To speak on Mahavira for so many days has been immensely blissful. It was as though I were speaking about myself. One cannot truly speak about the other. How can anything be said about someone else? Only in relation to oneself can truth happen.
And I have not spoken of Mahavira as if he were someone other, a stranger. I have spoken as though we were conversing about our own inner life. I have taken him merely as a device, and around him I have discussed all those questions that inevitably arise on the path of every seeker. That is what is essential.
Mahavira is not like a philosopher; he is a Siddha, a great yogi. The philosopher sits and thinks about life; the yogi lives life. The philosopher arrives at theories; the yogi arrives at the state of realization. Theory is conversation; realization is attainment. I have spoken of Mahavira as one who is no mere thinker. And I have spoken in such a way that those who listen and understand may not remain mere thinkers in life. Thought is wondrous, but it is not enough. Thought is precious, yet it does not take one anywhere. Without rising beyond thought no one reaches self-realization—realization of the Atman.
How did Mahavira rise beyond thought, by what meditation, by what Samadhi—these are the things we explored. How Mahavira attained the supreme life, and how, even after that attainment, he returned to give news of it—of that compassion we also spoke. As if a river, just before meeting the ocean, turns back for a moment to look—so, at the last station of his infinite journey, Mahavira turned to look back.
But only those can understand his turning back who are looking forward toward the final journey of their own life. Mahavira may look back, yet we can understand him only when we too are looking toward the next stages of our own journey. Otherwise, Mahavira cannot be understood.
Ordinarily, it is said twenty-five centuries have passed since Mahavira. He is an event of the past. That is what history will say. I will not say so. For the seeker, Mahavira is an event of the future. In his own vision he will someday reach to where Mahavira is. From the standpoint of history, he is a past event, time gone by. From the standpoint of the seeker, he is an event ahead. In some coming moment of his life he will reach where Mahavira reached. And until we reach that space, Mahavira cannot be understood. How will we understand an experience that has not yet happened to us? How can the blind understand light? And one who has never loved and never given love—how will he understand love? We can only understand as much as we are, where we are. Our understanding does not exceed our state of being.
Therefore, in relation to the great ones, it is inevitable that we are in non-understanding. It is exceedingly difficult to understand a great one without oneself becoming a great one. Until one stands where Krishna stands, where Christ stands, where Mohammed stands, where Mahavira stands—till then we do not comprehend. And whatever we do comprehend is, inevitably, filled with error.
Therefore remember this: if we wish to understand Mahavira, it is not possible to grasp him directly. To understand Mahavira, it is far more necessary to understand oneself deeply and to be transformed. But we go to understand through scriptures, and there the mistake begins! We go to understand through words, theories, tradition—and there the mistake begins! Only when we descend within ourselves and arrive at that very place where Mahavira once arrived, will we understand.
What I have said in these days has no reference to the scriptures. So it may be many will find these things difficult, even unacceptable; those with a scriptural intellect will find them very alien. They may even ask, where is all this in the scriptures?
I wish to say to them in advance: whether it is in the scriptures or not, whoever searches within will find all this. And there is no scripture greater than oneself, no other authority higher than one’s own realization.
They might also ask me: with what authority do you say this? To them too it is proper to say in advance that I hold no scriptural authority, nor am I a believer in the scriptures. In fact, what is written in scripture becomes suspect to me precisely because it is written in scripture. For it gives news of the mind of the writer, not of the mind of the one about whom it is written. Then the dust of centuries settles upon it. And nowhere has so much dust gathered as upon the scriptures.
I remember a story. A man went to sell a dictionary door to door. The lady of the house, wishing to dismiss him, said, we already have a dictionary; it is on the table there. We need nothing more. The man said, forgive me, lady! That is not a dictionary; it appears to be a holy book. The woman was quite troubled; it was indeed a holy book! But how, from a distance, did he recognize it? She asked, how did you know it is a sacred text? He said, the dust told me. Dust never gathers on a dictionary; every day someone opens it, looks into it, reads it—it is used. So much dust has gathered that it can only be a holy book!
Great dust gathers upon holy books. For we neither live them nor know them. Then dust goes on piling up—centuries of dust. Through that dust it becomes difficult even to recognize what is what.
Therefore, between Mahavira and myself I have not placed scripture; I have kept it aside. I have tried to see Mahavira directly. And we can see directly only that which we love. That which we do not love we cannot see directly. And only that which we love reveals itself to us fully.
As a bud opens into a flower when the sun rises, so too when we can love someone utterly, his life becomes the life of an open flower rather than a closed bud. What is needed is that we be capable of love. What is needed less is knowledge. Knowledge distances. And perhaps no one has ever known anyone through knowledge. Information becomes an obstacle. Through information one hardly ever becomes acquainted—it stands in between, becoming prejudice, bias. We already know in advance—and what we think we know in advance is exactly what we end up seeing.
One who goes to Mahavira assuming him to be God will find God in him, but that God will be his own imposition. One who goes deeming Mahavira an atheist, a great atheist, will find him to be exactly that; that atheism too will be his own projection. Whatever we assume as we go, that we find; for deep down we create and then discover our own assumption. And a person is such a vast phenomenon that all can be found in him. Then we choose. What we believe, we select—and what we return with, thinking we have known, is not knowing; it is but the echo of our own belief.
The way of knowing through love is different from the way of knowing through knowledge. Knowledge first knows, then sets out to search. Love does not know; it sets out—into the unknown, the uncharted, the unfamiliar. Love only opens the heart. Love only becomes a mirror so that whatsoever comes before it—whatsoever—what is, will be reflected in it. Therefore, apart from love, no one has ever known anyone. And we all try to know through knowledge—hence we do not know.
If we love Mahavira, we will recognize him. If we love Krishna, we will recognize him. And there is another delightful thing: one who loves Mahavira cannot avoid loving Krishna, Christ, Mohammed. If the lover of Mahavira says, since I love Mahavira how can I love Mohammed, know this: love is not with him. For if there is love for Mahavira, then that which he perceives in Mahavira will reveal itself, at a very deep level, in Mohammed, in Krishna, in Christ, in Confucius, in Zarathustra as well.
Love opens every bud. As the sun opens every bud and the petals unfold, in the end only flowering remains. Petals lose their separate meaning, fragrance becomes nameless, colors are forgotten. Ultimately what remains in every flower is the event of flowering—its blooming.
Mahavira blooms in one way, Krishna blooms in another. But one who has recognized the blooming of a flower will recognize this blooming everywhere in the world. If someone can love even one of these beings, he will descend into love for all.
But what appears is the opposite. The one who loves Mohammed not only fails to love Mahavira—he hates him! The one who loves Buddha cannot love Christ! Then our love becomes suspect. This means that this love is not love at all; perhaps deep down it is some self-interest, some bargain. Perhaps through our love we wish to get something from Mahavira! Perhaps even our love is a deep transaction—we are bargaining: we say, we shall give you this much love; what will you give us?
Then we become narrow in our love. And love becomes so confined that no difference remains between love and hate. For the love that becomes love for one and transforms into hate for the rest—how long will it remain love even for that one? Hate will become vast. One who loves Mahavira will love Mahavira and be unloving to all others. Unlove will grow so great that this tiny point of love will dissolve unnoticed.
I have heard of a woman in Burma, a lover of Buddha. She had a small, exquisite crystal image of Buddha that she always kept with her. If there was no temple of Buddha in a village for her morning worship, she would keep the image with her—she kept it always.
She came to a village where there was a temple of a thousand Buddhas—one temple with a thousand images. She stayed there. In the morning when she set her image for worship and lit incense, a thought arose: the incense will certainly reach my Buddha; but the other images will also receive it! Incense cannot be bound. It might even happen that my Buddha receives none—who can trust the wind? The incense might drift to the other Buddhas! For her love, this was impossible; her love was narrow.
So she did not light the incense. She first fashioned a small tin funnel, placed it over the incense, and then directed the smoke through the funnel to the nose of her Buddha! But then the face of her Buddha turned black! She repented deeply and wept. She went to the high priest of that temple and said, the face of my Buddha is spoiled! The priest said, narrow love always blackens the face of the one it loves. If love is so narrow, then the face of your beloved will turn black.
Narrow people have blackened the images of Mahavira, of Mohammed, of Buddha, of Krishna—of all! For narrow love is but a form of hate. The narrower love is, the more it fills with hatred. And when hatred is all around, how can a tiny drop of love be preserved in that great ocean of hate? A drop of love can survive only in a great ocean of love.
We should remember: only in a great ocean of love can a drop of love be preserved. In an ocean of hate it cannot be kept alive. But we desire that our tiny drop of love be saved while the rest is an ocean of hate!
There was a woman mystic among Muslims, Rabi’a. In the Qur’an there is a sentence: hate the devil. She crossed it out, inked it over! But who is to amend the Qur’an? It is improper. A dervish named Hasan was a guest in her house. In the morning when he opened the Qur’an to read, he saw an alteration had been made. He said, who is this foolish one who has amended the Qur’an? The Qur’an cannot be corrected. Rabi’a said, I had to correct it. Hasan said, you seem an infidel! You had the audacity to correct the Qur’an? This is a great sin.
Rabi’a said, sin or virtue, I do not know. There was a line, ‘hate the devil.’ But hatred has left my heart; even if the devil stands before me I am incapable of hate. I can only love the devil now. This has become inevitable, for my heart contains nothing but love. Where shall I bring hatred from for the devil?
And Rabi’a added, I will tell you something new: as long as hatred remained in my heart, there was no way to bring love for God. For if hatred lives in the heart, how will love for God arise? From where will love come? Not from the sky; it will come from the heart.
And both cannot exist together in one heart. Where there is hatred, love does not dwell; where there is love, hatred cannot reside. It is as in a room—where there is light, there is no darkness; where there is darkness, there is no light.
So Rabi’a said, I am in a great difficulty. If I must hate the devil, then whether I accept it or not, I shall continue to hate God also. I may give the name of love, but it will be false—for in a hating mind, where is love? And if I am to love God, then I will have to love the devil too, for in a loving heart there is no possibility of hatred. Hence I had to strike out that line. Even if it be deemed a great sin, there is no alternative.
Rabi’a spoke rightly: either our heart will be love-filled, or hate-filled.
It is impossible that a person love Mahavira and not love Buddha. Beyond Buddha and Mahavira, the truth is this: if a person loves, he can only love. Not merely the great ones—even ordinary people he will love. This loving is no longer a bargain; it has become his nature. There is no alternative: he will love.
As when a flower blossoms by the roadside and its fragrance spreads, the flower does not ask who passes by—good or bad, friend or foe, one’s own or a stranger. The fragrance spreads along the path, and whoever passes receives it. Nor is it that the flower stops its fragrance when it wishes, and releases when it wishes; nor that when the road is empty it withholds its scent. Even on an empty road its fragrance falls, for fragrance is the nature of the flower.
The day love becomes one’s nature, that day one can only love.
Therefore I wish to say: if love is limited and narrow, know that it is not love; it is a form of hate. Hence the follower is never truly loveful. The follower, the one who follows, is never loveful. For one who is loveful—how will he become a follower? Either he will be the follower of all, or of none. His love is so vast—whom will he go behind? To go behind one is to leave the other; to go behind one is to leave a thousand. One whose love is so large he cannot leave anyone—he goes behind no one; he ceases to be a follower.
Therefore I have said: I am not a follower of Mahavira, nor of Buddha, nor of Krishna. To go behind any one necessitates leaving all others. So I have gone behind none, and I do not tell anyone to go behind anyone.
There is another curious fact: one who goes behind someone cannot go within himself. For the direction of following is outward; the direction of going within is within. So the follower of anyone cannot arrive at self-experience. He has to go behind someone, whereas in self-experience all must be left and one must go within oneself.
Therefore I say: one who loves all has no way to grasp anyone. All are dropped—and he can go within.
Understand also this: only love liberates; hate binds. And the love that binds—I say even that is a form of hate. For love does not bind; it utterly frees. Love sets no bonds. Love neither halts upon someone nor stops someone; it neither restrains anyone nor makes anyone stay.
Love has no conditions, no bargain. Where there is love, there is supreme freedom. If we love even one, we shall find that the one became a door to the many. And when the one dissolved, who can say when, love had reached the many.
But we cannot love even one! In truth, we cannot love at all; for we are not loveful. We are full of knowledge, but very little full of love.
There are reasons. Knowledge has to be collected; love has to be given. What must be collected—we do, for it gratifies the ego. We accumulate wealth, we accumulate knowledge, we accumulate renunciation! Whatever can be accumulated, we accumulate.
But love is the reverse. Love is the only happening that cannot be collected; it must be distributed. You cannot accumulate love. A man may hoard wealth and become wealthy, but no one can hoard love and become a lover. The current of love flows in the opposite direction: the more you give, the more it is; the more you hoard, the less it becomes. One whose tendency is to accumulate cannot be a lover.
The scholar’s tendency is to accumulate; he accumulates knowledge. Knowledge can be amassed endlessly. And then he becomes incapable of knowing Mahavira or Buddha or Krishna. In truth, he does not know Krishna or Buddha or Mahavira; on the basis of his knowledge he reconstructs them. He fabricates a new person who never was. He fashions a figure suited to his knowledge. Hence the portraits of all great ones become false. The memory that collects around them is false; it is of our making.
There is no doorway to understanding anyone through knowledge; love is the doorway. For knowledge says, be such and such—only then will I accept you. Love says, however you are, I am ready to love. Love does not say, be like this.
If I love Mahavira, whether I find him clothed or naked I will love him. But a follower says, if Mahavira is naked, only then will I love; if he is not naked, he is ignorant!
An incident occurred. A friend of mine, a lady, had gone to Holland. There was an international Krishnamurti conference—six or seven thousand people from around the world had gathered to listen to Krishnamurti. One evening she went to a shop with two European women to buy a few things.
They were astonished to see Krishnamurti there buying ties! And not only ties—first it seemed wrong enough to them that a man of wisdom should be buying a tie in an ordinary shop; thus wisdom ended for them at once. And then he was trying this tie and that tie, none pleasing him—he had spread out all the ties in the shop.
Doubt arose in the minds of those three women: whom have we come so far to hear? And this man is buying a tie! And even matching colors—what blends, what does not!
The two European women said to my friend, we are not coming to the talks now. It is finished. We have troubled ourselves in vain, so far, to hear an ordinary man. One who still cares so much about clothes—what wisdom can he have! The two returned without attending the conference.
My friend went to Krishnamurti and said, you have no idea how much harm your tie-shopping has done! Two women have left the conference because they cannot accept that a wise man buys ties. Krishnamurti said, good—two have been freed of me; is that not something? Two have been liberated from me; is that not good? Two illusions have shattered; is that not good? He said, if I do not buy a tie shall I become wise? If wisdom has such a cheap condition, any fool can fulfill it. If such a trivial condition makes one wise, any simpleton can satisfy it. But on such cheap terms I do not wish to be wise. And those who are ready to think me wise on such terms—let them not think so; it is good, auspicious.
But we all carry such conditions. They exist because we have no love. We have our own concepts, and we try to measure a man by them. Remember, the more extraordinary the person, the more he shatters all concepts; he cannot be measured by any set notion. In truth, to be extraordinary means the old touchstones do not work on him. The extraordinary, the genius, not only recreates himself, he recreates the very standards by which he is to be measured.
Thus it happens that when Mahavira is born, the followers of earlier great ones cannot recognize him. Their touchstones—borrowed from the past—do not apply to Mahavira. The old follower of the old great ones has made fixed notions according to them; he tries to measure Mahavira by those notions. Mahavira does not fit—and is dismissed in vain. But then Mahavira’s follower tries to apply the same measures to Buddha—and again difficulty arises.
If our mind is filled with prejudice, we cannot love even a small person, let alone a great one. A wife cannot love her husband, because she has a fixed idea of how a husband should be. A husband cannot love his wife, because he has learned from scriptures how a wife should be and expects exactly that! He does not see the person who stands before him as wife or husband. Such a person has never existed; this is an utterly new person.
What I have said about Mahavira has no prior insistence behind it. I have not measured him on the basis of information, notions, or criteria. As he appears in my love, so I have spoken. And it is not necessary that as he appears in my love he should appear so in yours. If I insist on that, I am asking you to carry my notions. I have said what I have seen—as I am able to see him.
Therefore one thing must be kept continuously in mind—continuously: regarding Mahavira, whatever I have said, I have said, and I am present in it as much as Mahavira is. It is an exchange between Mahavira and me. It does not contain Mahavira alone, nor me alone; it contains both of us. Hence it is utterly impossible that what I have said should appear exactly the same to another. Impossible. I am not speaking of some objective Mahavira, standing there as a distant object. I am speaking of the Mahavira in whom I am included—the Mahavira who for me has become a subjective experience, an inward realization. So many difficulties will arise.
Whoever reads me may find it difficult to understand. The greatest difficulty will be that they cannot stand where I am standing. But this much grace from them will suffice—that they do not worry about that. Let them simply understand how one person, standing somewhere, has seen Mahavira. Then let them try to see from where they stand. It is not necessary that what they see should match mine; there is no need for it to match.
If my words are understood with such impartiality, then whoever understands with such impartiality will gain a marvelous skill in understanding Mahavira. And not only Mahavira; if he understands deeply, he will be equally capable of understanding Buddha, Mohammed, Krishna.
History writes what is seen from the outside. And what is seen from outside is a very small facet. Therefore, while writing very true things, history often becomes untrue.
There was a great historian named Burke who was writing a world history. For some fifteen years he wrote continuously—his whole life devoted to this work. One afternoon, while he was writing, there was a commotion behind his house. He opened the door and went back.
On the road beside his house a quarrel had broken out; a man had been murdered. A large crowd gathered. Hundreds were present—eyewitnesses. He asked one man, what happened? He said something. He asked a second—he said something else. A third—something else again. Eyewitnesses! The corpse lay there; blood was on the street; the police had not yet arrived; the killer had been caught. Yet each person told a different story. No two statements matched as to what had happened, how the fight began. Some blamed the killer; some blamed the one killed. This and that!
Burke began to laugh. People asked, why are you laughing? A man has been murdered! He said, I am laughing for another reason. He went inside and set fire to his fifteen years of labor, the world history he had been writing. And he wrote in his diary: I have been writing about events a thousand years old. An event occurs behind my house with eyewitnesses present, yet no two statements agree. Then regarding events thousands of years ago—how shall we accept what happened? Whom to accept? Who is witness? Who is right, who wrong? Burke wrote: history seems a fiction, not fact.
History may be a fiction if we try to grasp from too high above—and fiction may be truth if we grasp from deep within. The issue is not objective; the issue is always subjective.
So Mahavira is as important as the one who looks at Mahavira. One will see only what he can see. Can we carry Mahavira within and live with him—as a mother carries a child in her womb? When we love someone, we begin to carry him within us. The radiance that comes from such living—there is our share in it too. Mahavira is present there, and so are we. It is a deep involvement.
It is as deep as when, seeing a flower by the roadside, you say, how beautiful! You speak not only about the flower—you speak about yourself too. For perhaps someone else passing by says, what beauty? There is nothing beautiful—just a weed flower. He too speaks about the same flower. A hungry man at night looks at the moon; it appears like a loaf of bread floating in the sky.
Heinrich Heine, a German poet, wandered hungry in a forest for three days. On the full-moon night he said, astonishing! Until now I always saw women’s faces in the moon, and for the first time I see bread. I had never imagined the moon could look like bread. But to a hungry man it can. To a man hungry for three days, the moon seemed bread floating in the sky.
In ‘bread floating in the sky’ there is the moon, and there is also the gaze of a hungry man. A flower is beautiful—there is the flower, and there is the eye of one with aesthetic sense. No flower is so beautiful alone as the eye makes it—and the lover makes it—opening in it such nuances that perhaps a casual passerby never sees.
So whatever I have said is about Mahavira, but I am present in it. Whoever tries to understand both of us will be able to understand my words. One who understands only me will not; one who understands only Mahavira from scriptures will not. Here, as at a confluence of two rivers, the waters mingle and it becomes difficult to say which is which—such is the meeting. And I hold that only in such meeting does one river recognize another; otherwise, not even recognition is possible.
Therefore, with this prayerful note: I have set aside the dead, fixed, word-constructed image of Mahavira. I have tried to grasp a living Mahavira. This is possible only if we can pour so deep a love that our life-breath and his life-breath become one—only then can he be resurrected. And every time anyone approaches Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira, it must be thus. He must pour life into them again. Only by pouring one’s own life can one begin to see what is.
But even then, keep in mind: this is Mahavira as seen by one person. As seen by one, another has the supreme freedom to see otherwise. And there is no question of opposition, no conflict, no need for dispute between the two.
You ask, apart from the scriptures what basis can there be for what I have said? And I absolutely deny the basis of scriptures.
There was a fakir, Bokuju. He said many things about Buddha that are not in the scriptures! He gave many statements that are nowhere recorded. Scholars came to him with scriptures and said, where are these words of Buddha? They are not in the texts. Bokuju said, add them! They said, but Buddha never said this. Bokuju replied, if you meet Buddha, tell him Bokuju says he said it! And if he did not, he will say it!
Bokuju must have been a wondrous man. To make Buddha speak thus—this courage can come only from very deep love. It is no ordinary courage. It arises from such deep love that even Buddha has to make corrections.
Another story comes to mind. A saint was writing the story of Rama. He wrote such a wondrous Ramkatha—and read it every evening—that, it is said, even Hanuman became eager to come and listen in disguise. Hanuman had seen all; yet the story was so sweet that he too came in secret to hear.
The scene came where Hanuman went to Ashoka-vatika to meet Sita. The saint wrote: Hanuman went into Ashoka-vatika; there the flowers were white upon white. Hanuman could not bear it, for he had seen the flowers red. He himself had seen them. And this man had not seen; he was telling the tale after thousands of years.
Hanuman stood and said, forgive me—make a small correction: the flowers were not white; they were red. The man said, the flowers were white. Hanuman said, then I must clarify—I am Hanuman myself! Hanuman revealed himself. I am Hanuman, and I went! Now please correct it. The man said, no—you correct it; the flowers were white. Hanuman said, this is too much! After thousands of years you tell the story and deny me who was present—I myself came! You tell my story and deny me! The man said, the flowers were white; you correct your memory.
Hanuman, very angry, took the saint to Rama. He said to Rama, look at this man’s obstinacy! He forces me to correct my memory! The flowers in the grove were scarlet red. Rama said, the saint is right. The flowers were white; you correct your memory. Hanuman exclaimed, this is the limit! Rama said, you were so full of rage that your eyes were blood-red; the flowers appeared red to you. But they were white. The saint is right.
Many times—even if one has seen—it need not be the truth. And many times—even if one has not seen—it may be truth! Truth is a very mysterious thing.
Recently, in a city, a Buddhist monk came to see me. In some context I said: a man was sitting before Buddha, moving his big toe. Buddha was speaking. Buddha said to him, friend, why does your toe move? The man stopped his toe and said, you go on with your discourse—why bother about trifles? Buddha said, I will begin later. First let it be known: why does your toe move? The man said, I had not even known; how can I tell you why it was moving? Buddha said, you are a mad fellow—your toe moves and you do not know! If you are not aware of your body, awareness of the soul is far away.
The Buddhist monk asked, in which scripture is this written? I said, I do not know. I do not know where it is written. Another fakir in China used to tell this incident.
He said, it is not written anywhere in any scripture. I have read all the texts—there is no mention. Perhaps not. But the fakir who said it has as much authority as Buddha. And even if this incident did not occur, it ought to have occurred! I said to him, even if it did not happen, it does not matter—but it should have. The monk said, that I can accept; it should have happened. The point is such that it ought to have happened.
What difference does it make whether it occurred or not? Of little value is which event happened or did not. Of great value is what the event says. Buddha must have said, on many occasions, to people that one who is not awake to the body—how will he awaken to the soul? And many a time he must have checked people in their unconsciousness.
Now, how exactly the incident happened—that is secondary. What is important is that Buddha insists continually on awakening. And he does say that one asleep to the body cannot awaken to the soul; and often he must have caught people in their sleepiness—saying, look, you were asleep. And to the sleeping man it must be pointed out: here is your sleep. Only then can it break.
So the incident is absolutely true, even if it is not historical. And what does historicity add? What is history? When events are enacted upon the stage, it becomes history; when events remain behind the curtains, it is not history.
Thus, in this land and around the world, those who know are utterly wondrous. It is told that Valmiki wrote the story of Rama before Rama existed. This is a sweet and marvelous thing. Rama had not yet happened and Valmiki wrote the tale—and then Rama had to conform to the tale. What was written by Valmiki had to be done! Because Valmiki had written, there was no way; Rama had to become it—to do all that Valmiki had described!
This is astonishing—so astonishing it is baffling to think. That Rama should happen and then the story be written—we understand. But that Valmiki writes the story and then Rama must happen! And do exactly as written—for once Valmiki has written, it must be so!
So when Bokuju says, tell Buddha that then he should say it, if he has not said it—he speaks with the same authority with which Valmiki writes the story.
History is written afterward; truth can be written beforehand. Because truth means that which cannot be otherwise. History means what happened—but it could have been otherwise. Consider this well. History means what happened—but it might have been different; there is no compulsion. Truth means what can be, what could be—what cannot be otherwise.
With regard to people like Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus, we should not worry about history. History is of such a gross mind that these fine beings may slip through it—never caught. They must be seen with another eye—the eye of truth. Seen with that eye, many things will be revealed that history could not catch.
Therefore, what I have said—and what I shall say further about Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Christ—has no relation to historicity. Those with a historical intellect—there is no quarrel with them, no dispute.
The world can be seen through the eyes of a poet too. Then the world opens such mysteries as it never opens to those who see historically. Poetry has its own vision, its own philosophy. And because it is more filled with love, it is nearer to truth. Scriptures may agree with it, or not. Because we have not kept this in mind, it has become difficult to understand the chronicles written about these great ones in the past. For in composing those chronicles, the gaze was upon truth, not upon fact. Facts change daily; truth never changes. History keeps account of facts. Who will keep account of truth?
Therefore, those who cared deeply for truth did not even write history. It was meaningless to them who was born on which date, which tithi; meaningless who died when; meaningless who stood when, walked when, did what when. What was essential was the inner event that brought him near to truth, nearer to the sun. They created an entire arrangement to reveal that event. That arrangement may be wholly imaginary—and it does not matter. And history may be wholly factual—and yet be futile.
History says Jesus was the son of a carpenter. Those who saw truth said he is the Son of God. The fact is: he is a carpenter’s son—this much history can find. But those who saw Jesus knew he is the Son of the Divine. This is seen with another eye. And the two may not tally. For between a carpenter’s son and the Son of God—what a distance! What greater difference can there be?
Yet I will say: those who saw only the carpenter’s son did not recognize the one who came through the carpenter, but was not the carpenter’s son—whose arrival was from the great beyond.
No one recognized. When Jesus said, the whole kingdom is mine, and those who walk with me shall become owners of the kingdom—the Kingdom of God—those who knew only facts grew anxious. They thought Jesus sought revolt, to overthrow the real king. When Jesus was arrested and a crown of thorns placed upon him, and he was asked, are you a king? he said, yes. We win the kingdom; I am taking them to win the kingdom—the Kingdom of God! But still they could not understand what he said. Do you claim to be emperor? He said, yes, because I am emperor.
But this was sheer untruth to them. Jesus was not an emperor—he was the son of a poor man. He must be mad. In the crowd of thousands that gathered to crucify him, there were only a few who recognized that yes, he is a king. The rest said, finish him; what falsehood he speaks!
At the time of his death, Pilate—the governor, the viceroy by whose order the crucifixion took place—stood near and asked Jesus, what is truth?
Jesus remained silent. He did not answer.
The crucifixion happened. Pilate’s question remained standing: what is truth?
Why did Jesus not answer?
He did not answer because truth can only be seen or not seen—it cannot be asked.
Facts can be asked. What is the fact—this can be told.
When someone asks, what is truth—it cannot be told; it can be seen.
So Jesus stood silent—as if to say, look. If it is revealed, you will know what truth is—whether this man is a king or not. And if you ask only in terms of fact, then fine: this man is a carpenter’s son and fit to be crucified. For he is deranged and declares himself a king.
Lately I have pondered continually whether the intellect that grasps facts can grasp truth—and it seems to me: it cannot. To grasp truth a deeper eye is needed, one that penetrates the facts. Then such truths are touched as facts can never report.
Osho's Commentary
And I have not spoken of Mahavira as if he were someone other, a stranger. I have spoken as though we were conversing about our own inner life. I have taken him merely as a device, and around him I have discussed all those questions that inevitably arise on the path of every seeker. That is what is essential.
Mahavira is not like a philosopher; he is a Siddha, a great yogi. The philosopher sits and thinks about life; the yogi lives life. The philosopher arrives at theories; the yogi arrives at the state of realization. Theory is conversation; realization is attainment. I have spoken of Mahavira as one who is no mere thinker. And I have spoken in such a way that those who listen and understand may not remain mere thinkers in life. Thought is wondrous, but it is not enough. Thought is precious, yet it does not take one anywhere. Without rising beyond thought no one reaches self-realization—realization of the Atman.
How did Mahavira rise beyond thought, by what meditation, by what Samadhi—these are the things we explored. How Mahavira attained the supreme life, and how, even after that attainment, he returned to give news of it—of that compassion we also spoke. As if a river, just before meeting the ocean, turns back for a moment to look—so, at the last station of his infinite journey, Mahavira turned to look back.
But only those can understand his turning back who are looking forward toward the final journey of their own life. Mahavira may look back, yet we can understand him only when we too are looking toward the next stages of our own journey. Otherwise, Mahavira cannot be understood.
Ordinarily, it is said twenty-five centuries have passed since Mahavira. He is an event of the past. That is what history will say. I will not say so. For the seeker, Mahavira is an event of the future. In his own vision he will someday reach to where Mahavira is. From the standpoint of history, he is a past event, time gone by. From the standpoint of the seeker, he is an event ahead. In some coming moment of his life he will reach where Mahavira reached. And until we reach that space, Mahavira cannot be understood. How will we understand an experience that has not yet happened to us? How can the blind understand light? And one who has never loved and never given love—how will he understand love? We can only understand as much as we are, where we are. Our understanding does not exceed our state of being.
Therefore, in relation to the great ones, it is inevitable that we are in non-understanding. It is exceedingly difficult to understand a great one without oneself becoming a great one. Until one stands where Krishna stands, where Christ stands, where Mohammed stands, where Mahavira stands—till then we do not comprehend. And whatever we do comprehend is, inevitably, filled with error.
Therefore remember this: if we wish to understand Mahavira, it is not possible to grasp him directly. To understand Mahavira, it is far more necessary to understand oneself deeply and to be transformed. But we go to understand through scriptures, and there the mistake begins! We go to understand through words, theories, tradition—and there the mistake begins! Only when we descend within ourselves and arrive at that very place where Mahavira once arrived, will we understand.
What I have said in these days has no reference to the scriptures. So it may be many will find these things difficult, even unacceptable; those with a scriptural intellect will find them very alien. They may even ask, where is all this in the scriptures?
I wish to say to them in advance: whether it is in the scriptures or not, whoever searches within will find all this. And there is no scripture greater than oneself, no other authority higher than one’s own realization.
They might also ask me: with what authority do you say this? To them too it is proper to say in advance that I hold no scriptural authority, nor am I a believer in the scriptures. In fact, what is written in scripture becomes suspect to me precisely because it is written in scripture. For it gives news of the mind of the writer, not of the mind of the one about whom it is written. Then the dust of centuries settles upon it. And nowhere has so much dust gathered as upon the scriptures.
I remember a story. A man went to sell a dictionary door to door. The lady of the house, wishing to dismiss him, said, we already have a dictionary; it is on the table there. We need nothing more. The man said, forgive me, lady! That is not a dictionary; it appears to be a holy book. The woman was quite troubled; it was indeed a holy book! But how, from a distance, did he recognize it? She asked, how did you know it is a sacred text? He said, the dust told me. Dust never gathers on a dictionary; every day someone opens it, looks into it, reads it—it is used. So much dust has gathered that it can only be a holy book!
Great dust gathers upon holy books. For we neither live them nor know them. Then dust goes on piling up—centuries of dust. Through that dust it becomes difficult even to recognize what is what.
Therefore, between Mahavira and myself I have not placed scripture; I have kept it aside. I have tried to see Mahavira directly. And we can see directly only that which we love. That which we do not love we cannot see directly. And only that which we love reveals itself to us fully.
As a bud opens into a flower when the sun rises, so too when we can love someone utterly, his life becomes the life of an open flower rather than a closed bud. What is needed is that we be capable of love. What is needed less is knowledge. Knowledge distances. And perhaps no one has ever known anyone through knowledge. Information becomes an obstacle. Through information one hardly ever becomes acquainted—it stands in between, becoming prejudice, bias. We already know in advance—and what we think we know in advance is exactly what we end up seeing.
One who goes to Mahavira assuming him to be God will find God in him, but that God will be his own imposition. One who goes deeming Mahavira an atheist, a great atheist, will find him to be exactly that; that atheism too will be his own projection. Whatever we assume as we go, that we find; for deep down we create and then discover our own assumption. And a person is such a vast phenomenon that all can be found in him. Then we choose. What we believe, we select—and what we return with, thinking we have known, is not knowing; it is but the echo of our own belief.
The way of knowing through love is different from the way of knowing through knowledge. Knowledge first knows, then sets out to search. Love does not know; it sets out—into the unknown, the uncharted, the unfamiliar. Love only opens the heart. Love only becomes a mirror so that whatsoever comes before it—whatsoever—what is, will be reflected in it. Therefore, apart from love, no one has ever known anyone. And we all try to know through knowledge—hence we do not know.
If we love Mahavira, we will recognize him. If we love Krishna, we will recognize him. And there is another delightful thing: one who loves Mahavira cannot avoid loving Krishna, Christ, Mohammed. If the lover of Mahavira says, since I love Mahavira how can I love Mohammed, know this: love is not with him. For if there is love for Mahavira, then that which he perceives in Mahavira will reveal itself, at a very deep level, in Mohammed, in Krishna, in Christ, in Confucius, in Zarathustra as well.
Love opens every bud. As the sun opens every bud and the petals unfold, in the end only flowering remains. Petals lose their separate meaning, fragrance becomes nameless, colors are forgotten. Ultimately what remains in every flower is the event of flowering—its blooming.
Mahavira blooms in one way, Krishna blooms in another. But one who has recognized the blooming of a flower will recognize this blooming everywhere in the world. If someone can love even one of these beings, he will descend into love for all.
But what appears is the opposite. The one who loves Mohammed not only fails to love Mahavira—he hates him! The one who loves Buddha cannot love Christ! Then our love becomes suspect. This means that this love is not love at all; perhaps deep down it is some self-interest, some bargain. Perhaps through our love we wish to get something from Mahavira! Perhaps even our love is a deep transaction—we are bargaining: we say, we shall give you this much love; what will you give us?
Then we become narrow in our love. And love becomes so confined that no difference remains between love and hate. For the love that becomes love for one and transforms into hate for the rest—how long will it remain love even for that one? Hate will become vast. One who loves Mahavira will love Mahavira and be unloving to all others. Unlove will grow so great that this tiny point of love will dissolve unnoticed.
I have heard of a woman in Burma, a lover of Buddha. She had a small, exquisite crystal image of Buddha that she always kept with her. If there was no temple of Buddha in a village for her morning worship, she would keep the image with her—she kept it always.
She came to a village where there was a temple of a thousand Buddhas—one temple with a thousand images. She stayed there. In the morning when she set her image for worship and lit incense, a thought arose: the incense will certainly reach my Buddha; but the other images will also receive it! Incense cannot be bound. It might even happen that my Buddha receives none—who can trust the wind? The incense might drift to the other Buddhas! For her love, this was impossible; her love was narrow.
So she did not light the incense. She first fashioned a small tin funnel, placed it over the incense, and then directed the smoke through the funnel to the nose of her Buddha! But then the face of her Buddha turned black! She repented deeply and wept. She went to the high priest of that temple and said, the face of my Buddha is spoiled! The priest said, narrow love always blackens the face of the one it loves. If love is so narrow, then the face of your beloved will turn black.
Narrow people have blackened the images of Mahavira, of Mohammed, of Buddha, of Krishna—of all! For narrow love is but a form of hate. The narrower love is, the more it fills with hatred. And when hatred is all around, how can a tiny drop of love be preserved in that great ocean of hate? A drop of love can survive only in a great ocean of love.
We should remember: only in a great ocean of love can a drop of love be preserved. In an ocean of hate it cannot be kept alive. But we desire that our tiny drop of love be saved while the rest is an ocean of hate!
There was a woman mystic among Muslims, Rabi’a. In the Qur’an there is a sentence: hate the devil. She crossed it out, inked it over! But who is to amend the Qur’an? It is improper. A dervish named Hasan was a guest in her house. In the morning when he opened the Qur’an to read, he saw an alteration had been made. He said, who is this foolish one who has amended the Qur’an? The Qur’an cannot be corrected. Rabi’a said, I had to correct it. Hasan said, you seem an infidel! You had the audacity to correct the Qur’an? This is a great sin.
Rabi’a said, sin or virtue, I do not know. There was a line, ‘hate the devil.’ But hatred has left my heart; even if the devil stands before me I am incapable of hate. I can only love the devil now. This has become inevitable, for my heart contains nothing but love. Where shall I bring hatred from for the devil?
And Rabi’a added, I will tell you something new: as long as hatred remained in my heart, there was no way to bring love for God. For if hatred lives in the heart, how will love for God arise? From where will love come? Not from the sky; it will come from the heart.
And both cannot exist together in one heart. Where there is hatred, love does not dwell; where there is love, hatred cannot reside. It is as in a room—where there is light, there is no darkness; where there is darkness, there is no light.
So Rabi’a said, I am in a great difficulty. If I must hate the devil, then whether I accept it or not, I shall continue to hate God also. I may give the name of love, but it will be false—for in a hating mind, where is love? And if I am to love God, then I will have to love the devil too, for in a loving heart there is no possibility of hatred. Hence I had to strike out that line. Even if it be deemed a great sin, there is no alternative.
Rabi’a spoke rightly: either our heart will be love-filled, or hate-filled.
It is impossible that a person love Mahavira and not love Buddha. Beyond Buddha and Mahavira, the truth is this: if a person loves, he can only love. Not merely the great ones—even ordinary people he will love. This loving is no longer a bargain; it has become his nature. There is no alternative: he will love.
As when a flower blossoms by the roadside and its fragrance spreads, the flower does not ask who passes by—good or bad, friend or foe, one’s own or a stranger. The fragrance spreads along the path, and whoever passes receives it. Nor is it that the flower stops its fragrance when it wishes, and releases when it wishes; nor that when the road is empty it withholds its scent. Even on an empty road its fragrance falls, for fragrance is the nature of the flower.
The day love becomes one’s nature, that day one can only love.
Therefore I wish to say: if love is limited and narrow, know that it is not love; it is a form of hate. Hence the follower is never truly loveful. The follower, the one who follows, is never loveful. For one who is loveful—how will he become a follower? Either he will be the follower of all, or of none. His love is so vast—whom will he go behind? To go behind one is to leave the other; to go behind one is to leave a thousand. One whose love is so large he cannot leave anyone—he goes behind no one; he ceases to be a follower.
Therefore I have said: I am not a follower of Mahavira, nor of Buddha, nor of Krishna. To go behind any one necessitates leaving all others. So I have gone behind none, and I do not tell anyone to go behind anyone.
There is another curious fact: one who goes behind someone cannot go within himself. For the direction of following is outward; the direction of going within is within. So the follower of anyone cannot arrive at self-experience. He has to go behind someone, whereas in self-experience all must be left and one must go within oneself.
Therefore I say: one who loves all has no way to grasp anyone. All are dropped—and he can go within.
Understand also this: only love liberates; hate binds. And the love that binds—I say even that is a form of hate. For love does not bind; it utterly frees. Love sets no bonds. Love neither halts upon someone nor stops someone; it neither restrains anyone nor makes anyone stay.
Love has no conditions, no bargain. Where there is love, there is supreme freedom. If we love even one, we shall find that the one became a door to the many. And when the one dissolved, who can say when, love had reached the many.
But we cannot love even one! In truth, we cannot love at all; for we are not loveful. We are full of knowledge, but very little full of love.
There are reasons. Knowledge has to be collected; love has to be given. What must be collected—we do, for it gratifies the ego. We accumulate wealth, we accumulate knowledge, we accumulate renunciation! Whatever can be accumulated, we accumulate.
But love is the reverse. Love is the only happening that cannot be collected; it must be distributed. You cannot accumulate love. A man may hoard wealth and become wealthy, but no one can hoard love and become a lover. The current of love flows in the opposite direction: the more you give, the more it is; the more you hoard, the less it becomes. One whose tendency is to accumulate cannot be a lover.
The scholar’s tendency is to accumulate; he accumulates knowledge. Knowledge can be amassed endlessly. And then he becomes incapable of knowing Mahavira or Buddha or Krishna. In truth, he does not know Krishna or Buddha or Mahavira; on the basis of his knowledge he reconstructs them. He fabricates a new person who never was. He fashions a figure suited to his knowledge. Hence the portraits of all great ones become false. The memory that collects around them is false; it is of our making.
There is no doorway to understanding anyone through knowledge; love is the doorway. For knowledge says, be such and such—only then will I accept you. Love says, however you are, I am ready to love. Love does not say, be like this.
If I love Mahavira, whether I find him clothed or naked I will love him. But a follower says, if Mahavira is naked, only then will I love; if he is not naked, he is ignorant!
An incident occurred. A friend of mine, a lady, had gone to Holland. There was an international Krishnamurti conference—six or seven thousand people from around the world had gathered to listen to Krishnamurti. One evening she went to a shop with two European women to buy a few things.
They were astonished to see Krishnamurti there buying ties! And not only ties—first it seemed wrong enough to them that a man of wisdom should be buying a tie in an ordinary shop; thus wisdom ended for them at once. And then he was trying this tie and that tie, none pleasing him—he had spread out all the ties in the shop.
Doubt arose in the minds of those three women: whom have we come so far to hear? And this man is buying a tie! And even matching colors—what blends, what does not!
The two European women said to my friend, we are not coming to the talks now. It is finished. We have troubled ourselves in vain, so far, to hear an ordinary man. One who still cares so much about clothes—what wisdom can he have! The two returned without attending the conference.
My friend went to Krishnamurti and said, you have no idea how much harm your tie-shopping has done! Two women have left the conference because they cannot accept that a wise man buys ties. Krishnamurti said, good—two have been freed of me; is that not something? Two have been liberated from me; is that not good? Two illusions have shattered; is that not good? He said, if I do not buy a tie shall I become wise? If wisdom has such a cheap condition, any fool can fulfill it. If such a trivial condition makes one wise, any simpleton can satisfy it. But on such cheap terms I do not wish to be wise. And those who are ready to think me wise on such terms—let them not think so; it is good, auspicious.
But we all carry such conditions. They exist because we have no love. We have our own concepts, and we try to measure a man by them. Remember, the more extraordinary the person, the more he shatters all concepts; he cannot be measured by any set notion. In truth, to be extraordinary means the old touchstones do not work on him. The extraordinary, the genius, not only recreates himself, he recreates the very standards by which he is to be measured.
Thus it happens that when Mahavira is born, the followers of earlier great ones cannot recognize him. Their touchstones—borrowed from the past—do not apply to Mahavira. The old follower of the old great ones has made fixed notions according to them; he tries to measure Mahavira by those notions. Mahavira does not fit—and is dismissed in vain. But then Mahavira’s follower tries to apply the same measures to Buddha—and again difficulty arises.
If our mind is filled with prejudice, we cannot love even a small person, let alone a great one. A wife cannot love her husband, because she has a fixed idea of how a husband should be. A husband cannot love his wife, because he has learned from scriptures how a wife should be and expects exactly that! He does not see the person who stands before him as wife or husband. Such a person has never existed; this is an utterly new person.
What I have said about Mahavira has no prior insistence behind it. I have not measured him on the basis of information, notions, or criteria. As he appears in my love, so I have spoken. And it is not necessary that as he appears in my love he should appear so in yours. If I insist on that, I am asking you to carry my notions. I have said what I have seen—as I am able to see him.
Therefore one thing must be kept continuously in mind—continuously: regarding Mahavira, whatever I have said, I have said, and I am present in it as much as Mahavira is. It is an exchange between Mahavira and me. It does not contain Mahavira alone, nor me alone; it contains both of us. Hence it is utterly impossible that what I have said should appear exactly the same to another. Impossible. I am not speaking of some objective Mahavira, standing there as a distant object. I am speaking of the Mahavira in whom I am included—the Mahavira who for me has become a subjective experience, an inward realization. So many difficulties will arise.
Whoever reads me may find it difficult to understand. The greatest difficulty will be that they cannot stand where I am standing. But this much grace from them will suffice—that they do not worry about that. Let them simply understand how one person, standing somewhere, has seen Mahavira. Then let them try to see from where they stand. It is not necessary that what they see should match mine; there is no need for it to match.
If my words are understood with such impartiality, then whoever understands with such impartiality will gain a marvelous skill in understanding Mahavira. And not only Mahavira; if he understands deeply, he will be equally capable of understanding Buddha, Mohammed, Krishna.
History writes what is seen from the outside. And what is seen from outside is a very small facet. Therefore, while writing very true things, history often becomes untrue.
There was a great historian named Burke who was writing a world history. For some fifteen years he wrote continuously—his whole life devoted to this work. One afternoon, while he was writing, there was a commotion behind his house. He opened the door and went back.
On the road beside his house a quarrel had broken out; a man had been murdered. A large crowd gathered. Hundreds were present—eyewitnesses. He asked one man, what happened? He said something. He asked a second—he said something else. A third—something else again. Eyewitnesses! The corpse lay there; blood was on the street; the police had not yet arrived; the killer had been caught. Yet each person told a different story. No two statements matched as to what had happened, how the fight began. Some blamed the killer; some blamed the one killed. This and that!
Burke began to laugh. People asked, why are you laughing? A man has been murdered! He said, I am laughing for another reason. He went inside and set fire to his fifteen years of labor, the world history he had been writing. And he wrote in his diary: I have been writing about events a thousand years old. An event occurs behind my house with eyewitnesses present, yet no two statements agree. Then regarding events thousands of years ago—how shall we accept what happened? Whom to accept? Who is witness? Who is right, who wrong? Burke wrote: history seems a fiction, not fact.
History may be a fiction if we try to grasp from too high above—and fiction may be truth if we grasp from deep within. The issue is not objective; the issue is always subjective.
So Mahavira is as important as the one who looks at Mahavira. One will see only what he can see. Can we carry Mahavira within and live with him—as a mother carries a child in her womb? When we love someone, we begin to carry him within us. The radiance that comes from such living—there is our share in it too. Mahavira is present there, and so are we. It is a deep involvement.
It is as deep as when, seeing a flower by the roadside, you say, how beautiful! You speak not only about the flower—you speak about yourself too. For perhaps someone else passing by says, what beauty? There is nothing beautiful—just a weed flower. He too speaks about the same flower. A hungry man at night looks at the moon; it appears like a loaf of bread floating in the sky.
Heinrich Heine, a German poet, wandered hungry in a forest for three days. On the full-moon night he said, astonishing! Until now I always saw women’s faces in the moon, and for the first time I see bread. I had never imagined the moon could look like bread. But to a hungry man it can. To a man hungry for three days, the moon seemed bread floating in the sky.
In ‘bread floating in the sky’ there is the moon, and there is also the gaze of a hungry man. A flower is beautiful—there is the flower, and there is the eye of one with aesthetic sense. No flower is so beautiful alone as the eye makes it—and the lover makes it—opening in it such nuances that perhaps a casual passerby never sees.
So whatever I have said is about Mahavira, but I am present in it. Whoever tries to understand both of us will be able to understand my words. One who understands only me will not; one who understands only Mahavira from scriptures will not. Here, as at a confluence of two rivers, the waters mingle and it becomes difficult to say which is which—such is the meeting. And I hold that only in such meeting does one river recognize another; otherwise, not even recognition is possible.
Therefore, with this prayerful note: I have set aside the dead, fixed, word-constructed image of Mahavira. I have tried to grasp a living Mahavira. This is possible only if we can pour so deep a love that our life-breath and his life-breath become one—only then can he be resurrected. And every time anyone approaches Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira, it must be thus. He must pour life into them again. Only by pouring one’s own life can one begin to see what is.
But even then, keep in mind: this is Mahavira as seen by one person. As seen by one, another has the supreme freedom to see otherwise. And there is no question of opposition, no conflict, no need for dispute between the two.
You ask, apart from the scriptures what basis can there be for what I have said? And I absolutely deny the basis of scriptures.
There was a fakir, Bokuju. He said many things about Buddha that are not in the scriptures! He gave many statements that are nowhere recorded. Scholars came to him with scriptures and said, where are these words of Buddha? They are not in the texts. Bokuju said, add them! They said, but Buddha never said this. Bokuju replied, if you meet Buddha, tell him Bokuju says he said it! And if he did not, he will say it!
Bokuju must have been a wondrous man. To make Buddha speak thus—this courage can come only from very deep love. It is no ordinary courage. It arises from such deep love that even Buddha has to make corrections.
Another story comes to mind. A saint was writing the story of Rama. He wrote such a wondrous Ramkatha—and read it every evening—that, it is said, even Hanuman became eager to come and listen in disguise. Hanuman had seen all; yet the story was so sweet that he too came in secret to hear.
The scene came where Hanuman went to Ashoka-vatika to meet Sita. The saint wrote: Hanuman went into Ashoka-vatika; there the flowers were white upon white. Hanuman could not bear it, for he had seen the flowers red. He himself had seen them. And this man had not seen; he was telling the tale after thousands of years.
Hanuman stood and said, forgive me—make a small correction: the flowers were not white; they were red. The man said, the flowers were white. Hanuman said, then I must clarify—I am Hanuman myself! Hanuman revealed himself. I am Hanuman, and I went! Now please correct it. The man said, no—you correct it; the flowers were white. Hanuman said, this is too much! After thousands of years you tell the story and deny me who was present—I myself came! You tell my story and deny me! The man said, the flowers were white; you correct your memory.
Hanuman, very angry, took the saint to Rama. He said to Rama, look at this man’s obstinacy! He forces me to correct my memory! The flowers in the grove were scarlet red. Rama said, the saint is right. The flowers were white; you correct your memory. Hanuman exclaimed, this is the limit! Rama said, you were so full of rage that your eyes were blood-red; the flowers appeared red to you. But they were white. The saint is right.
Many times—even if one has seen—it need not be the truth. And many times—even if one has not seen—it may be truth! Truth is a very mysterious thing.
Recently, in a city, a Buddhist monk came to see me. In some context I said: a man was sitting before Buddha, moving his big toe. Buddha was speaking. Buddha said to him, friend, why does your toe move? The man stopped his toe and said, you go on with your discourse—why bother about trifles? Buddha said, I will begin later. First let it be known: why does your toe move? The man said, I had not even known; how can I tell you why it was moving? Buddha said, you are a mad fellow—your toe moves and you do not know! If you are not aware of your body, awareness of the soul is far away.
The Buddhist monk asked, in which scripture is this written? I said, I do not know. I do not know where it is written. Another fakir in China used to tell this incident.
He said, it is not written anywhere in any scripture. I have read all the texts—there is no mention. Perhaps not. But the fakir who said it has as much authority as Buddha. And even if this incident did not occur, it ought to have occurred! I said to him, even if it did not happen, it does not matter—but it should have. The monk said, that I can accept; it should have happened. The point is such that it ought to have happened.
What difference does it make whether it occurred or not? Of little value is which event happened or did not. Of great value is what the event says. Buddha must have said, on many occasions, to people that one who is not awake to the body—how will he awaken to the soul? And many a time he must have checked people in their unconsciousness.
Now, how exactly the incident happened—that is secondary. What is important is that Buddha insists continually on awakening. And he does say that one asleep to the body cannot awaken to the soul; and often he must have caught people in their sleepiness—saying, look, you were asleep. And to the sleeping man it must be pointed out: here is your sleep. Only then can it break.
So the incident is absolutely true, even if it is not historical. And what does historicity add? What is history? When events are enacted upon the stage, it becomes history; when events remain behind the curtains, it is not history.
Thus, in this land and around the world, those who know are utterly wondrous. It is told that Valmiki wrote the story of Rama before Rama existed. This is a sweet and marvelous thing. Rama had not yet happened and Valmiki wrote the tale—and then Rama had to conform to the tale. What was written by Valmiki had to be done! Because Valmiki had written, there was no way; Rama had to become it—to do all that Valmiki had described!
This is astonishing—so astonishing it is baffling to think. That Rama should happen and then the story be written—we understand. But that Valmiki writes the story and then Rama must happen! And do exactly as written—for once Valmiki has written, it must be so!
So when Bokuju says, tell Buddha that then he should say it, if he has not said it—he speaks with the same authority with which Valmiki writes the story.
History is written afterward; truth can be written beforehand. Because truth means that which cannot be otherwise. History means what happened—but it could have been otherwise. Consider this well. History means what happened—but it might have been different; there is no compulsion. Truth means what can be, what could be—what cannot be otherwise.
With regard to people like Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus, we should not worry about history. History is of such a gross mind that these fine beings may slip through it—never caught. They must be seen with another eye—the eye of truth. Seen with that eye, many things will be revealed that history could not catch.
Therefore, what I have said—and what I shall say further about Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Christ—has no relation to historicity. Those with a historical intellect—there is no quarrel with them, no dispute.
The world can be seen through the eyes of a poet too. Then the world opens such mysteries as it never opens to those who see historically. Poetry has its own vision, its own philosophy. And because it is more filled with love, it is nearer to truth. Scriptures may agree with it, or not. Because we have not kept this in mind, it has become difficult to understand the chronicles written about these great ones in the past. For in composing those chronicles, the gaze was upon truth, not upon fact. Facts change daily; truth never changes. History keeps account of facts. Who will keep account of truth?
Therefore, those who cared deeply for truth did not even write history. It was meaningless to them who was born on which date, which tithi; meaningless who died when; meaningless who stood when, walked when, did what when. What was essential was the inner event that brought him near to truth, nearer to the sun. They created an entire arrangement to reveal that event. That arrangement may be wholly imaginary—and it does not matter. And history may be wholly factual—and yet be futile.
History says Jesus was the son of a carpenter. Those who saw truth said he is the Son of God. The fact is: he is a carpenter’s son—this much history can find. But those who saw Jesus knew he is the Son of the Divine. This is seen with another eye. And the two may not tally. For between a carpenter’s son and the Son of God—what a distance! What greater difference can there be?
Yet I will say: those who saw only the carpenter’s son did not recognize the one who came through the carpenter, but was not the carpenter’s son—whose arrival was from the great beyond.
No one recognized. When Jesus said, the whole kingdom is mine, and those who walk with me shall become owners of the kingdom—the Kingdom of God—those who knew only facts grew anxious. They thought Jesus sought revolt, to overthrow the real king. When Jesus was arrested and a crown of thorns placed upon him, and he was asked, are you a king? he said, yes. We win the kingdom; I am taking them to win the kingdom—the Kingdom of God! But still they could not understand what he said. Do you claim to be emperor? He said, yes, because I am emperor.
But this was sheer untruth to them. Jesus was not an emperor—he was the son of a poor man. He must be mad. In the crowd of thousands that gathered to crucify him, there were only a few who recognized that yes, he is a king. The rest said, finish him; what falsehood he speaks!
At the time of his death, Pilate—the governor, the viceroy by whose order the crucifixion took place—stood near and asked Jesus, what is truth?
Jesus remained silent. He did not answer.
The crucifixion happened. Pilate’s question remained standing: what is truth?
Why did Jesus not answer?
He did not answer because truth can only be seen or not seen—it cannot be asked.
Facts can be asked. What is the fact—this can be told.
When someone asks, what is truth—it cannot be told; it can be seen.
So Jesus stood silent—as if to say, look. If it is revealed, you will know what truth is—whether this man is a king or not. And if you ask only in terms of fact, then fine: this man is a carpenter’s son and fit to be crucified. For he is deranged and declares himself a king.
Lately I have pondered continually whether the intellect that grasps facts can grasp truth—and it seems to me: it cannot. To grasp truth a deeper eye is needed, one that penetrates the facts. Then such truths are touched as facts can never report.
From this vision all this has been said.