Question 8

QUESTIONER: DID HE COME TO WHOLENESS STRAIGHTAWAY?

To us it seems difficult to understand how one can come straightaway to wholeness. We think one must pass through a criss-crossing of roads before he arrives. Again, this is the same question that pilgrims asked of the Zen monk Lying near a cave. The monk says he does not have to do a thing, because he is already there where one should be. The pilgrims wonder how one could arrive without traveling, it seems impossible. They all had to walk long distances before they reached the place of pilgrimage, but the sage says to them, "If you cannot attain to truth right here, how can you attain to it by going to the mountain top? Truth is everywhere. It is here and now. This is not something that one needs any traveling to arrive at." But there are some types who cannot arrive without making a long journey. Even if they have to come home they will not do so without knocking at the doors of many other houses. They will enquire from others about directions to their own house.

Whether one chooses effort or effortlessness depends on what type of person he is. There is certainly a difference of type between Mahavira and Krishna. Mahavira will not choose to arrive without making a long journey. He will refuse to attain anything if it comes without effort. This needs to be understood. If someone tells Mahavira that he can achieve enlightenment without effort he will refuse it. He will say it is outright theft if you grab something without making any effort to achieve it, without striving and struggling for it, without earning it with the sweat of your brow. Before you have a thing, Mahavira will insist you must pay for it, deserve it. Mahavira will, as I understand him, reject even moksha, liberation, if it comes to him as a gift. He will search for it, struggle for it, he will earn it. He will accept moksha only when he is worthy of it.

Krishna will say just the opposite. He will say what is achieved through long search and struggle is not worth having. That which can be found can be lost too. He will say, "I will accept only that which comes uninvited, without efforts. I will be content with that which is, the true. And truth is not a thing that one can find."

This is a difference in approach to life that comes with individuals and their types. There is nothing superior or inferior about it. As individuals, Krishna and Mahavira are basically different from each other.

What is found through long search and striving has significance for Mahavira. This is the reason he and his whole tradition are known by that strange name shraman, which simply means one who toils. Mahavira believes the price of freedom is hard work, and what is had effortlessly is sheer thievery. According to him, if God is found without effort, it cannot he the real God; there must he some deception about it. And Mahavira's sense of self-respect will not allow him to accept anything that comes as a gift, he will earn it with the sweat of his brow. That is why a term like God's grace has no place in Mahavira's philosophy. On the other hand, it is replete with words like efforts, struggle, hard work, discipline, and sadhana. This is as it should he. His whole tradition is based on hard work.

There are two cultural traditions in India, running parallel to each other. One is known as shraman sanskriti or toil-oriented culture, and the other is called brahmin sanskriti or God-oriented culture. The brahmanic tradition believes man is God, he does not have to become it, while the shraman tradition believes that man has to earn godliness, he is not it. And there are only two types of people in the world -- brahmins or shramans -- conforming to one of these traditions. And the ratio of brahmins is very small; even the brahmins are not that brahmin. The vast majority consists of shramans, doers who believe in efforts. To them everything must come the hard way. It needs tremendous courage, patience, and trust to believe that one can find without effort, that one can attain without attaining, that one can arrive without stepping out of one's house. Our ordinary mind says that if you want to find something, you will have to make adequate efforts for it, nothing is had without a price. Our ordinary arithmetic believes that efforts and achievements have to be in equal proportions.

Once in a great while a few brahmins have walked this earth, they can be counted on fingers. The rest of us are shramans, whether we accept it or not. That is why despite great differences between Buddha and Mahavira, their traditions became known by the common name of shraman. In this respect Buddhists are not different from the Jainas, they are the same.

Krishna is a brahmin -- a rare thing. He says, "I am already the supreme being."