave her inert. The heart of the story is just this: each person has their own waiting. Each has their own awaiting. And until the right moment arrives, it does not happen. The one who lay like a stone had become stone...

And it is worth pondering! Until a woman finds her lover, she is stone. Until then, within her everything has turned rocky; her heart has grown stony. Until she finds her lover—until she receives the touch of his love, the shade of his love, the warmth of his love—something within remains like stone. It can remain stone for eternity.

Understand it in another way. Woman is passivity. Woman is a receiving existence, a receptive existence—not aggressive. In the woman’s personality there is not only a womb; her very consciousness is womb‑like. Hence the English word “woman” is very interesting—it means “man with a womb.” Woman is a man with a womb. The whole being of woman is receptive, not aggressive. The whole personality of man is aggressive, not receptive. And the two are complementary; everything about woman and man is complementary. What is not in man is in woman; what is not in woman is in man. That is why together they can become whole.

A woman’s receptivity becomes waiting, and a man’s aggression becomes seeking. Ahalya will wait like a rock; Rama will not wait. Rama will search along many paths. It is a curious thing that hardly any woman has ever proposed love. She has received the proposal, not made it. Hardly any woman has taken the initiative in love on her own. It is not that a woman does not wish to take the initiative; nor that the initiative does not arise in her. But her initiative turns into waiting. Her initiative watches the road, keeps looking down the path—and can go on looking for endless lifetimes. In truth, whenever a woman attacks, something feminine is lost within her, and she becomes less attractive. In her endless waiting lies her meaning, her personality, her soul. The waiting can go on for eternity, but the woman cannot attack. She cannot go and say to someone, “I love you.” Even to the one she loves she cannot say it. She will wait for the one who loves her to say it someday. And even when he says it, her yes does not come straightaway. Even her yes takes the shape of a no. Her whole gesture will say yes, her entire being will say yes—but her voice will say no. Because if she says yes too soon, even that carries a trace of aggression. She will keep saying no. The man will take the initiative.

Someone may be waiting even for Krishna. And without Krishna, perhaps a woman may never be able to attain that joy, that elation, that flowering.

So in the codes of this land there was a very extraordinary rule—worth understanding. The rule was that ordinarily, generally, a woman neither attacks, nor proposes, nor petitions. But if ever a woman prays, it is unethical for the man to refuse. Because this is very rare. First, a woman does not make the proposal; but if ever she does, then it is unethical for the man to decline. And if the man refuses, he has denied his manhood. This rule could be made precisely because it is not something that happens commonly; it hardly occurs. Yet sometimes such moments come. There is one mention in Arjuna’s life, and I want to remind you of one more.

Arjuna was observing a vow of brahmacharya for one year. And a beautiful young woman saw him—saw that Arjuna engaged in austerity—and requested him: I would like to have sons like you. This too is very curious: even when a woman makes a request, she cannot manage to ask to become the beloved or the wife; she can ask to become a mother. Arjuna was in great difficulty. He was in his year of celibacy; it could not be broken. And the rule! And the rule is deeply meaningful and very male‑oriented: if a woman makes the request, to refuse is unethical. When the receptive power has made a plea to the male energy, and if the male energy refuses to flow, then it is no longer male energy. Arjuna was in great difficulty. But Arjuna said: I am ready—but where is the certainty that my sons will be like me? So it would be better that you accept me as your son. I become your son; your longing will be fulfilled. You want sons like me, yes? There is no certainty my son will be like me; therefore I become your son.

Precisely such an incident occurred in Bernard Shaw’s life. A French actress—the most beautiful—wrote to him and said that she wished to marry him. Although the Western woman has gone quite far from being womanly, even so she could only make a mother’s request. Even in her plea she said: I wish our sons to receive my beauty and your intelligence. I say the Western woman has moved far away from being a woman, and yet she could ask only in the idiom of motherhood. A woman feels no inferiority in asking to be a mother; because even then it is not a plea that makes her feel small. In becoming a mother she does not fall behind the man, nor descend lower. In motherhood the man’s role is but a small use; after that she does everything herself. But to be a wife is another matter: there it is not a small use of the man; it is the man’s full use.

Bernard Shaw faced the same predicament that Arjuna must have faced. But Arjuna, raised in the air of the East, gave an Eastern reply. Bernard Shaw’s answer was Western—and so the crudity of it is clear. Bernard Shaw wrote back: Madam, the reverse could also happen, as you say. It might be that our sons get your intelligence and my looks! In the East no man could have answered thus. This is a direct insult to the feminine power, a flat rejection of a woman’s request—and the refusal not even courteous, but discourteous.

For Krishna there is Kubja’s waiting—a waiting of lifetimes. Krishna cannot refuse. Refusal does not exist in Krishna’s life. And if Kubja desires union on the plane of the body, Krishna cannot refuse that either, because in Krishna’s vision there is no opposition to the body. The body is, and it has its place. The body is not everything—that is another matter—but the body is. It has its own flavor, its own joy, its own being. In Krishna’s mind there is no denial even of that. Krishna has drunk body and soul together; he has taken matter and the Divine together. Therefore, if he were to refuse even this—“no union on the bodily plane”—that too would be the masculine insulting the feminine. He is willing for union on the bodily plane as well. He is ready to fulfill Kubja’s longing. And in this readiness there is no effort to make himself ready; there is no trying in it. In this readiness there is a spontaneous acceptance of what is happening.

It is difficult for us. Krishna’s union on the bodily plane is difficult for us because we are dualists. We are people who proceed by taking body and soul as separate. In my seeing—and so too in Krishna’s—the body and the soul are not two; sex and yoga are not two; matter and God are not two. The body is that end of the soul which comes within the grasp of our eyes and hands; and the soul is that end of the body which slips beyond the grasp of our hands, eyes, and intellect. The body is visible soul, and the soul is invisible body. And the two are one; they break nowhere, they are nowhere fragmented. What we call sex on the plane of the body is yoga on the plane of the soul. What we call sex on the bodily plane is samadhi on the plane of the soul. In Krishna’s vision there is no opposition between sex and samadhi. Sex itself becomes the door to samadhi; and samadhi, descending to the plane of sex, sends down its rays.

But let Kubja’s part be known to Kubja. What it is for Krishna—that I am saying. That Kubja should have such a role, I do not think so. That for her sex could become samadhi, that too I do not think. But this is outside the point. What Kubja has asked for—the measure of her vessel—Krishna is willing to fill even that. He does not say, “You must bring an ocean‑sized vessel, because I have an ocean to give.” Kubja says, “I have only a small begging bowl; it holds only the body; I have no notion of soul and suchlike.” So Krishna will not send her back empty because she did not bring an oceanic bowl. No—Krishna will say, “Take as much as your vessel can hold.” Therefore, even on the bodily plane, union with Krishna became possible.

I did not call anyone inferior; I only called them different. Not low, just distinct. And one whose innermost nature lies close to Hanuman will not, on the basis of what I said, be able to take Hanuman as inferior. In my own innermost nature Hanuman does not fall close. So I cannot make a false statement while keeping someone else’s nature in mind. You asked me. I answered. If I had to choose, I would feel like choosing Meera. If I had to choose, I would feel like leaving Rama and choosing Krishna. And I have given my reasons for why it would feel so to me. It is not that you should choose Krishna and drop Rama. Understand what I am saying; that is enough. You must go where your own innermost nature takes you.

In my view, Rama’s personality is bounded by maryada—restraint, limit—and I believe even those who revere Rama would not say it is unbounded. In fact, they revere him precisely because he is within maryada. And for those whose minds live within maryada, Rama will be fitting. But what I am saying is that maryada means boundary. Things exist beyond the boundary too. Truth exists beyond the boundary as well. Therefore only the unbounded can encompass the whole truth; the bounded cannot. The whole truth can be encompassed by Krishna, not by Rama. And it is not that your tradition has made no distinction. Your tradition never calls Rama a complete incarnation; it calls Krishna alone the complete incarnation. Your tradition, too, makes this difference.

As for Hanuman and Meera, to my knowledge your tradition has never even compared them. There is no comparison there. About Rama and Krishna, yes, tradition compares—and in that comparison Krishna is the complete incarnation. And it is also clear that one who clings to Rama has not been able to accept Krishna—he has even plugged his ears lest the very name of Krishna should reach him. And one who holds to Krishna has not been able to understand Rama at all. Naturally.

But let me speak to the fact, because I am not a follower of anyone; I say what I see. I am no one’s follower—neither Krishna’s nor Rama’s. What I see is this: Rama has a personality that is clean, clear, polished. Krishna’s is not so tidy and clear; it cannot be. That is precisely his depth. Rama has taken a vast forest and cleared a small patch—cut, trimmed, cleaned. Trees have been removed, creepers removed, the grass cut, the stones taken away. The place has become very neat, fit for sitting. But the vast forest remains, surrounding that spot on all sides. That too exists.

D. H. Lawrence used to say again and again: When will we see man as a forest? Thus far we have seen man as a garden. Rama is a garden. Krishna is a vast forest, in which there is no arrangement, no cut and tidy beds, no made roads, no fixed trails; in which there are fierce creatures too, attacking lions too, darkness too, there may be thieves and bandits, life may be in danger. Krishna’s personality is like an immense forest—unmanaged, unplanned; as it is. Rama’s personality is like a small garden, a kitchen garden, planted beside your house. Everything is neat and clean. No danger, no wild animals. I am not saying you should not plant a kitchen garden. I am only saying: a kitchen garden is a kitchen garden; a forest is a forest. And when someday you get bored with the kitchen garden you will find that the real majesty lies only in the forest. It is not of our planting.

So your tradition has compared Rama and Krishna, but not Meera and Hanuman. There was little reason to compare Meera and Hanuman. But since the subject arose yesterday, I spoke. I said: when even Rama is a kitchen garden, where will you place Hanuman? He will remain a potted plant. If I call Rama a small garden laid out outside a bungalow—indeed, a bungalow should have a garden outside it; you cannot plant a forest outside a bungalow; that I know well—still, a garden is a garden, a forest is a forest. And sometimes when one wearies of the garden, one has to go toward the forest. And one day one should grow weary of the garden—that too is necessary. So where will you place Hanuman? Then Hanuman remains a potted plant. Very neat and clean. Many times even neater than Rama—because he occupies a smaller space, he can be even more immaculate.

Hanuman dances, sometimes! He can dance. When the wind blows over the bungalow’s garden, its plants also dance. And when the wind blows over a potted plant, that too sways. But in the forest, there is a tandava. That is another matter altogether. We are frightened of that. That dance is vast, beyond our control. This dancing here is within our control. Hanuman dances, but he will obey Rama’s command. Meera dances, and even if Krishna were to stop her, she would not stop. The differences are very fundamental. Meera will even scold Krishna. Hanuman will not be able to scold. Meera will say to Krishna as well: sit to one side, get out of the way; let the dance happen; do not come in between! Hanuman cannot do that. Hanuman is an obedient person, a disciplined man. In the world, discipline is needed—certainly needed. But whatever in life is vast, profound, serious—that is all beyond discipline. Whatever in life is beautiful, true, auspicious—bursts forth suddenly, without any discipline.

So I have said what I have seen. Such is Hanuman; such is Meera. As I see it, my choice is Meera’s. I am not telling you to choose. And I am speaking of difference. What is inferiority or superiority—each person will decide that for himself; it will be decided from within. To someone Hanuman may appear superior; by that he merely reveals what his criterion of superiority is. And when I say that to me Meera appears superior, all it means is what superiority means to me. In this, Hanuman and Meera are secondary—they are like pegs on which I hang myself.

When Charles Darwin first said that, looking at the human body, it seems to be the next link in the chain of some species of apes, it was very hard to accept. For a man who had long considered God his father to suddenly accept the ape as his father was difficult. To seat a monkey where God had been seated hurt the ego very deeply. But there was no way out. What Darwin was saying had powerful evidence behind it; all the scientific tools supported him. So, though there was much opposition, slowly it had to be accepted. There was no other way.

There is such closeness between the bodies of ape and man, such closeness even in intelligence, and such closeness in their ways of living and being, that it is hard to deny that in some way man is linked to the ape’s chain. Even today, when we walk along the road, our right arm swings with the left leg. There is no locomotion need for it now; you could keep both arms still and still walk. Even if both arms were cut off, a person would walk just as fast. Yet the right arm swings with the left leg—Darwin would say this is a habit from when the ape moved on all fours; habits don’t easily disappear. So even now, as you walk, the opposite arm and leg couple together. At some time, some ancestor of the human race walked on all fours. Otherwise there is no reason for this. Where the monkey’s tail is, we have an empty place—the bony linkage where a tail would attach still exists in all of us. The tail is gone, but the linkage is there; it tells us a tail must once have been.

In this sense Hanuman is very precious. Darwin knew nothing of Hanuman; had he known, he would have been delighted. For Hanuman’s being a monkey suggests he belongs to that transitional type—no longer fully ape, not yet fully man. There must have been a linkage in-between. Yes, there must have been people of a transitory period. Apes wouldn’t have become human in a single leap; for hundreds of thousands of years apes would have been turning into humans—some things falling away, some things growing. Over immense time the chain broke: some remained apes, some became human, and the middle segment disappeared. That missing middle—Hanuman stands as a symbol of it. That middle segment is no longer available; it is being searched for relentlessly across the earth, with a thousand kinds of excavations to find the bones of those links that must have existed between ape and man. If Hanuman’s bones could be found, they would help! When Darwin said these things, it was difficult, but gradually it was accepted, because the evidence was compelling.

I say something else as well. As far as the evolution of the body is concerned, the human body is the next link in the development of the ape. But as far as the human soul is concerned, the human soul is the next link after the cow. The journey of the soul that culminates in man passes through the cow, while the journey of the body passes through the ape. Of course, just as Darwin could marshal evidence for the ape, exactly similar evidence cannot be marshaled here—but another kind of evidence can.

Calling the cow “mother” is not only because this is an agrarian country. If that were the sole reason, we would have called the bull “father”—and we did not. The reason is not merely the cow’s usefulness in a farming culture. If it were only utility, we would not make a mother of anything useful! No one calls the train “mother,” though it is immensely useful and we cannot do without it even for a moment. No one makes an airplane a mother. Which nation has called useful things “mother”? So what is to be considered here is that, while everything useful has its utility, what has utility has no necessary relation to being called “mother.” To call something “mother,” there must be another reason.

That reason, in my own experience, is this: just as, by Darwin’s account, the ape is the father, so the cow is the mother. On what basis do I say this? The foundations are of psychic research—of the mind, of past-life recollection. Thousands of yogis, repeatedly experimenting, have experienced that as far back as memory reaches, there are human births; but beyond those human births, as memory deepens, the births as a cow begin. If you descend into the memory of your past lives, many births will be human—some fewer, some more—but where the human births end, before that the births as a cow begin. This is the fruit of past-life recollection. Those who investigated the memories of previous births found that after human memories, the first layer one encounters is that of memories as a cow. On the basis of this memory, the cow was called “mother.”

Even otherwise, if we look across the animal world, the kind of soul that shines in the cow appears in no other animal. If we look into the cow’s eyes, the humaneness that glimmers there does not glimmer in any other animal’s eyes. The simplicity, the humility we see in the cow, we do not see elsewhere. From the spiritual perspective, the cow seems the most evolved in the entire animal kingdom. Her spiritual quality is clearly the most developed. That developedness can itself be a sign, an indication, that her next step will be a spiritual leap. If we understand the ape’s physical restlessness, it can occur to us that it will soon leap beyond its present body. It cannot stay put; it can never be content with anything. It is endlessly restless, fidgety, perturbed. Notice newborn children: their bodies are arranged like the ape’s, but if you look into their eyes, the eyes are of the cow.

Therefore I say there is a reason for calling the cow mother. It did not happen merely because we were an agrarian culture. The reason lies in psychic and mental explorations. As psychic research grows worldwide, I don’t think it will be long before science supports this country’s discovery. It won’t take long.

Where is the difficulty then?
If we look at the Hindu avatars, it may occur to us: the series of avatars begins with the fish and goes up to Buddha. Once, this was very difficult to digest—fish as an avatar! Matsya avatar! Are you mad? But now, when science and biology say that the first manifestation of life began in the fish, we find ourselves in difficulty. Today you cannot mock this. It is hard to mock now, because science says it. And science has such an imprint on our minds that we then don’t mock. Science says fish is perhaps the first developed form of life; from fish, all further evolution happened. This country considered the fish the first avatar. Avatar simply means the descent of consciousness. Perhaps consciousness first descended upon the fish. So there is nothing wrong in calling the fish an avatar. The language there is religious. When science says fish seems to be the first life, its language is scientific.

We have another astonishing avatar—Narasimha, half animal and half man. When Darwin says there must have been intermediate links that were half animal and half human, we have no difficulty. But in grasping Narasimha as an avatar, we do. The language is religious, but deep insights are encompassed within it.

The cow is mother in the same sense in which the ape is father. Darwin worried about the body, because the West is occupied with the body. This country worried about the soul, because here the concern is with the soul. We were not much concerned about where the body comes from—from wherever it does. But we definitely wanted to know where the soul comes from. Thus our emphasis went not to the development of the body but to the development of the soul.

You also asked my view on cow slaughter.
I am not in favor of any slaughter. So there is no question of being in favor of cow slaughter. But whether I am in favor or not, slaughter will not stop. Circumstances will keep bringing it about. I am not in favor of meat-eating either. But whether I am or I’m not makes no difference; the circumstances are such that meat-eating will continue. It will continue because we still are not in a position to provide vegetarian food to the entire world. The whole world is far off; even if one country decided to become entirely vegetarian, it would perish. For a vegetarian world we need to arrange everything accordingly; we have not done so. Therefore meat-eating will continue as a kind of necessary evil. Cow slaughter too will continue as a necessary evil.

And the amusing thing is that those who are eager to stop cow slaughter make no effort to provide people what they presently get from it. Cow slaughter could stop someday—it may. And I believe it will stop because of those who are not at all in favor of banning it. It is not going to stop because of those who want it banned, because they make no arrangements for a ban; just slogans, laws, rules—these won’t do anything. Even today, the largest number of cows are here, and they are the weakest and most emaciated. Those who have few cows and practice a great deal of slaughter have vigorous, lively cows—one cow giving even forty liters of milk. If our cow gives half a liter, we feel greatly blessed! We are trying to keep these skeletons alive. To keep them alive, indirect means are necessary—supplementary nutrition beyond fodder. To this day, vegetarians have not adequately answered the nutritional needs that non-vegetarian food supplies. Their intention is right; their argument is proper.

It is striking that the cow is non–meat-eating, and the ape is also non–meat-eating. The human body comes from a non–meat-eating creature, and the soul too comes from a non–meat-eating creature. A monkey may occasionally eat ants and such—different matter—but it is not truly meat-eating. The cow certainly is not. Both evolutionary pathways are non–meat-eating, and yet why has man become meat-eating? The entire setup of the human body is that of a non–meat-eater. The structure of the intestines, the way the mind functions—all point that way. Yet man is meat-eating—out of compulsion. We have not yet been able to assemble a complete vegetarian diet for all.

In my understanding, therefore, cow slaughter will continue. It should not continue. Yet it will have to continue. It should not—but it will. It can stop only on the day we are ready to move humanity to synthetic food. Not before. The day we shift human beings to scientific nutrition, it can stop. Therefore my effort is not at all in shouting whether cow slaughter should be stopped or not—these are futile talks by which we waste time, and nothing happens or can happen. My concern is that we provide such food that can free man from meat-eating. Without synthetic food there is no way left on earth now. Food grown from soil will no longer suffice; we will have to use factory-made pills as nutrition. The human population is swinging between three-and-a-half and four billion. For such numbers there is no food solution. And this number will keep increasing daily, despite all our measures. And cow slaughter is a far-off matter—within thirty or forty years we may have to launch movements for human slaughter, for eating human beings! Just as today we say, when a person dies, donate your eyes—so we will say, before dying donate your flesh. There will be no other way. When numbers become so intense, there will be no other option. And those who donate their flesh will be honored, just as now we honor eye donors. The time will soon arrive when those cultures that burn corpses will seem unjust and inappropriate. And this is not unprecedented—there have been tribes that ate human beings because they had nothing else to eat. Where the condition of eating humans approaches, we are busy running movements to stop cow slaughter! This will not do; there is no scientific basis in it.

But slaughter can stop—all slaughter can stop. We need to take revolutionary steps regarding food. I am not in favor of cow slaughter, but neither am I in favor of the anti–cow slaughter camp. The anti–slaughter people talk sheer foolishness. They have no grand plan by which it could actually stop. It ought to stop. The cow should be the last animal to be killed—the final, pre-human link in evolution. Compassion for her is necessary. We have deep inner ties with her; they must be cared for. But that care can be maintained only when there is the capacity to afford it—otherwise not.

Let me tell a little story. I was telling it on the way the day before yesterday.
A priest was going to give a talk in a church. The distance was three or four miles, hilly terrain, ups and downs, and he was an old priest. He asked a village cart driver to take him there and said, “Whatever you charge, I’ll pay.” The driver said, “All right, the money is fine, but my horse is old—Ghaffar. We’ll have to be mindful of him.” The priest said, “That’s fine—whatever mercy you show the horse, I will show no less. He will be looked after.”

The journey began. After half a mile, an ascent started, and the driver said, “Please be kind enough to get down now. The horse is old; we must take care.” The priest got down. And so it went: whenever a slope came, the priest had to get down. Sometimes the slope was so steep even the driver had to get down. On that four-mile road the priest sat in the cart for barely one mile and walked three; precisely where a cart was needed he went on foot, and where it was not needed he sat in it. When they reached the church and the priest paid him, he said, “Take your money, but answer one question. I came to give a speech—that I understand. You came to earn money—that too I understand. But why did you bring Ghaffar? It would have been easier if just the two of us had come. Why bring this poor Ghaffar?”

Life is lived under necessities, not under doctrines. If man is on the verge of dying, cows cannot be saved. Cows can be saved when man becomes affluent enough to afford saving them. Then cows can be saved; other animals too can be saved. For if the cow is just one link behind, other animals are a few links further back. The fish too is a mother—only the relationship is more distant. If the cow is mother, why not the fish? The relation is more remote—that is all. As man becomes more prosperous and gathers resources, he will save not only the cow; he will save the fish as well. The outlook of saving must be clear. But insistence on saving, without the means, becomes foolishness.

Now sit for meditation; we will ask again tomorrow.