Question 3

QUESTIONER: A PART OF THE QUESTION YET REMAINS TO BE ANSWERED. PLEASE GIVE US AN OUTLINE OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION AND CULTURE PATTERNED ON KRISHNA'S LIFE AND TEACHING.

It will need a lengthy answer. All these days, however, I have been doing the same thing -- drawing an outline of human civilization reflecting Krishna's vision. Yet I would like to say a few things in this regard.

Human civilization, according to Krishna's vision, will be life-affirmative and natural in the first place. This is my vision too, that affirmation of life and nature should be the cornerstone of human civilization if it wants to be healthy and holistic. Such a civilization will be dedicated to the moment, to bliss and to celebration.

This civilization will refuse to be life negative, renunciatory, masochistic and time-oriented. It will reject all fragmentation of life. Life will be accepted as a blessing, and there will be no division whatsoever, between life and God.

This civilization will declare that life is God, and there is no other God in opposition to life or separate from life. That life itself is God will be the overall truth of man. This man will declare there is no creator other than creation; creativity itself is God.

This summing up will be clear to you if you take it in the context of the whole discussion we have had here for these ten days. During these days I said many things, some of which might have pleased you and some others which might have displeased you. But remember, both pleasant and unpleasant feelings come in the way of right understanding. Without trying to understand, we gullibly accept that which is pleasant and reject off-hand all that is unpleasant. I don't want you either to accept or to reject; all I want is that you should understand simply, effortlessly, and naturally.

I don't want that you should collect my words and take them home. That will not be worthwhile. What is worthwhile then? If in the course of listening to my words, some understanding, some wisdom has dawned on you -- and it that understanding, that wisdom is really worthwhile, then it will go with you naturally, effortlessly.

It is like you visit a garden full of flowers and fragrance, and when you leave it, the garden is left behind but some of its fragrance goes with you -- clinging in your nostrils, in your hair, in your clothes. So leave the flowers of words behind and take their essence, if you have gathered it, with you.

My words are as useless as all words are, but if in your encounter with them something has clicked in your being it is certainly of great significance.

My words, or any words for that matter, can have significance if you listen to them with an open mind, an unprejudiced and empty mind, without judging them, without identifying with them or condemning them. They can give rise to some understanding of wisdom in you if you listen without saying, "This is right and that is wrong. That is what I believe too, and that is what is against my belief."

If you think that I am for Krishna and against Mahavira or whoever is your favorite, you will only earn unhappiness, and not understanding. But I will not be responsible for your sorrow; nor will Krishna or Mahavira. The responsibility will be entirely yours. Even if you happily think that I am in support of Krishna, who is your favored avatara or incarnation of God, you have missed me, you will remain as ignorant as you were when you came here.

I have nothing to do with Krishna: I am neither for him nor against him. I have unfolded his life and teachings exactly as I see them, and I am not concerned with what you think about it.

And remember, I live in the moment, I live moment to moment; I am not at all predictable or dependable. From what I say today one should not and cannot infer what I am going to say tomorrow. What I say today is exactly how I see it today. And what I will say tomorrow will be exactly how I see it tomorrow. And what you understand while listening to me today or any day is not important. But if this listening adds to your understanding, your intelligence, it has done its work. Understanding is important, all-important.

I hope these ten days have helped you grow in understanding, in clarity, and in some degree opened you to the sun of life and truth. I don't say by what name -- Krishna or Buddha or Christ -- you should call him when that sun of understanding comes to you.

I say this much: that if your mind is uncluttered and empty, if your heart is vulnerable and your perception is clear, there is no doubt whatsoever that the sun will rise and you will see light, you will be illumined. What you will call it will depend on you. The sun will not come saying, "I am so and so"; he is really without a name.

But remember, he alone has an open heart mind who lives with understanding, who lives in understanding, who lives without ideas and ideals, concepts and beliefs, creeds, doctrines and dogmas. He alone is vulnerable to life and truth who is not a partisan of some belief-system like Hinduism Catholicism or communism.

In fact, ideas and concepts, doctrines and dogmas are meant for those who have no intelligence and understanding of their own. They go to the market of ready-made ideologies and philosophies and buy them from theologians, priests and philosophers by mortgaging their own minds. Understanding is like a river -- fluid and alive and flowing. All philosophies and theologies, all doctrines and dogmas are like stagnating pools of water, dead and stinking.

So if you have listened to me through the screen of your thoughts and beliefs -- it makes no difference whether you are their partisans or enemies -- you have not listened to me at all. Then you will never understand that which I have said.

The last thing that I have to say is this: I have nothing to do with Krishna; I have no relationship with him. I am not for him or against him; neither have I intention of converting you into his partisans or enemies. I have used Krishna exactly as a painter uses a canvas. The painter has nothing more to do with the canvas than to express himself through some colors daubed on it. I too had a few colors to spread on Krishna's canvas, and I am finished with it. Even Mahavira's or Buddha's canvas would have served my purpose.

And it is not necessary for me that I should use the same kind of colors on every canvas; nor am I committed to create the same kind of portraits on every canvas. I am free to express myself the way I am, and in the way I choose to express. If I am a real painter, I will create a different kind of painting, even a contradictory painting, each time I take paint and brush in my hands. He is only an imitator who repeats the same work again and again.

It is not necessary that you should cling rigidly to my statements. It is enough that you understand them and move ahead of them, You should leave the statements and live with their understanding, their essence.

If you do so you will not ever be in danger of clinging to my words. It will do me no harm if you cling to them, but it will certainly harm you immensely, because when one clings to some person or idea or thing, he immediately loses himself. And when one is free of all clingings and attachments, when one is utterly empty, he is immediately filled with himself, with the eternal, or God, or call it what you will.