I have been discussing on Krishna’s life and philosophy not so that we will make him our ideal and imitate him. If we can understand Krishna’s life, it will help us understand our own life in its right perspective. If we fully unfold and understand Krishna’s life, which is vast and multidimensional, it will enable us to unfold our own life and know it. But we will never understand Krishna if we think in terms of imitating him. If we imitate someone or other, we will never understand because of that. And we will never understand our own life. In fact the reason we want to imitate someone is that we do not want to take the trouble of understanding ourselves. It is a way to escape the arduous task of understanding ourselves. Understanding begins when someone ceases to imitate others and start knowing who we are and what we can be. The life of one like Krishna, who has achieved his full enfoldment helps to understand our own life. To become like others even Krishna’s carbon copy is neither possible nor desirable. Everyone is different and will remain different.
Krishna never imitates anyone. Buddha does not follow others. It is ironic that we few try to imitate the people who never imitated others. People like Krishna, Buddha and Christ are the exquisite flowerings of individuality. The basic fear of imitation is quite different. Imitation in itself is ugly, unnatural and wrong. Never a person like me or you have happened in the long past of mankind, and never a person like me or you is going to happen again in future. God is a creator, he is creativity itself. He is always original and he never makes a carbon copy. And therefore, if we ever deny our individuality and try to follow and be like someone else, we are violating the fundamental law of life. Imitation is a crime against God. He made me and you an individual, he gave us individuality and we are sometimes trying to impose other’s personality. This is the basic fear ad fundamental problem of our life.
Up to now most religious teachers and priests of the world have taught imitation. Parents and teachers all over the world exhort young men and women from their early childhood to be like others. They never ask them to be themselves. They insist to all of us, “Be like Krishna, Christ or Buddha, but never commit the mistake of being like you, yourself.” Why? How is it that all educational institutions in the world teach us to be imitators and never ask us to be ourselves? There are good reasons for it. And we shall discuss it in future weeks....
Dr Dwarakanath,
Mitran Foundation, the stress Management People.
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