Question 2

QUESTIONER: WHO HAS EVER UNDERSTOOD AND IMBIBED KRISHNA RIGHTLY? WHAT SHOULD ONE DO TO IMBIBE HIM? CAN YOU GIVE AN OUTLINE OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION AND CULTURE PATTERNED ON. KRISHNA'S LIFE AND TEACHINGS?

How can one imbibe another? How can one take after Krishna or anyone else? And why? Is it incumbent on me to imbibe another, become like another? I can only imbibe and be myself, not Krishna.

Krishna does not pattern himself after another. He imbibes himself and remains himself. Why should another try to pattern himself after Krishna, to be like him? It is enough that I imbibe myself and am totally myself. No, to imbibe another, to be like another, is the worst kind of corruption, and it is the greatest injustice that someone can do to himself.

The whole idea of imitation is mistaken and wrong. I have my own soul which should come to its full flowering. What will happen to it, to my own soul if I imbibe another and copy him? It is true, I can impose another's personality on myself, which can overpower me, but what will happen to me, to my own being? I owe a responsibility to myself, and if I become like someone else I will be betraying myself.

No, it is enough if one understands Krishna. Trying to be like him is utterly uncalled for. Understanding is enough. And one should understand him, not with a view to imbibe and imitate him, to be his carbon-copy, but to understand himself and be himself.

You certainly have to know how a person like Krishna is fulfilled and also know the laws of this fulfillment. You certainly have to understand how Krishna attains to his naturalness and spontaneity, so that you can come to your own naturalness and spontaneity. Krishna's life can give you a cue, a clue to know yourself and come to yourself. If Krishna can flower, why not you? If Krishna's self-nature can blossom, why should you go on withering and wasting as you do? If Krishna can laugh and sing and dance, why should you continue to shed tears and be miserable?

It is not that you will dance the way Krishna dances. Your dance will be different, it will be your own; you will uncover your own innate dance. You don't have to copy Krishna's dance, you have only to know the law that helped him to find his dance and be fulfilled. Krishna's life can help you in self discovery, which is of the highest. Self discovery, and not assimilation or imitation, is what you have to seek. And Krishna's life can be of tremendous help in this adventure.

So the first thing to know is that no one can be your ideal, not even Krishna. And you need not follow and imitate another, Krishna included.

It is true that any number of people have wasted their lives following and imitating others. In reality, no one can wholly succeed in becoming like another; it is impossible. You can impose another's personality on yourself, wear his mask and look like him, but you cannot make your very soul into him. Do what you can, you cannot succeed; at best you can enact him, but it will not be more than acting. Being cannot be borrowed; it is always one's own. In spite of all efforts, you will remain what you innately are.

Imitation is dangerous in many ways. To imitate someone you have to suppress yourself, suppress your individuality, your self-nature. And this suppression can be so deep that you will lose all con tact with yourself -- which is the worst thing that can happen to any individual. Although you will yet survive at your innermost core as yourself, you will now be far removed from yourself. That is the problem.

Millions of people down the ages have tried to imitate Krishna, Buddha, Christ and others, but none has succeeded so far. Success is impossible. Five thousand years have passed since Krishna happened, but there has not been a second Krishna in all history. Twenty-five hundred years have passed after Buddha, and there has not yet been another Buddha. Nor has there been another Zarathustra, Jesus, or Mohammed.

Whosoever tries to imitate others is destined to court failure. It is really worse than failure, it is disaster, it is suicide. Even as suicide it is the worst kind. In ordinary suicide, as we know, only one's physical form is destroyed. In this suicide the very soul is sought to be destroyed. So all followers, all disciples, all imitators are suicidal.

Many people try to imitate Krishna, and in the process they not only injure themselves but they also injure Krishna. If you copy Krishna, you will, with all your efforts, make yourself a caricature of him. And this thing will not only distort you, but it will also distort Krishna's image. You will imitate him in your own way, and to that extent you will distort him, you will adulterate him.

So you are not only insulting and abusing yourself, but you are also insulting and abusing Krishna. So this imitation is really outrageous. All theologians, all priests -- whether they follow Krishna or Christ -- are guilty of this crime. And they all tell the same story -- the story of man's failure to be himself, the story of man's attempts at suicide.

But we cannot say the same thing about Meera and Chaitanya. They are a class by themselves, and they are certainly no imitators. Through understanding Krishna's ways of expressing himself, his self nature, Meera and Chaitanya express themselves as they are; they reveal their own distinctive self natures. They don't impose Krishna on themselves, nor do they ape his lifestyle, his demeanor, his songs and dances. They sing their own songs; they dance their own dances.

So Meera remains Meera and Chaitanya re mains Chaitanya. Of course they carry with them their love of Krishna, and as this love grows Chaitanya and Meera disappear as egos. As this love grows even Krishna disappears and only love remains. If you ask Chaitanya if he is Chaitanya or Krishna in that moment, he will say, "I really don't know who I am; I even don't know if I am." In this moment even the "I" disappears, and only an "am-ness" remains. This is pure existence. And this achievement of Chaitanya is the flowering and fruition of his own self-nature. There is nothing of imitation about it,

We are all prone to imitate others. And there is a good reason for it. Imitation is like ready-made garments: buy and wear garments. You don't have to do a thing, not even to wait for them. It suits our easygoing minds which want everything gratuitously.

To explore ant find one's own innate being is arduous, to imitate Krishna is easy enough. It takes time to be oneself, but imitation comes in handy, Self nature, self-fulfillment, has to be earned, borrow ing is effortless, convenient.

But this pursuit of convenience is disastrous; it really lands one into the very vortex of sorrow and misery. So never commit the mistake of imitating others; it is utterly disastrous. It is calamitous.

I call him a religious person who goes on a voyage of self-discovery, who really discovers himself. In this adventure of self-discovery, understanding Krishna or Mahavira, Buddha or Jesus, can be helpful. Because in understanding others we lay the foundation of self-knowledge which is central to spiritualism. Instead of knowing oneself directly, it is easier to know through knowing others, because others provide you with a distance, a perspective to know.

Because there is a lack of distance between the knower and the known, direct self-knowledge is really arduous. So in understanding oneself, the other is helpful. But when you go to understand another -- Krishna, Buddha or Mahavira -- remember, he is only a means to self understanding and self discovery. He is not your goal.

You might have observed on many occasions that when somebody comes to consult you about a complex problem of his own, you advise him so competently. But when it comes to your own problem, even a simple problem, you begin to shake in your shoes.

What is the matter? You are considered to be a very wise man by many who rush to you in their hours of difficulty for your sage advice, and you have the reputation of solving many of their problems. But when you are yourself in a mess you rush to others -- perhaps to those very people you have helped -- for their advice. The reason is that you are so close to your problem, you are so involved in it, that you can't have the perspective to correctly figure it out.

It is comparatively easy to understand others and if we see others as a medium for self-understanding then the lives of men like Krishna and Buddha are of immense value. Then as we grow in self-understanding, Krishna and Christ, Mahavira and Buddha will drop by the wayside and we will be left with ourselves in our utter purity.

This purity of the self, this virginity, this un spoiled innocence is what matters. And attainment of this innocence, purity, is freedom. This ultimate purity or aloneness is called nirvana or ultimate liberation. This primeval innocence is called Krishna consciousness or God or what you will.

One who reaches this supreme state of being with the help of Krishna will say that he has attained to Krishna. This is a way of repaying an old debt that he owes to Krishna, this is a way of expressing one's gratitude to him. One who attains to this ultimate state with the help of Buddha, will say that he has attained Buddhahood. He is only expressing his gratitude to one whose life and teachings helped him in his arduous journey of self-discovery.

Ultimately, every seeker -- whether he walks with Krishna or Christ -- discovers himself. He cannot discover the other, because the other is not. The day I find myself, when I know who I am, the other, the "thou" ceases to be. But I will need some name to describe my experience, and certainly I will use one which helped me in coming to myself, in coming home.