An “Interview” with Sri Krishna

If there’s one kind of writing I enjoy more than others, it’s to contrive interviews with the great masters and avatars.

As it happens, the Bhagavad-Gita was the first scripture after the Bible that I seriously studied, probably around 1974.

It therefore gives me great pleasure therefore to “interview” Sri Krishna, on matters of enlightenment.

Download the Bhagavad Gita in the edition I recommend here: https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Bhagavad-Gita-1954.pdf

Even though the .pdf looks archaic, Prabhavananda and Isherwood’s translation remains the best I’ve read. (You can buy it in any spiritual bookstore.) Also, don’t overlook Aldous Huxley’s immensely-helpful introduction.

Questioner: Thank you, Sri Krishna, for allowing us to interview you. Firstly, I have a question from a reader. The reader asks: Where are you found?

Sri Krishna: “There in the ignorant heart … I dwell.” (1)

Fools pass blindly by the place of my dwelling
Here in the human form, and of my majesty
They know nothing at all,
Who am the Lord, their soul. (2)

Q: Do a lot of people seek you?

K: Who cares to seek
For that perfect freedom?
One man, perhaps,
In many thousands. (3)

Then tell me how many
Of those who seek freedom
Shall know the total
Truth of my being?
Perhaps one only. (4)

Q: Knowing you would be an achievement.

K: To reach Brahman [God] is said to be the greatest of all achievements. (5) The reward of all action is to found in enlightenment. (6)

Q: Why is Self-Realization or God-Knowledge sought after?

K: [Realization of the Self] satisfies [the aspirant] entirely. Then he knows that infinite happiness which can be realized by the purified heart but is beyond the grasp of the senses. (7)

Q: Are there other benefits?

K: Those who reach [my highest state of being] are not reborn. (8)

All the worlds … are subject to the laws of rebirth. But, for the man who comes to me, there is no returning. (9)

Q: Who among us will know perfection?

K: All mankind
Is born for perfection
And each shall attain it
Will he but follow
His nature’s duty. (10)

Q: Surely some people are too far gone to realize you at the ascended level you’re describing.

K: Though a man be soiled
With the sins of a lifetime,
Let him but love me,
Rightly resolved,
In utter devotion:
I see no sinner,
That man is holy.
Holiness soon
Shall refashion his nature
To peace eternal. (11)

Though you were the foulest of sinners,
This knowledge alone would carry you
Like a raft, over all your sin.
The blazing fire turns wood to ashes:
The fire of knowledge turns all karmas to ashes. (12)

Q: For Self-Realization, must I renounce even my desire for you?

K: I am all that a man may desire
Without transgressing
The law of his nature. (13)

Q: Can you describe the qualities of the person who is likely to realize you?

K: A [person] who is born with tendencies toward the Divine is fearless and pure in heart. He perseveres in that path to union with Brahman which the scriptures and his teacher have taught him. He is charitable. He can control his passions. He studies the scriptures regularly, and obeys their directions.

He practises spiritual disciplines. He is straightforward, truthful, and of an even temper. He harms no one. He renounces the things of the world. He has a tranquil mind and an unmalicious tongue. He is compassionate toward all. He is not greedy. He is gentle and modest. He abstains from useless activity. He has faith in the strength of his higher nature. (14)

Q: Does anyone who seeks God ever come to an evil end?

K: No one who seeks Brahman [God] ever comes to an evil end. Even if a man falls away from the practice of yoga, he will still win the heaven of the doers of good deeds, and dwell there many long years.

After that, he will be reborn into the home of pure and prosperous parents. He may even be born into a family of illumined yogis. But such a birth in this world is more difficult to obtain.

He will then regain that spiritual discernment which he acquired in his former body; and so will strive harder than ever for perfection. Because of his practices in the previous life, he will be driven on toward union with Brahman, even in spite of himself.

For the man who has once asked the way to Brahman goes farther than any mere fulfiller of the Vedic rituals. By struggling hard, and cleansing himself of all impurities, that yogi will move gradually toward perfection through many births, and reach the highest goal at last. (15)

Thank you so much, Sri Krishna. Read more of his teachings in the Bhagavad-Gita (see below).

Footnotes

(1) Sri Krishna in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944, 87. All quotes are from the same book. I give page numbers only.

I know that the Self is to be found in the heart. I’ve seen it in the “seat of the soul,” the deepest part of the heart, on Sept. 18, 2018, at Xenia Retreat Center.

(2) 81.

(3) 70.

(4) 70. This was true in Krishna’s time but probably would not be true today, in a time of mass Ascension.

(5) 77.

(6) 54.

(7) 66.

(8) 77.

(9) 76.

(10) 126.

(11) 85.

(12) 55.

(13) 71.