Question 16

QUESTIONER: WHAT YOU SAY IS POSSIBLE ONLY IN A STATE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, AND WE FIND EVERYTHING OF THAT ENLIGHTENMENT IN YOU. YOU ARE UTTERLY HUMBLE, BUT WHEN YOU COME OUT AS A RELENTLESS CRITIC, WE ARE ASSAILED BY DOUBT AND CONFUSION.

I am not going to do anything to destroy your doubt and confusion. A person who imposes humility on himself, who cultivates and practices humility, will always seem to be humble. But the humility that comes naturally, that is not imposed, cultivated, can be bold enough to be impolite if need be. Only a humble person can have the courage to be utterly impolite; only a man of love can afford to be hard-hitting if need be.

It is always possible that I will appear to be contradictory in many ways. That is what I have been telling you about Krishna -- that he is a bundle of contradictions. There are any number of contradictions in me, and you will encounter them often. I accept the whole of life, and that is my humility. If sometimes I feel like being harsh, I don't suppress it, I become harsh. I am not; there is no one to suppress anything. Similarly when I am humble, I am just humble. I don't come in the way of anything. I allow whatever is there to be and to express itself as it is. There is no effort on my part to become anything -- humble or arrogant. Therefore you will continue to be in confusion regarding me; it is not going to end.

Who, as you conceive it, is enlightened? Will you not accept Krishna as enlightened? But Krishna confuses you as much as I do. At times he seems to be departing from his enlightenment. When he takes up arms to fight in the battle of Kurkshetra, it seems he has lost his steadiness, his wisdom. But what is our concept of enlightenment, of wisdom that is unshakeable? Does it mean that an enlightened person acts the way we think to be the right way? Does it mean that his wisdom has been steadied in the way we think it should be?

No, steadfast wisdom does not mean wisdom that is inert and dead. It only means that one who has become enlightened, who has attained to the highest intelligence and wisdom allows this wisdom to act as it chooses. He is just a vehicle; he does not do a thing on his own. Such a person owns nothing, neither merit or demerit, neither virtue nor vice, neither respect nor disrespect. He does not say that what he does is right or wrong; he neither brags nor repents; now he does not look back on the past. He dies to every passing moment, and he lives in the moment at hand. He is not a doer; he just allows that which is, to happen. There is no one about him to oversee his spontaneity, to come in its way or decide for it. Now he is utterly choiceless.

So it is possible that sometimes I may appear to you to be harsh; I cannot help it. When I am harsh I am harsh, and when I am soft I am so. I have altogether ceased to be anything on my own; I don't insist any more that I should be this, that I should not be that.