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Krishna

THE MAN AND HIS PHILOSOPHY

Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 1

 

 

Energy Enhancement           Enlightened Texts            Krishna            Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy

 

 

Question 1

QUESTIONER: PLEASE EXPLAIN THE SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH KRISHNA WAS BORN. AND IS THERE SOME ANALOGY BETWEEN KRISHNA AND CHRIST IN REGARD TO THEIR BIRTHS?

Whether it is the birth of Krishna or Christ, or anybody else, it does not make a great difference. But we have always made a distinction between one birth and another, because of our failure to understand the meaning of some symbols of birth as given in mythology. So it is necessary to understand them.

It is said that Krishna was born on a dark night, on the night of the new moon. In fact, everything is born in the darkness of night, in the dark of the moon. The phenomenon of birth takes place in darkness: everything is born in darkness; nothing is born in daylight. Even as a seed opens and sprouts, it does so in the dark recesses of the earth. Although a flower blooms in light its birth takes place in the dark.

The process of birth is so mysterious it can only happen in darkness, it can only happen darkly. An idea, a poem, is first born in the dark recesses of the poet's mind, in the darkness of his unconscious. A painting takes root in the dark depths of the painter's mind. Similarly, meditation and ecstasy are born in the dark where the light of intellect cannot reach, where every process of mentation comes to a stop, where even knowledge ceases to be.

Legend has it that the night of Krishna's birth was one of total invisibility. But is there anything that is not born in the dark? It is the very ordinary process of birth. There is nothing extraordinary about it.

Another thing associated with Krishna's birth is that he was born in prison, in bondage. But who is not born in prison? Everyone is born in bondage. Maybe one is released from bondage before he dies, but it is not always necessary. By and large we are born in fetters and we die in fetters. The truth is that every birth binds us, limits us; entering a body is tantamount to entering a prison. It is a confinement. So whenever and wherever a soul comes to be born it is always born in jail.

It is unfortunate that this symbol has not been rightly understood. A highly poetic expression has been misinterpreted as an historical event. In fact, every birth takes place in prison; so also, every death -- with a few exceptions -- takes place in prison. Very few deaths happen in freedom; they are really rare. Mostly we are born in shackles and we also die in shackles. Birth is inescapably linked with bondage, but if one can become free before he dies he will be fulfilled, he will be blessed.

There is a third thing associated with the birth of Krishna, and it is fear of his death. There is a danger, a threat of his being killed. But does not everyone of us face the fear of death? With birth, death comes as the inevitable possibility. One can die just a moment after one is born. And one's every moment after birth is beset with the danger of death. One can die any moment, and this moment comes darkly, uninvited. Death has only one necessary condition attached to it, and that is the condition of birth. How can one die without being born? And a moment-old child is as eligible for death as a seventy year-old man. To die you don't need any other qualification than to be born.

Soon after his birth Krishna is confronted with the danger of death, with the fear of death. But this is precisely the case with each one of us. What do we do after being born? We begin to die and we continue to die. We die each day, each hour of our lives. What we know as life is nothing but a long and dreary journey towards death. It begins with birth and ends in death. That is all.

There is yet another thing associated with Krishna's birth which is very significant. It is that Krishna is confronted with any number of deadly dangers to his life, and he escapes them all. Whoever comes to kill him gets killed himself. We can say that death dies when it confronts Krishna. It uses every means to finish him and it fails utterly. This is very meaningful. It is not the same with all of us. Death can finish us in its very first attempt; we cannot escape its single onslaught. The truth is that we are as good as dead; a small stroke and we will be no more. We really don't know what life is; we don't know the life that defeats death.

Krishna's story is a story of life's victory over death. Death comes to him in countless forms and always goes back disappointed. We all know the many stories where death, in various guises, encircles Krishna and courts defeat after defeat at his hands. But we never care to go deeply into these stories and discover their truth. And there is a single truth underlying them all: it is that every day Krishna is triumphantly marching towards life and every day death is laying down its arms before him. Every conceivable means is used to destroy him and he frustrates them all and continues to live to the maximum. And then a day comes when death accepts defeat and surrenders to him. Krishna really represents life's triumph over death.

But this truth has not been said so plainly as I am now saying it to you. And there is a reason for it. People in past ages had no way to say it so plainly. And it would be good to understand this clearly.

The more we go back into olden times, the more we find that the way of thinking is pictorial, and not verbal. Even now when you dream, you may have noticed you use pictures and images instead of words. We still dream in pictures, because dreaming is our most primitive language. Our dreams have yet to be updated, modernized. With respect to dreams there is no difference whatsoever between modern man and the man who lived ten thousand years before him. Our dreams continue to be primitive; no one dreams in a modern way. Our dreams are as old as they were ten thousand years ago, even ten hundred thousand years ago. The way a man living in an air conditioned house dreams today is the same as the caveman in times immemorial. In the manner of dreaming no difference whatsoever has occurred between a caveman living in the vastness of the forests and a man living in a skyscraper in New York.

One distinctive feature of dreams is that they express themselves wholly in pictures. How does an ambitious person dream to express his ambition? He creates a picture that suitably expresses his ambition. Maybe he grows wings and flies high in the sky. All ambitious people invariably fly in their dreams. They fly higher and higher, leaving below the trees, the mountains, even the stars. It means their ambition knows no limits, that even the sky is not its limit. But their dreams will never use the word "ambition"; the picture of flying will say it much better.

One of the reasons we find it hard to understand our dreams is their pictorial language, which is utterly different from the verbal language we use in our everyday life. We speak through words in the daytime, and we speak through pictures when we dream in the night. While our daytime language is modern and up-to date, the language of our nocturnal dreams is the most primitive ever. There is a distance of millions of years between them. That is what makes it so hard to understand what a dream has to say.

Krishna is very old in the sense that his stories were written at a time when man thought about his life and his universe not so much in words as in symbols, in images and pictures. Therefore we now have to decode them to know what they want to convey. We have to translate them into our language of words.

It is significant that the life of Christ begins more or less in the same way as Krishna's; there is not much difference. For this reason a good many people had this illusion -- a few still cling to it -- that Christ never happened, that it is really the story of Krishna carried to Jerusalem.

There is great similarity between the stories of their births. Jesus too is born on a dark night; he too is born amid fear of death. Here King Kansa, his own uncle, is trying to kill Krishna; in Jerusalem King Herod is looking to kill Jesus. Kansa has a number of children killed in the fear that one of them will grow up and kill him. In Jerusalem Herod does the same: he has any number of newborn babes killed lest one of them later turns out to be his murderer.

But Christ is not Krishna. Jesus is a different person, and the rest of his story is quite different, his own. But the symbols and metaphors of their stories are very similar, because all primitive minds are very similar.

You will be amused to know that the language of dreams is the same all the world over. An Englishman, a Japanese and an Eskimo all dream alike. But the languages that we use in our daily life, for communication with one another, are quite different and diverse. And like the language of dreams, the language of the myths. mythologies and puranas is also the same all over the world. Therefore the symbols, pictures and parables describing the births of Krishna and Christ are approximately the same.

There is yet another reason for taking Krishna and Christ to be the same person. He was originally called Jesus and much later he became known as Christ, and there is much similarity between the two words, Krishna and Christ. So Christ came to be taken as a derivative of Krishna. I know a man whose name is Kristo Babu. When I asked him what his name meant, he said that originally his name was Krishna, which through long usage subsequently turned into Kristo. This is how words undergo metamorphosis. Then I told Kristo Babu why some people think that Christ is a derivative of Krishna.

Jesus is definitely a different person, but it is likely that the word Christ is a derivative of Krishna. After attaining enlightenment Jesus became known as Christ, as Gautam Siddhartha became known as Buddha and Vardhaman as Mahavira. It is just possible that Christ is a derivative of Krishna, and people of Jerusalem called Jesus after Krishna's name when he became a Master and a teacher in his own right.

Krishna and Christ are two different persons. There is similarity in the circumstances of their births, but this similarity is not because they are the same person, but because of the common symbols and metaphors used to describe their births.

Carl Gustav Jung has discovered a unique thing about man's mind which he calls the archetype. He says that in the depths of the mind of man there are some basic, primordial images that keep recurring, and they are the same all over the world. The same archetypical images have recurred in the stories of the births of Krishna and Christ. And as I said, if you rightly understand the phenomenon of birth you will know that the birth of every one of us is alike.

It is necessary to go into the meaning of the word Krishna. Krishna means the center, the center of gravitation, that which pulls, attracts everything towards itself. Krishna means the one who works as the center of a magnet, attracting everything to it.

In a sense every birth is the birth of Krishna, because the soul inside us is the center of gravitation that tends to draw bodies together. Our physical body is drawn and formed around this center. Family and society, even the world, are drawn and formed around it. Everything happens around that center of gravitation which we call Krishna. So whenever a person is born it is really Krishna born. First the-soul, the center of attraction is born, and then everything else begins to be structured around it. Crystallization takes place around Krishna, which leads to the formation of the individual. Therefore the birth of Krishna is not only the birth of a single individual, it is also the birth of everybody else.

The darkness, prison and fear of death associated with Krishna's birth have their own significance. But the question is why we associate them with Krishna in particular. I don't mean to say that the story of his birth taking place inside a prison is not true. I don't mean to say that he was not born in bondage. I want to say only this: it is not that relevant whether or not he was born in a prison, in bondage, what is relevant is that when a person of the stature of Krishna is made available to us we do include in his story the whole archetype of man's birth.

Remember, the story of a great person runs counter to our own. The story of an ordinary person begins with his birth and ends with his death; it has a sequence of events running from birth to death. But the story of a great one is written retrospectively for the simple reason that his greatness comes to be recognized much later and then his story is written. It takes years, nearly forty to fifty years, to recognize the greatness of a person like Krishna. Then a legend, a story begins to be formed around this glorious and unique person. And then we choose relevant pieces from his story, his life, and reinterpret them. Therefore I tell you that the story of a great person can never be historical, it is always poetic, mythical, mythological. It is so because it is written retrospectively.

When we look back on an event, when something is seen in retrospect, it becomes symbolic and takes on another meaning it never had at the time of its birth. And then the story of a person like Krishna is not written once and for all; every age writes and rewrites it. Moreover, thousands of writers write about him, and hence a thousand and one interpretations of a single life follow. And by and by Krishna's story ceases to be the story of an individual, Krishna turns into an institution. Krishna becomes the quintessence of all births, and all lives. In fact, his biography becomes the biography of all mankind.

Therefore I don't attach any importance to it in the sense of its being the story of a person, of an individual. A man like Krishna ceases to be an individual, he becomes the symbol, the archetype of our collective mind.

Let us understand it by way of an anecdote.

A great painter has made a portrait of a woman, a very beautiful woman. When his friends want to know who this woman is, he tells them, "This is not a picture of any one woman; she is the quintessence of thousands of beautiful women I have seen in the course of my life. Her eyes belong to one and her nose belongs to another and her lips to a third. I have taken different things from different women. Go all over the world, nowhere you will find a woman like her." So I tell you, don't believe a painter's picture of a woman and go out in search of her. Go where you will, you will not find her, you will only find ordinary women.

For this reason we often get into trouble; we are in search of women that don't exist except in paintings and poetry. The woman in a painting represents the cumulative beauty, the essence of thousands of women that a painter comes across. She is really thousands of women rolled into one; you can't find her in flesh and blood. She is the keynote of the song of countless women the painter came across in the course of his search for beauty.

So when a person like Krishna happens to be among us, the substance, the essence of millions of men and women is incorporated in him. So don't take him to be a single individual, separate from the rest of mankind. If someone looks for him in history he will not find him there. He is the symbol of mankind -- a particular segment of mankind born in this country. And all that this mankind has ever experienced has become part of Krishna.

In the same way the quintessence of another segment of humanity that lived in Jerusalem became part of Jesus. An ordinary individual comes and goes alone, but an archetype like Krishna continues to be supplemented ad infinitum. And this addictive process continues unimpeded. Every age will contribute its bit to his richness, to his affluence, in the form of its new experiences. The collective archetype will thus go on growing infinitely.

This is the significance of Krishna's birth as I see it. The events associated with his birth may or may not be historical; for me they have no importance whatsoever. For me, understanding Krishna in the light of these events is of the highest importance. And if you can see them in the right perspective you will also see that they are part and parcel of the stories of your own births too. And if you find an accord, a harmony between your birth and that of Krishna, you can, by the time you come to leave your body, also achieve an accord with Krishna's death, which is of the highest.

 

Next: Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 2

 

Energy Enhancement           Enlightened Texts            Krishna            Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy

 

 

Chapter 6

 

  • Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 1
    Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 1, PLEASE EXPLAIN THE SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH KRISHNA WAS BORN. AND IS THERE SOME ANALOGY BETWEEN KRISHNA AND CHRIST IN REGARD TO THEIR BIRTHS? at energyenhancement.org

  • Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 2
    Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 2, YOU SAID YESTERDAY THAT KRISHNA IS MAKING A JOKE WHEN HE SAYS, 'SURRENDER TO ME, ABANDONING ALL OTHER DUTIES,' AND THAT 'I WILL COME FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE UNRIGHTEOUS.' HOWEVER, IT SEEMS TO ME THAT WHILE THE KRISHNA OF THE GEETA IS NOT GIVEN TO JOKING, PERHAPS THE KRISHNA OF THE BHAGWAD IS. BUT BECAUSE OF OUR UNCRITICAL ATTITUDE WE MIX UP THE TWO KRISHNAS AND TAKE HIM FOR ONE, AND THEN WE TEND TO THINK THAT THE KRISHNA OF THE GEETA IS JOKING TOO. WE HAVE TO BE CLEAR, WHEN WE TALK ABOUT THE KRISHNA OF THE GEETA, THAT HE HAPPENED SOME TWO THOUSAND YEARS BEFORE THE KRISHNA OF THE BHAGWAD, AND THAT THEY ARE CLEARLY TWO DIFFERENT PERSONS. AND IF WE TAKE THEM TO BE ONE AND TRY TO HARMONIZE THEM WE WILL ONLY INVOLVE OURSELVES, AT PLACES, IN OBVIOUS CONTRADICTIONS. THE GEETA ITSELF IS SUCH THAT SHANKARA INTERPRETS IT IN ONE WAY, TILAK IN QUITE ANOTHER WAY AND YOU IN A THIRD WAY. IN THIS CONTEXT IS IT NOT NECESSARY TO CONSIDER IF THE GEETA IS AN AUTHENTIC ANTHOLOGY OF KRISHNA'S TEACHINGS? at energyenhancement.org

  • Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 3
    Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 3, DO YOU TAKE THE GEETA AS THE AUTHENTIC VOICE OF KRISHNA? at energyenhancement.org

  • Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 4
    Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 4, THE BHAGWAD MENTIONS AN ANECDOTE FROM KRISHNA'S ADOLESCENT LIFE WHICH IS CLEARLY EROTIC. IT IS SAID THAT WHILE A GROUP OF YOUNG WOMEN KNOWN AS GOPIS ARE BATHING NAKED IN THE RIVER YAMUNA, KRISHNA RUNS AWAY WITH THEIR CLOTHES AND THUS FORCES THEM TO COME OUT OF THE RIVER NUDE. WHEN THE GOPIS EMERGE FROM THE WATER BASHFULLY HIDING THEIR SEXUAL ORGANS WITH THEIR HANDS, KRISHNA TELLS THEM THAT SINCE THEY HAVE OFFENDED THE WATER GOD BY BATHING NAKED, THEY SHOULD ASK FOR HIS FORGIVENESS WITH THEIR HANDS RAISED IN SALUTATION TO HIM, AND THEN THEY CAN TAKE BACK THEIR CLOTHES. IN THIS CONTEXT THE BHAGWAD SAYS THAT KRISHNA DECEITFULLY MADE THEM EXPOSE THEIR SEXUAL ORGANS TO HIM, AND THAT HE WAS VERY PLEASED TO SEE THEM IN THEIR VIRGIN STATE. AND YOU SEEM TO BE A STRONG SUPPORTER OF KRISHNA -- THE PIONEER OF NUDISM IN HUMAN SOCIETY. BUT IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOUR CONCEPTION OF NUDISM AND THAT OF THE CURRENT NUDIST CLUBS IN THE WESTERN COUNTRIES? IT IS SAID THAT CLOTHES REPRESENT CIVILIZATION AND SKIN REPRESENTS CULTURE. IF WE REMOVE OUR CLOTHES WE WILL ON ONE HAND APPEAR IN OUR NATURAL STATE, BUT ON THE OTHER WE WILL ALSO LOOK LIKE BARBARIANS. WOULD IT NOT AMOUNT TO A GOING BACK TO THE PRIMITIVE WAY OF LIFE, A RETURN TO THE JUNGLE? AND WOULD YOU CALL THIS TURNING BACK OF THE HANDS OF THE CLOCK A PROGRESSIVE STEP? at energyenhancement.org

  • Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 5
    Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 5, YOU SAID WE NEED A SOCIETY IN WHICH A MAN CAN FREELY TAKE THE HAND OF A WOMAN HE LIKES IN HIS, WITHOUT FEAR OF BEING OSTRACIZED. SINCE IT RAISES THE QUESTION OF IMMORALITY, WE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW YOUR VIEW ON IMMORALITY. WHAT IF SOMEONE, BY WAY OF TAKING A WOMAN'S HAND IN HIS, ASKS FOR MORE, ASKS TO GO TO BED WITH HER? WOULD IT NOT CREATE A CONFLICT IN THE LIVES OF MANY MEN AND WOMEN? WOULD IT NOT PUT MANY HUSBANDS IN TROUBLE? at energyenhancement.org

  • Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 6
    Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 6, KRISHNA REPRESENTS TWO EXTREMES OF LIFE. ON THE ONE HAND HE STEALS THE CLOTHES OF THE GOPIS AND ON THE OTHER HE BRINGS CLOTHES TO DRAUPADI WHEN SHE IS BEING PUBLICLY DISROBED BY THE KAURAVAS. THIS ASPECT OF HIS LIFE IS REALLY UNIQUE, UNEARTHLY AND DIVINE. OR IS IT JUST AN EXCEPTIONAL INSTANCE? THEN THERE ARE CONFLICTING REPORTS ABOUT HIS BODILY COLOR. WHILE THE COLOR OF KRISHNA, WHO PROVIDED DRAUPADI WITH ABUNDANT CLOTHES, IS SAID TO BE DARK, THE BHAGWAD DESCRIBES HIM IN THREE SHADES: WHITE, YELLOW AND BLUE. AND POETS HAVE EULOGIZED HIS BLUE COLOR IN A FANTASTIC MANNER at energyenhancement.org

  • Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 7
    Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 7, YOU SAID IN THE COURSE OF A DISCUSSION OF KRISHNA AT AHMEDABAD THAT THE INTERCOURSE THAT VASUDEO HAD WITH HIS WIFE DEVAKI WAS NOT JUST SEXUAL, BUT WAS A SPIRITUAL INTERCOURSE AND THAT IS WHY A PERSON LIKE KRISHNA WAS BORN. IN VIEW OF IT ONE WONDERS WHY THE SONS OF RAMA AND KRISHNA WERE NOT AS TALENTED AND BRILLIANT AS THEIR PARENTS. CAN IT BE SAID THAT RAMA AND KRISHNA DID NOT HAVE SPIRITUAL INTERCOURSE WITH THEIR WIVES? at energyenhancement.org

  • Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 8
    Krishna, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should go Together, Question 8, YOU TALKED ABOUT LIBIDO, SEX ENERGY AND SPIRITUAL INTERCOURSE. IN THIS CONTEXT A DELICATE BUT CLEAR QUESTION ARISES IN REGARD TO KRISHNA'S RELATIONSHIP WITH RADHA.IT SEEMS AS IF THE FLUTE BELONGS TO KRISHNA, BUT THE MUSIC EMANATING FROM IT BELONGS TO RADHA. IF KRISHNA SINGS A SONG, ITS POETIC JUICE AND BEAUTY COME FROM RADHA AND WHEN KRISHNA DANCES, RADHA MAKES THE CLINKING SOUND AND ITS RHYTHM -- SO INEXTRICABLY ONE THEY ARE. THAT IS WHY RADHAKRISHNA HAS BECOME OUR WATCHWORD, OUR CHANT. NOBODY SAYS RUKMINI-KRISHNA, ALTHOUGH RUKMINI WAS MARRIED TO KRISHNA IF RADHA IS REMOVED FROM THE LIFE OF KRISHNA, HE WILL LOOK SO FRAGMENTARY AND PALE. BUT THE IRONY IS THAT RADHA IS NOT EVEN MENTIONED IN THE BHAGWAD, IN THE BASIC SCRIPTURE DEPICTING THE COUNTLESS EROTIC PLAYS OF KRISHNA. SINCE YOU ARE SO MUCH LIKE KRISHNA, YOU ARE THE RIGHT PERSON TO SHED LIGHT ON THIS QUESTION at energyenhancement.org

 

 

 
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