View Book

« < 2 3 4 5 6 > »

Chapter 6: Nudity and Clothing Should Go Together

Jesus is definitely a different person, but it is likely that the word Christ is a derivative of Krishna. After attaining enlightenment Jesus became known as Christ, as Gautam Siddhartha became known as Buddha and Vardhaman as Mahavira. It is just possible that Christ is a derivative of Krishna, and people of Jerusalem called Jesus after Krishna’s name when he became a master and a teacher in his own right.

Krishna and Christ are two different persons. There is similarity in the circumstances of their births, but this similarity is not because they are the same person, but because of the common symbols and metaphors used to describe their births.

Carl Gustav Jung has discovered a unique thing about man’s mind which he calls the archetype. He says that in the depths of the mind of man there are some basic, primordial images that keep recurring, and they are the same all over the world. The same archetypal images have recurred in the stories of the births of Krishna and Christ. And as I said, if you rightly understand the phenomenon of birth you will know that the birth of every one of us is alike.

It is necessary to go into the meaning of the word Krishna. Krishna means the center, the center of gravitation, that which pulls, attracts everything towards itself. Krishna means the one who works as the center of a magnet, attracting everything to it.

In a sense every birth is the birth of Krishna, because the soul inside us is the center of gravitation that tends to draw bodies together. Our physical body is drawn and formed around this center. Family and society, even the world, are drawn and formed around it. Everything happens around that center of gravitation which we call Krishna. So whenever a person is born it is really Krishna born. First the soul, the center of attraction is born, and then everything else begins to be structured around it. Crystallization takes place around Krishna, which leads to the formation of the individual. Therefore the birth of Krishna is not only the birth of a single individual, it is also the birth of everybody else.

The darkness, prison and fear of death associated with Krishna’s birth have their own significance. But the question is why we associate them with Krishna in particular. I don’t mean to say that the story of his birth taking place inside a prison is not true. I don’t mean to say that he was not born in bondage. I want to say only this: it is not that relevant whether or not he was born in a prison, in bondage, what is relevant is that when a person of the stature of Krishna is made available to us we do include in his story the whole archetype of man’s birth.

« < 2 3 4 5 6 > »