Krishna is the sole great man in our whole history who reached the absolute height and depth of religion, and yet he is not at all serious and sad, not in tears. By and large, the chief characteristic of a religious person has been that he is somber, serious and sad-looking like one vanquished in the battle of life, like a renegade from life. In the long line of such sages it is Krishna alone who comes dancing, singing and laughing. Religions of the past were all life-denying and masochistic, extolling sorrow and suffering as great virtues. If you set aside Krishna's vision of religion, then every religion of the past presented a sad and sorrowful face. A laughing religion, a religion that accepts life in its totality is yet to be born. And it is good that the old religions are dead, along with them, that the old God, the God of our old concepts is dead too.

Apart from Krishna, Zarathustra is another. About him it is said he was born laughing. Every child enters this world crying. Only one child in all of history laughed at the time of his birth, and that was Zarathustra. And this is an index of the fact that a happy and laughing humanity is yet to be born. The old religions taught suppression as the way to God. Man was asked to suppress everything- and then alone would he attain to God. Undoubtedly there must be some fundamental mistake in the very foundation of these religions.  The success of religion,  should be acclaimed only when all trees in the garden, achieve flowering. If a man fights with himself he can only ruin and destroy himself. That is how, through denial and suppression of his natural instincts and emotions, man became suicidal and killed himself.

Krishna he accepts life in all its facets, in all its climates and colors. He alone does not choose he accepts life unconditionally. As one who has known and experienced god. He alone does not turn his face from war. In fact, one who knows the deathless should be free of the fear of death. And of what worth is that nectar which is afraid of death? What kind of non-violence is it that is scared of violence? And how can the spirit, the soul, fear the body and run away from it?

Krishna accepts the duality, the dialectics of life altogether and therefore transcends duality. Transcendence is only possible when you choicelessly accept the whole. That is why Krishna has great significance for the future. Krishna's flame will be heading towards its peak, moving towards the pinnacle of its brilliance. There is no difficulty in accepting that the flame of a candle will remain steady and still in a place well secluded from winds and storms, but how can you believe that a candle can keep burning steadily even in the midst of raging storms and hurricanes? It has been tested and found that man can remain, like a lotus in water, untouched and unattached while living in the throes of relationship. It has been discovered that man can hold to his love and compassion even on the battlefield, that makes Krishna difficult to understand. Therefore, people who have loved and worshipped him have done so by dividing him into parts. No one has accepted and worshipped the whole of Krishna, no one has embraced him in his entirety. Day and night, summer and winter, peace and war, love and violence, life and death - all walk hand in hand with him.

So Krishna exhorts Arjuna over and over again in the GEETA, "This is all play-acting; killing or dying is only a drama." Krishna's life accepts no limitations. It is not bound by any rules, it is unlimited and vast. Krishna is free, limitlessly free. There is no ground he cannot tread; no point where his steps can fear and falter, no limits he cannot transcend. And this freedom, this vastness of Krishna, stems from his experience of self-knowledge. It is the ultimate fruit of his enlightenment. For this reason the question of violence has become meaningless in Krishna's life. Where violence is meaningless, non-violence loses its relevance too. Spirituality rejects both violence and non-violence. It accepts the immortality of the soul. And such spirituality turns even war into play. Spirituality or religion accepts all the dimensions of life. It accepts sex and attachment together, relationship and indulgence, love and devotion. He alone is holy who is whole. Krishna is not a hawk, not a supporter of war for war's sake. But he is certainly not prepared to escape war at any cost.

Krishna says it is better to die in one's own nature than to live in any other's nature, that imitation is destructive, suicidal. Krishna says to Arjuna, "Be immaculately yourself." And he tells him to find his self-nature, his intrinsic individuality, his primal being, his authentic face and to be it. He tells him not to be in any way different from what he is. You can find his joy only in adventure, in meeting challenges, in fighting. You can find yourself only through an act of adventure. So find yourself and be yourself, authentically yourself. It is better to die upholding one's true nature than to live a borrowed life, which is nothing less than a horror. You die as a warrior, rather than live as a renegade. Krishna tells Arjuna, "Don't be uncertain, indecisive. Be certain and decisive. Use your decisive intelligence.

But follow no one - not even Krishna,
Buddha and Christ.
Follow your intrinsic nature!

Krishna can play the flute and he can dance, and with the same ease he can fight his enemy in the battlefield with his chakra, his wheel-like weapon. And there is no contradiction between the two roles. Krishna is one person in so many diverse roles - and that is his grandeur, his glory. And this is the uniqueness of Krishna, his individuality. We call  Krishna the complete incarnation of God. He is a complete symbolization of life; he represents life totally. Krishna has transcended the mind; he has gone beyond mind. And he has attained to that integrity of the soul, which is capable of being in every mind, in every kind of mind. The sex energy has found its most natural and beautiful expression in the life of Krishna. He accepted sex without any reservations, without any pretentions. Krishna takes life as festivity, as a play, and fun.  Except man, everything under the sun is a play, a carnival. Except man, the whole cosmos is celebrating. Every moment of it, is celebration. Krishna brings this celebration into the life of man. He says, let man be one with this cosmic celebration.

If someone is desiring and striving to win in life, it means that deep down he is lacking something. Deep down, such a person is aware of the inferiority he is trying to cover through winning. And if, on the other hand, someone is not out to win it means he is already established in his eminence, there is not even a shade of inferiority in him to disprove by resorting to winning. Your very desire to win is going to turn into your defeat. It is the craving for success that ultimately turns into failure. Your obsession for health is bound to turn into sickness ...

The main rule of judo says: never attack; one who attacks will court defeat. Because it is believed that much energy is spent in attacking, it is always good that I provoke my opponent to attack me and I remain at ease, relaxed. I should do nothing on my part except provoke the contestant to attack me. While I should incite his anger, his hostility, I should take every care to keep my own peace in spite of my opponent's provocations. This is the secret of judo. Do not attack on your part, provoke your contestant to attack, and if attacked, take in the attack with perfect ease and absorb it. If someone hits you, you should accept it without any resistance. It is arduous to learn this art. You have neither to be on the offensive nor on the defensive, because both ways energy is wasted. Rather than hitting your contestant you have to provoke him to attack you, to hit you, and be in complete readiness to receive and absorb it. In short, you have to fuse with it. If you do so, you not only go unhurt but you also gain the extra energy that comes with the opponent's attack. So it often happens that a weak contestant wins and his very strong opponent loses.  

Even death is beautiful!

Beauty depends on the quality
of the person who holds it.
That is how at the hands of Krishna
even death is blissful.
 

Krishna's life contains both victory and defeat.
He is not set on winning, not an egoist who is not going to accept a defeat. Krishna is prepared for everything that life brings with it. He accepts the ups and downs of life unconditionally; he is really choiceless.  Krishna's life is a flux; he moves with the winds. He has no choice of his own to be here or there or anywhere; he goes with life totally. There is a saying of Lao Tzu: Be like the winds; move with the winds; go wherever they take you. And don't choose. And there are people who say "Yes" to life, which places itself in the currents lengthwise and moves effortlessly and happily with them. These people have a sense of deep kinship with existence; they move with it, with a song in their hearts. There is a flute in Krishna's hands ...
...because he has left himself in the hands of existence!

He is ready to go wherever the river of life takes him.
And wherever he is, he is dancing and celebrating. Choicelessness is the door to bliss, ecstasy. Krishna's physical form, his voice, his music are like the waves. Krishna was like a wave that arose from the ocean, danced for a while with the winds, and disappeared again in the same ocean. When Krishna is dancing as a wave he is aware that he belongs to the ocean, he is the ocean itself. But "we" forget that we are the ocean. Krishna's physical body, his picture and statue can be used to come in contact with the oceanic form of Krishna - his soul. The power of our unconscious mind is enormous. But don't follow anyone, not even Krishna!
Imitation itself is wrong, and it is is suicidal!

Krishna never imitates anyone.
And Buddha does not follow others. But we all try to imitate others. And imitation is dangerous. Imitation in itself is unnatural and ugly and wrong. Each person is different, unique and incomparable. God is creativity itself; he is always original, and whatever he creates is original. He never makes a copy, He never repeats. And therefore, if you deny your individuality and try to follow and be like somebody else, you are violating the fundamental law of life. Imitation is a crime against God. And this danger is inner spiritual. It is a kind of slow poisoning. Whether you imitate Krishna or Buddha, it makes no difference...
... all imitation is suicidal!