Upanishads, Talks on the Isha Upanishad. I Am That Chapter 3: By Following Nobody Knows, Question 2

The second question:

Question 2

OSHO,

COULD YOU PLEASE TELL ME YOUR OPINION ABOUT J. KRISHNAMURTI, WHO IS SAYING THAT YOU WON'T BE FREE AND THEREFORE NOT HAPPY AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW ANY TRADITION, RELIGION OR MASTER?

Wolfgang,

GAUTAM THE BUDDHA has divided the enlightened persons into two categories. The first category he calls the ARHATAS and the second BODHISATTVAS. The ARHATA and the BODHISATTVA are both enlightened; there is no difference between their experience, but the arhata is not a Master and the BODHISATTVA is a Master. The ARHATA has attained to the same truth but he is incapable of teaching it, because teaching is a totally different art.

For example, you can see a beautiful sunset, you can experience the beauty of it as deeply, as profoundly as any Vincent van Gogh, but that does not mean you will be able to paint it. To paint it is a totally different art. Experiencing is one thing, helping others to experience it is not the same.

There have been many ARHATAS but very few BODHISATTVAS. The BODHISATTVA is both enlightened and skillful to teach what has happened to him. It is the greatest art in the world; no other art can be compared with it, because to say the unsayable, to help people come out of their sleep, to find and invent devices to bring what has happened to him to those who are thirsty for it and help them to get it... it is a rare gift.

Krishnamurti is an ARHATA, he is not a BODHISATTVA. His enlightenment is as great as anybody else's enlightenment; he is a Buddha, a Jesus, a Lao Tzu. In enlightenment there are no degrees; either one is enlightened or one is not. Once a person is enlightened he has the same flavor, the same fragrance as anyone who has ever become enlightened or will ever become enlightened. But to relate the experience, to communicate the experience is not possible for all.

Once Buddha was asked, "How many people have become enlightened amongst your disciples?"

He said, "Many." He showed..."Look!" Manjushri was sitting by his side and Sariputra and Modgalyayan and Mahakashyap. He said, "These four people are right now present here -- they have become enlightened."

The inquirer asked, "If they have become enlightened why they are not so famous as you are? Why nobody knows about them? Why they don't have thousands of followers?"

Buddha said, "They have become enlightened but they are not Masters. They are ARHATAS, they are not BODHISATTVAS."

The ARHATA knows it but cannot make it known to the others; the BODHISATTVA knows it and can make it known to the others. Krishnamurti is an ARHATA. Because of this he cannot understand the beautiful world of a Master and his disciples.

You ask me, Wolfgang: COULD YOU PLEASE TELL ME YOUR OPINION ABOUT J. KRISHNAMURTI, WHO IS SAYING THAT YOU WON'T BE FREE AND THEREFORE NOT HAPPY AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW ANY TRADITION, RELIGION OR MASTER?

He is right. If you follow a tradition, religion or Master -- remember the word "follow" -- you will not be free and you will not be blissful, you will not know the ultimate truth of life: by following nobody knows it. What can you do by following a tradition? You will become an imitator. A tradition means something of the past, and enlightenment has to happen right now! A tradition may be very ancient -- the more ancient it is, the more dead.

A tradition is nothing but footprints on the sands of time of the enlightened people, but those footprints are not enlightened. You can follow those footprints very religiously and they will not lead you anywhere, because each person is unique. If you remember the uniqueness of the person then no following is going to help you, because there cannot be a fixed routine.

That's the difference between science and religion: science depends on tradition. Without a Newton, without an Edison, there is no possibility for Albert Einstein to have existed at all. He needs a certain tradition; only on that tradition, on the shoulders of the past giants in the world of science, he can stand. Of course when you stand on the shoulders of somebody you can look a little farther than the person on whose shoulders you are standing, but that person is needed there.

Science is a tradition, but religion is not a tradition: it is an individual experience, utterly individual. Once something is known in the world of science it need not be discovered again, it will be foolish to discover it again. You need not discover the theory of gravitation -- Newton has done it. You need not go and sit in a garden and watch an apple fall and then conclude that there must be some force in the earth that pulls it downwards; it will be simply foolish. Newton has done it; now it is part of human tradition. It can be taught to any person who has a little bit of intelligence; even schoolchildren know about it.

But in religion you have to discover again and again. No discovery becomes a heritage in religion. Buddha discovered, but that does not mean you can simply follow the Buddha. Buddha was unique, you are unique in your own right, so how Buddha has entered into truth is not going to help you. You are a different kind of house; the doors may be in different directions. If you simply follow Buddha blindly, that very following will be misleading.

Traditions cannot be followed. You can understand them and understanding can be of immense help, but following and understanding are totally different things.

So Krishnamurti is right when he is against following, but when he starts saying that you need not even understand, then he is wrong. Then he is speaking the language of an ARHATA and he is unaware of the world of the BODHISATTVA. Understanding is possible -- you can understand Buddha.

What he is doing for forty years? What efforts has he been making for forty years? How Wolfgang came to know Krishnamurti's ideas? He is trying to explain, he is trying with great effort to make you understand. You cannot follow Krishnamurti, but you can certainly understand his vision, his perspective, and that will be an enrichment. It will not bring you enlightenment, but it can be used as a stepping-stone.

Krishnamurti says he is fortunate that he has not read any religious scriptures. That is not right. In the first place it is not factual -- he has been taught when he was young all the ancient scriptures, not only of one tradition but of all the traditions, because he was brought up by theologists, Theosophists -- great synthesizers of all the paths and all the religions and all the traditions. Theosophy was one of the greatest efforts ever made to bring all the traditions closer to each other: Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism. Theosophy was trying to find out the essential core of them all, and Krishnamurti was taught in every possible way all that is great. He may have forgotten about it, and I know that he must have forgotten because he will not lie, he will not say anything deliberately untrue. But he lived in a kind of hypnosis for twenty-five years.

He was taken possession by the Theosophists when he was only nine years of age, and then he had been brought up m a very special way. Many secret methods have been tried upon him: he has been taught while he was sleeping, he has been taught while he was in deep hypnosis, so he does not remember it at all.

Only recently Russian psychologists are trying to find ways how to teach children while they are asleep, because if we can teach children while they are asleep much time can be saved. And one thing more: when a child is asleep he can be taught more easily because there is no distraction. His unconscious can be taught directly, which is easier. When we teach a child through his consciousness it is difficult, because ultimately the teaching has to reach to the unconscious, only then it becomes yours. And to reach to the unconscious through the conscious it takes long time, long repetition. You have to go on repeating again and again and again, then only slowly slowly it settles to the bottom of the conscious, and from that bottom slowly it penetrates into the unconscious.

But in deep sleep, or more precisely in hypnosis -- hypnosis means sleep, deliberately created sleep -- you can reach directly to the unconscious; the conscious can be bypassed, and a thing can be put into the unconscious. The conscious will not know anything about it.

Krishnamurti was taught all the great scriptures in a deep hypnosis; he has completely forgotten. Not only that: he has been even manipulated to write while he was in hypnosis. His first book, AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER, was written under hypnosis, hence he simply shrugs his shoulders when you ask about that first book -- which is really a rare document of immense value. But he simply says, "I don't know anything about it, how it happened. I can't say that I have written it."

Krishnamurti has been experimented upon by Theosophists in many subtle ways, so he is not aware that he has been acquainted with all the great scriptures and all the great documents, and what he goes on saying has reflections of all those teachings They are there, but in a very subtle form. He cannot quote the scriptures, but what he says is the very essence of the scriptures.

A tradition has to be understood, and if you can understand many traditions, of course it will enrich you. It will not make you enlightened, but it will help you towards the goal, it will push you towards the goal. Don't be a follower of any tradition -- don't be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. But it will be unfortunate if you remain unaware of the beautiful words of Jesus, it will be a sheer misfortune if you don't know the great poetry of the Upanishads.

It will be as if a person has not heard any great music -- Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Wagner. If one has not heard, something will be missing in him. It will be a misfortune if you have not read Shakespeare, Milton, Dostoevsky, Kalidas, Bharbhuti, Rabindranath, Kahlil Gibran. If you have not been acquainted with Tolstoy, Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, something in you will remain missing. The same is true if you have not read Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Gautam Buddha, Bodhidharma, Baso, Lin Chi, Socrates, Pythagoras, Heraclitus. These are very different, unique perspectives, but they will all help you to become wider.

So I will not say that traditions are useless; I will say they become dangerous if you follow them blindly. Try to understand, imbibe the spirit. Forget the letter, just drink of the spirit. It is certainly dangerous to belong to a religion because that means you are encaged, imprisoned into a certain creed, dogma. You lose your freedom, you lose your inquiry, your exploration.

It is dangerous to live surrounded by a small philosophy. You will be a frog in the well; you will not know about the ocean. But to understand is a totally different phenomenon. The very effort to understand all the religions of the world will make you free of creeds and dogmas.

That's what's happening here. I am talking about all the religions for the simple reason so that you don't become addicted with one standpoint. Life is multidimensional. Certainly Moses has contributed something to it which nobody else has done. Unless you understand Moses you will miss that perspective, that dimension; that much you will be poorer.

And the people who listen to Krishnamurti, they start following him! There are Krishnamurtiites who have been listening him for forty years or even fifty years. I have come across old people of the same age as Krishnamurti w ho have listened to him for fifty years, since 1930, and they have reached nowhere. All that they have learned is a kind of negativeness: "This is wrong, that is wrong." But what is right? About that there seems to be not even a glimpse in their being.

Don't become part of a religion, but visit, be a guest to all the religions. In the temple there is a beauty, in the mosque also, a different kind of beauty, in the church again a different experience. And this is our whole heritage; the whole humanity's past belongs to you. Why choose?

The follower chooses. He insists to be a Christian; he will avoid Upanishads, he will avoid Dhammapada, he will not bother about Koran. He is unnecessarily crippling himself, paralyzing himself.

I also say don't follow, but I will not agree with the statement that: don't try to understand. Trying to understand is not following; your understanding becomes more clear, more sharpened.

Krishnamurti goes on reading detective novels. Is hc following those detective novels? Is he trying to become a detective? If he can read detective novels, what is wrong in reading the Upanishads? And detective novels are just ordinary, juvenile, childish. Upanishads are the Himalayan peaks of human consciousness. Don't follow them -- there is no need to follow anybody.

My sannyasins are not my followers, they are just my companions. The word satsang, the word upanishad, means the company of a Master. The disciple is a companion a fellow-traveler, and of course if you are traveling with somebody who knows the territory, who has explored the territory, your journey will become easier, your journey will become richer, your journey will have less unnecessary hazards; you will be able to reach the goal sooner than alone.

Traditions become dangerous only when you cling to them; then certainly there is danger. Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening. If you become a part, then it is dangerous, because then the tradition becomes a hindrance to you for exploring. The tradition insists for belief -- believe in it and believe without inquiry. That's what people are doing, what Christians and Hindus and Mohammedans are doing -- believing into something they have never inquired. And to believe into something without inquiring is very disrespectful towards truth and towards your own self.

No, belief is not going to help -- only knowing can free you.

And he says the same about a Master. It is true about ninety-nine so-called Masters, but it is not true about the one, the real one He is ninety-nine percent right, because wherever there are real coins there are bound to be false coins too. A tradition is dead; a religion is a philosophy, a belief, a dogma. If you believe in it, it appears significant; its arguments appear to be very great. The moment you stand by the side and look with a detached view, you can see the foolishness, the stupidity. You can see that there are assumptions which have not been proved, not been established.

One morning a great philosopher was seen walking down the street touching every pole that he passed. Someone asked him, "Hey, professor, why are you touching all those poles?"

The philosopher grinned and said, "And why are you not touching all those poles?"

It is difficult to answer why you are not touching!

The philosophers have their own arguments; you may not be able to argue against them. They may silence you; they may bring great proofs, logical arguments, rationalizations. They may silence you, but that is not going to help.

After giving a speech at Columbia University, the noted philosopher, Bertrand Russell, was answering questions from the audience. One student's critical question brought him to a full stop. For a whole minute he said nothing, his hand over his chin. Then he peered at the student and rephrased the question, making it more precise. He asked the student, "Would you say that this is still your question?"

The student answered delightfully, "Yes."

Again Lord Russell thought, this time even longer, and twice seemed about to speak. Then he said, "That's a very good question, young man. I don't believe I can answer it!"

But there are very few philosophers like Bertrand Russell who will accept that they can't answer. They will invent answers, they will go on and on creating proofs, inventing proofs. For every kind of nonsense you can find proofs, you can argue.

Religions are all based on theologies, and the very word "theology" is a contradiction in terms. "Theo" means God, "logy" means logic -- logic about God. In fact, there is no logic about God; there is love but no logic. You can approach the phenomenon God or godliness through the heart, through love, but not through logic.

By following a tradition or religion, what are you doing? Your approach is bound to be through the head. Following is always from the head: you are convinced logically, hence you follow, but it is not a love affair.

Love attain is possible only when you find a loving Master. You cannot fall in love with Jesus now, you cannot fall in love with Buddha now; they are no more there. Those dew-drops have disappeared into the ocean. You can fall in love only with a living Master. Buddha must have been very beautiful, but love can happen only between two living hearts.

Krishnamurti is right about ninety-nine percent so-called gurus, but one has to take the risk. If you become too cautious you will never be able to find the true one. To find the true one you will have to pass through many untrue ones.

An American seeker reached to the Everest after a long, arduous journey around the world in search of a Master. And finally he found a great, ancient old man sitting silently on top of the Everest.

The American seeker said, "Ah, great guru, I have devoted my entire life to the quest for truth, honesty, love and justice. I have traveled to the four corners of the earth to experience every agony and every passion. Now I come to you to ask: where do I go from here?"

The guru said, "Go back and do it all over again, my son."

"Thank you, thank you! What can I ever do to repay you?"

And the guru said, "Got any American cigarettes on you?"

He is right about ninety-nine percent gurus, but he is wrong about one percent, and that one percent is really what matters. He is wrong about Buddha, he is wrong about Lao Tzu, he is wrong about Jesus.

But to find a living Master one has to search, and in fact, all those false gurus help you in a way because experiencing them you become aware of that which is false. And to know the false as false is the beginning of knowing the true as the true, the real as the real. If you are absolutely clear about the false, suddenly you become clear about what is real, what is authentic. So even the false gurus are serving, in indirect way, to the real seekers.

Wolfgang, a Master is one who will not tell you to follow him. but he will certainly tell you to be silently with him. It has nothing to do with following. A real, authentic Master does not want to create pseudo replicas, carbon copies; he helps you to discover your original face. He will not impose any structure on you; on the contrary, he will help you to get rid of all imposed structures. He will not condition you; he will only uncondition you and then leave you to yourself He will not recondition you.

When you move from one false guru, then it happens: the new false guru will uncondition you and then recondition you. If you become a Hindu from being a Christian you will be unconditioned first so that you can get rid of your Christianity, and then Hinduism will be imposed on you.

That is what is happening to Hare Krishna people: now they are being conditioned as Hindus. They have lived in one kind of prison called Christianity, now they will be living in another kind of prison called Hinduism. It is the same, it makes no difference; only the prison is different. You get out of one prison and immediately you enter into another.

The real Master will take you out of one prison and will prevent you from entering into another prison. Certainly it is difficult to find a real Master, but that does not mean that one should not try to find; that does not mean that it is impossible -- difficult of course, but not impossible. And when you have come to a Master who simply imparts his love, his being, his presence, who shares his joy, his laughter with you, and there is no desire to condition you, to force you into a certain pattern, then his presence can be of immense catalytic significance; he can be a catalytic agent. In his presence something can start happening in you which may not happen alone for centuries, maybe for lives.

J. Krishnamurti is a beautiful man but one-dimensional, very linear, one line; he follows one track. Hence you will not find any contradictions in him. For fifty years he has been repeating simply the same thing again and again. unknowingly he has conditioned people; just by repeating the same thing again and again for fifty years he has hypnotized people. He has created a great difficulty for those people: he is not a Master himself, he cannot impart his experience -- he is an ARHATA, not a BODHISATTVA -- and he has prevented those people from going into search for some other living Master. He has created a real mess in many people: they would have been in search of a Master but he has prevented them. His logic is clear, appealing, very appealing to the egoist, particularly to the so-called intelligentsia, very appealing, because the so-called intellegentsia is always afraid of surrender, of dropping the ego -- they are egoist people. And when he says, "There is no need to follow, there is no need to go to any Master, there is no need of any initiation," they feel very happy. Their ego is saved but their ego is there.

Now the ego even has the support of Krishnamurti, and all his arguments will be used by the ego. And that's what has happened to thousands of people who have listened to him. He has not been a blessing, because of his linear logic.

In the ancient days people like Krishnamurti used to remain silent. That was the way of the ARHATA -- because he knows that he cannot impart, he has no skill, he remains silent. He does not go around the world telling people, that "I cannot impart and nobody else can do it either."

This is for the first time an ARHATA has been trying to teach people, and of course it is a contradiction. The ARHATA is not supposed to teach, and when an ARHATA starts teaching he will teach against teaching, and the people who will become interested in him will be egoists.

You can find the very cultured egos around Krishnamurti, and they are there because he has become their rationalization: there is no need to surrender. And the irony is, the amazing fact is that Krishnamurti himself passed through many initiations, he had many Masters.

In fact, I had no Master and he had many Masters, but maybe that's why he is against Masters and I am not against! -- because I had had no experience of the false. I have never been with any Master, I have worked on my own. It took long, many lives, but I have never been initiated by anybody. Maybe that's why I have a soft corner for the Masters!

And he has been forced and regimented in every possible way by the Theosophists. And they had many secrets available to them and he was initiated into all kinds of ceremonies and into all kinds of secret mysteries, esoteric, which are not available to the public. He must have become tired.

And one fact has to be remembered always: he was not willingly there -- he had been chosen and adopted. He belonged to a very poor brahmin, the son of a very poor brahmin, so poor that he was not able even to educate his children. And when Annie Besant and Leadbeater found these two brothers, Krishnamurti and Nityananda, swimming in a river by the side of Adyar where is the head-quarters of the Theosophical Movement, world headquarters near Madras... Leadbeater had a certain sensibility to find out talents; he discovered many talented people. He had a certain sense to see immediately the possibility, the potential. He immediately told Annie Besant... they had gone for a morning walk and he saw these two children; Nityananda must have been eleven and Krishnamurti was nine. And he said, "These two children are of immense value -- they can become world teachers!"

So they searched. They found out they belonged to a very poor man; the mother is dead, the father is just a very poor clerk in an office. It is difficult to educate, to feed the children rightly. When he heard that Annie Besant wants to adopt them he was very happy; he willingly gave the children to Annie Besant.

And of course, Nityananda and Krishnamurti both were taught like princes or even better than that. They had the most learned tutors; they went through private education in India, in France, in England, in America, all around the world. They were kept away from the public so they don't become polluted, they don't become contaminated. They were prevented from meeting ordinary people. They were brought up as special people, chosen ones -- chosen to be world teachers. And great discipline was imposed on them. Of course it was all unwilling; they had not chosen the path themselves. There must have been a resistance -- naturally obviously. deep down they must have resisted.

Nityananda died, and my feeling is he died because of too much rigorous discipline -- fasting, getting up early, three o'clock in the morning. And he became ill; still the discipline continued. They were hard taskmasters, they wanted to make supermen, and of course when you want to make somebody a superman the discipline has to be hard, arduous.

Nityananda died. That too has been a wound in Krishnamurti's mind, in his heart: that his brother was almost killed by the discipline. And twenty-five years of rigorous training must have created an antagonism, a resistance.

So when the time came for them to be declared -- the Theosophists gathered from all over the world and Krishnamurti was to declare himself the new incarnation of Gautam the Buddha, the World Teacher -- when he stood on the platform to declare, everybody was shocked, people could not believe because he simply denied. He said, "I am nobody's Master I don't accept any disciples, I don't teach any discipline, and I dissolve this whole organization that has been created around me."

A certain organization was created around him -- six thousand members all over the world. The organization was called "The Star of the East". He dissolved the organization, he distributed the money back to the donors. because it had great money. He shocked everybody: they had worked so long on him and he simply escaped at the last moment.

And that wound has remained in him, and he cannot forgive all those Masters, their disciplines, their teachings -- he cannot forgive, hence he is against. And he himself is an ARHATA, he cannot be a Master. And his whole past of his life is full of resistance.

My experience is totally different, just the opposite: I had nobody to impose anything on me; whatsoever I have done I have done on my own. Hence I don't see any antagonisms in me against Masters, against disciplehood.

But certainly about ninety-nine percent I will agree with him: Muktananda, Reverend Moon, Prabhupad, all kinds of stupid people, exploiting -- exploiting the great search that has arisen in humanity's heart.

Man is on a new borderline, he is going to enter into a new territory. A new step has to be taken. Hence the great inquiry all around the world about truth, about meditation, about the inward. The outer has failed: the science has proved illusory, all its promises have gone down the drain; and man knows now absolutely that "What we have been doing up to now was basically wrong -- the journey has to be inward."

Now there are charlatans, people who can exploit this opportunity, but this is understandable; nothing can be done about it. The seeker has to pass through all these exploiters, deceivers, hypocrites, and has to be aware so that he can find one day the true man -- the man who can uncondition you and will not recondition you again, who will leave you in absolute freedom to be yourself

Beware of the false Masters -- and there are many and of many kinds. They come in all sizes and in all shapes and they can be very attractive, because they fulfill your expectations.

The real Master will never fulfill your expectations; he has no desire to manipulate you. Fulfilling your expectations means a deep desire to manipulate you. You have to be alert, watchful. If somebody is trying to fulfill your expectations, know perfectly well he himself is not free -- he cannot impart freedom to you.

In India, as in other countries and other traditions too, people have expectations, certain expectations. For example, a Christian expects that the enlightened person should be similar to Jesus; now that is absolutely impossible. Jesus cannot be repeated, need not be repeated. To repeat Jesus you will need the whole context and that context is no more possible. Jesus existed in a Jewish world, with all the expectations, desires, hopes and promises. Now that world has disappeared; two thousand years have passed. So much water has gone down the Ganges, nothing is the same any more. How can Jesus be repeated?

But the Christian expects from a true Master to be just like Jesus. No true Master can be just like Jesus. Jesus was not like Moses himself -- that was the trouble. That's why Jews were so much antagonistic: they were expecting him to be just like Moses. Moses lived in a totally different world; he belonged to the Egyptian context, he grew out of that context, he makes sense only in that reference. Jesus cannot be a Moses, it is impossible. And Jews were expecting him to be just a Moses, and because he was not they killed him.

Now Christians are doing the same: they expect the true Master to be a replica of Jesus, an imitation of Jesus. No true Master can be a replica; only some fool can imitate, only some mediocre person can be a carbon copy. This is such a deep insult of one's own being -- to copy somebody else -- that no man of intelligence can ever do it. But the same is true about other traditions.

The Buddhists are waiting for Buddha to come, and he has to be exactly like Buddha. And the Jains have their expectations and the Hindus have their expectations. The Hindus cannot accept Mahavira as an enlightened Master because he is not like Krishna, and the Jains cannot accept Krishna as an enlightened Master because he is not like Mahavira. Jains cannot accept Buddha as an enlightened person because he is not like Mahavira, and Buddhists in their own turn cannot accept Mahavira because he is not like Buddha. No tradition can accept the enlightened persons of other traditions because the expectations differ.

For example, Jains think that the enlightened Master should be naked. Now Jesus does not fulfill that, Mohammed is not naked, Zarathustra is not naked, Krishna is not naked. On the contrary, Krishna loved beautiful clothes, he loved ornaments.

In those days in India men used to wear ornaments, and that seems to be really logical and natural. If you watch nature you will see it: look at the peacock. The female peacock is unornamental; it is the male peacock which is ornamental. Don't be misguided, when you see the beautiful peacock with its rainbow-colored feathers, remember it is the male, not the female. The female is beautiful just by being female; it needs no ornamentation. It is enough to be famale! The poor male needs some other gadgets.

When you listen to the beautiful sound of the cuckoo, remember it is the male, not the female. The female need not have such a beautiful singing voice; just to be female is enough. The female simply sits hidden in a mango grove, and the male goes on pouring his heart, writing love letters!

The whole nature is a proof that the female looks ordinary and the male looks very beautiful. It is strange that why man has started behaving in a reverse way, why women try to be beautiful, use ornaments and lipstick and false eyelashes and whatnot! It is crazy! Let the man use all these things! He is poor, he needs something. The woman is perfectly beautiful as she is. Just to be feminine has a grace, a beauty; there is no need for any other addition.

In Krishna's time things were perfectly natural: men used to wear ornaments. If you have seen Krishna's statues, pictures, you will see: he is wearing silk robes, colorful robes, with a crown with a peacock feather on it, and with a flute, trying to do what the male cuckoo goes on doing, and he is standing in a dancing pose.

Now Jains cannot accept him as an enlightened person; this is not the way of being enlightened. He looks like an actor! According to Jain mythology he has gone into seventh hell -- seventh is the last. Only the very dangerous people are thrown into the seventh. Even Adolf Hitler will not reach the seventh; he will be somewhere, at the most third, not more than that. Krishna is in the seventh and Krishna will not be freed in this phase of creation.

Jains have cycles: one cycle means one creation; then the whole creation becomes dissolved, disappears into nothingness, and then another creation begins, another cycle. Krishna will be released only when the second cycle begins, not in this cycle. When all these suns and moons and stars and this whole universe dissolves through the black holes when all is gone and left -- nothing is left -- then the second cycle starts. Krishna will come back only after the first creation is gone, not before that; it will take eternity. They are very angry at Krishna -- what kind of enlightened person he is.

These expectations! Jains cannot believe that Jesus is enlightened, because according to them an enlightened person cannot be crucified -- impossible. In fact, they have this myth that when Mahavira walks on the road... and he is a naked man without shoes, and you know the Indian roads. And Mahavira walked twenty-five centuries before; just try to imagine what kind of roads -- he must not have been walking -- roadless roads!

The story is: when he walks on the road, even if a thorn is there it immediately turns upside-down because the enlightened person is finished with all his karmas, he cannot suffer any pain any more. Pain is suffered because of your past karmas; you must have committed some sin in the past. He is finished with all the sins, he is completely free from all karmas, so no pain is possible. What to think, what to say about crucifixion?

Jains cannot believe Jesus to be enlightened. For them according to them, it is not the Jews who are crucifying him, it is not the Roman governor who is crucifying him; it is his past bad deeds, past karmas which are creating this pain for him, this agony for him.

If you just watch all these expectations you will be able to understand that no enlightened person can ever go according to your expectations; he has to live his life authentically. And if he wants to exploit you he will fulfill your expectations. If he wants to exploit the Jains he will go naked, he will fast, and they will be happy -- he is a great man. If he wants to fulfill the expectations of Christians he will become a Mother Teresa of Calcutta: serve the poor the crippled, the ill. If he wants to fulfill the expectations of the Mohammedans he will become an Ayatollah Khomaniac -- take the sword -- because that's what Mohammed did. And remember, Mohammedans believe that it was out of compassion, because if somebody is going into hell, even if he can be prevented by a sword he should be prevented. And anybody who is not a Mohammedan is going to hell, so convert everybody into a Mohammedan, by whatsoever means it has to be done but it HAS TO be done. So Ayatollah Khomaniac is the most perfect Mohammedan Master right now!

These fools can pretend because they have to look at the crowd, what are their expectations; they can fulfill their expectations. But a true living Master is bound to be totally free from your expectations. He cannot adjust with you; if you have to be with him you have to adjust with him.

And that's why egoists find it difficult to be with a Master, and they enjoy the company of Krishnamurti -- for the simple reason because he is not asking you to dissolve your ego or surrender or to adjust in any way. He is not asking anything to you. He is not giving you any insight, he is simply making clear the standpoint of an ARHATA. But the ARHATA has never been helpful to anybody, and he cannot be helpful.

And now there have arisen many new kinds of gurus; they are mushrooming all over the world. Religious gurus are there and then there are psychoanalysts and therapists. They are taking the place; they are becoming very important. And of course they understand something about the mechanism of the mind and they can help you a little bit, but they themselves are in a deep mess.

Conversation between two psychiatrists:

"Most of my patients are disturbed. Let me ask you some questions -- to give you an example. Which has smooth curves and sometimes is uncontrollable?"

"A baseball pitcher, of course."

"Next, what wears a skirt and has lips that bring you pleasure?"

"Obviously, a Scotsman playing a bagpipe."

"You know the answers, but it's amazing what strange replies I get from my patients!"

These psychoanalysts, now they are the New Age gurus. They know certain tricks about the mind, but they have no idea of the innermost core of your being. You have to be very careful and cautious because there has never been such a tremendous desire for transformation, hence there are bound to be many people who will not miss this opportunity to exploit you.

In that sense Krishnamurti is right, but only about ninety-nine percent. And to me that is nothing to be compared with the remaining one percent. Those ninety-nine percent can be ignored, that one percent should not be forgotten because that is the only hope: a Master who can make you free, who does not make you a slave; a Master who can make you unconditioned and does not recondition you; a Master who does not give you any doctrine, dogma, a creed to believe in, but shares his joy, his celebration with you.

Upanishads

I AM THAT

Chapter-3

By Following Nobody Knows