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we will ask him, "How can sannyas come from unhappiness?" The sannyas that is born out of unhappiness cannot lead to happiness and bliss. The sannyas that arises from pain and suffering can at best lessen your suffering, but it cannot bring you joy and bliss. You can, of course, reduce your suffering by moving away from the situation, but you cannot achieve joy and bliss through it. Only the sannyas, the Ganges of sannyas that is born out of bliss, can reach the ocean of bliss -- because then all the efforts of the sannyasin will be directed towards enhancing his bliss.
Spiritual pursuit in the past was meant to mitigate suffering, it did not aim at bliss. And, of course, a traveler on this path does succeed, but it is a negative kind of success. What he achieves is a kind of indifference to life, which is only unhappiness reduced to its minimum. That is why our old sannyasins seem to be sad and dull, as if they have lost the battle of life and run away from it. Their sannyas is not alive and happy, dancing and celebrating.
To me, Krishna is a sannyasin of bliss. And because of the great possibility and potential of the sannyas of bliss opening up before us, I have deliberately chosen to discuss Krishna. It is not that Krishna has not been discussed before. But those who discussed him were sannyasins of sorrow, and therefore they could not do justice to him. On the contrary, they have been very unjust to him. And it had to be so.
If Shankara interprets Krishna, he is bound to misinterpret him; he is the antithesis of Krishna. His interpretation can never be right and just. Krishna could not be rightly interpreted in the past, because all the interpreters who wrote about him came from the world of sorrow. They said that the world is unreal and false, that it is an illusion, but Krishna says this world is not only real, it is divine. He accepts this world. He accepts everything; he denies nothing. He is for total acceptance -- acceptance of the whole. Such a man had never trod this earth before.
As we discuss him here from day to day, many things, many facets of him, will unfold themselves. For me, the very word "Krishna" is significant.
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