Ep. 42 | Only Jesus Died the Real Death

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Call and Response Ep. 42 Only Jesus Died the Real Death

Question: He, so the thing that kind of like I had an epiphany about was He never died, the part about Jesus, you know, “I never died.” I had that experience with Jesus, when He said, “I never died.” Could you say a little bit more about somebody who never died, and that whole idea?

“States of mind have their own qualities. Now, heaven is a state of mind. It’s not a place that you go to. Where are you going to go? How are you going to get there? Right? So, it’s a state of mind. When you’re in it, it’s eternal. That’s why it feels like heaven. “It will always be like this.” Pleasure, beautiful pleasure, unending pleasure, the world of the Gods. Heaven. The lower Gods. The devatas. Indra and the whole posse. But then there’s also hell, which they also say is eternal. But it’s not like it lasts forever. It only lasts as long as your karma puts you there. And when you’re there, it feels eternal. That’s why it feels so bad. It’s always going to be like this. It’s like our normal depression states. We think they’re going to last forever, but then they’re gone after ten or fifteen years. Or until we meet somebody else that knows how to push the right buttons. So, He lost himself in love. That’s how Maharajji said Jesus meditated. He didn’t watch His breath. He didn’t stand on one toe. He lost Himself in love. He immersed Himself fully in the love that surrounds us all the time. That lives within us. That’s who we really are.” – Krishna Das

Q: Namaste, beloved. It’s Karuna.

KD: Hold on, louder please. Just want to get the sound right.

Q: This question has to do with your Guru, Maharajji and the story that you shared at another workshop. It has to do with somebody who came in, a Canadian who came in and ask Maharajji how to meditate. And Maharajji said, “Meditate like Jesus.” And then, the Canadian asked, how would he meditate like Jesus. And then Maharajji closed His eyes, almost as if He went to ask Jesus how He meditate, and a tear, you said a tear came out of His eyes and Maharajji said, “He’s lost in love. He never died.”

KD: He loved everyone.

Q: yeah. So, He, so the thing that kind of like I had an epiphany about was He never died, the part about Jesus, you know, “I never died.” I had that experience with Jesus, when He said, “I never died.” Could you say a little bit more about somebody who never died, and that whole idea?
KD: Everyone in a body, dies. The bodies die. But the Being doesn’t die. The real Being doesn’t die. Jesus left His body, but He never died. There’s a difference. You don’t think you’re think you’re the body, do you? I didn’t think so. In that case, you have nothing to worry about. You won’t die. But you will watch the body go. Because that’s inevitable. One time, Maharajji said, “I’m really old.” I’m like, what? You know? What does He mean by that? You know? And there’s stories about, for instance, one time, we were in Allahabad at one of the devotees’ houses. His name was Dada, which is also funny because Maharajji called him “Dada,” and “Dada” means “elder brother” and then Maharajji insisted that Dada’s wife call him “Dada.” And she said, “He’s not my elder brother.” Maharajji said, “If he’s my Dada, he’s your Dada.” So, she had to call him “Dada.” So, we were singing to Maharajji in the room, in the big room, just singing Sri Ram and He was sitting on the cot, the tucket, they call it. And these two young Indian men came in and sat down in the back of the room. Maharajji saw them and He immediately sent them away. He said, “Go, go, go bring the old lady. Go on, go.” So they left. They came back later and, with a very old woman, and they sat down in the back of the room. The minute they came in, Maharajji got up and He went into His bedroom and He called for them to come in and the old lady’s looking at maharajji and she said, “Baba, how could this be? How could you be here.” And Maharajji’s saying, “Ma, shut up. Shut up. Jap. Jap.” But she couldn’t stop. She was like, “Baba, I don’t understand. How could this be? How could you be here?” “Jap.” She just couldn’t. So finally He said, “Ma, I died and was reborn in the hills. Now be quiet.” And then He gave them prasad and sent them away. So, Dada, who was like the FBI, went running around and caught them at the front door and he said, “What’s the story?” So, here’s the story.

So, that morning, these two young men were coming into Allahabad from a village outside of Allahabad. They had heard that Neem Karoli Baba was around and they knew that their grandmother liked Saints. One of them’s grandmother, was a grandmother, grandson, or nephew or something. And they knew that she liked Saints. So, they stopped at her house and they said, “Would you like… we’re going to see Neem Karoli Baba, do you want to come?” And she said, “Neem Karoli Baba? What are you talking about? He was my grandfather’s Guru. I used to sit on His lap when I was 8 years old when I was a kid. He’s long gone, this must be some imposter.” Then they came.

Then she didn’t come. So, the two boys came and they were sent home by Maharajji to get the old lady. So, and she said to Dada, she said, “I don’t understand how it could be. He looks exactly the same as when I was eight years old.  But I don’t remember the blanket.” That’s the only thing, because Maharajji always wore a blanket. “I don’t remember the blanket.” So, you tell me. Even if He died and was reborn consciously, how could He look exactly the same? These guys can do whatever they want. They can do whatever they want. They know. They are living in this dream, consciously aware. When you’re dreaming at night, you think it’s real in the dream, right? You’re walking down the street. “Yeah, I’m walking down the street.” You think it’s, that’s reality in the dream. You don’t know anything else except what’s happening. When you wake up, you recognize it’s a dream.  But these great Beings do not fall asleep through the different states of consciousness. They’re fully aware. So, they can create anything they want in the dream. He could show up right here and sit on stage, just like he looked, anytime, because He’s aware that this is also a dream. We think this is real. But when we’re sleeping and dreaming, we think that’s real. So, there are Beings who are more awake than we are, who know that this is also a dream. And what does that mean? Well, I don’t really know, but, for instance, right now, I’m sitting here, looking out at you all. Do I know you? No. But, unconsciously, I’m telling myself a story about who you are. I see you, you’re kind of slouched in the chair and relaxed. That’s nice. You’re standing up straight, looking like you know what you’re doing. You know? Other people have got their hair this way. Other people are wearing this. Immediately, I’ve got a whole version of life. It’s my subjective version, based on all my stuff and guess what? You’re doing the same thing. We’re all playing each other’s parts in our movie. All of us. All the time. That’s why, that’s why spiritual practice works. Because It shows us, little by little, how subjective we are. You know, it’s very simple, like for instance, you might work in an office where there’s some guy who walks around cranky all the time and never talks to you, and you, you know, you start to develop a story around that. “Why doesn’t he like me? What did I ever do to him? He’s a nasty guy” And you’ve got this whole thing going. Then you find out he has terminal brain cancer. And that it wasn’t about you at all. But you acted like it was. Until you found out the truth. So, when we find out the truth, things will look a little different.

So… and we won’t be caught in our knee jerk reactions about everything that happens to us. We’ll get a vote. Like, for me, when I drive now, when I remember, I try to see all the other drivers in the road as His Holiness the Dalai Lama. “Son of a… Oh, His Holiness, Thank you for cutting me off like that. I appreciate it. You’ve shown me my craziness, I appreciate that teaching. Thank you. Yes. Ok.” You know? I try, you can’t be angry at His Holiness, so I try to see everybody as the Dalai Lama and that makes life interesting. So, as far as that story goes, that’s what He meant. But, the real thing about that story was, for instance, I had all kinds of ideas about meditation and spiritual practice and what I have to do and what I wanted to accomplish and how this, I was going to be a great yogi and I need… and we were always trying to get Maharajji to give us some practice to do, you know? Like, come on. “Give us a mantra” you know? “Give us the secret meditation teaching.” So, when He said we should meditate like Christ, you know, it was Ram Das later in the day that asked Maharajji, well, “You said we should meditate like Christ. Well, how did He meditate?” And then He closed His eyes. He wasn’t asking Jesus. He knows exactly what Jesus thought, felt and who He is and who He was because they’re all One like we are but we don’t know. So, He just closed His eyes and then two tears came down His cheek, you know? And He just said, “He lost Himself in love. He lost Himself in love. That’s how He meditated. He’s one with all beings. No one understands, He never died.” This is a Catholic school, I think.

It’s obviously and I don’t know shit about it.  I’ll pay for that, but what the fuck.

That was the thing, when I got to India and I met Beings, great Beings, I realized “This is what Jesus is, this is who He is, this is what it was all about.” And then I realized, “Jesus, what did He have to do with Christianity?”  He let 100 years, before that Jewish guy had a vision and created all this bullshit. Well, ok. Religion, organized religion, doesn’t have much to do with God. Ask Sinead O’Connor. She feels the same way. It’s just organization. Mind control. Emotional control. Manipulation. “Do this” and you’ll go to heaven. Yeah, right.

As if heaven was eternal. See, states of mind have their own qualities. Now, heaven is a state of mind. It’s not a place that you go to. Where are you going to go? How are you going to get there? Right? So, it’s a state of mind. When you’re in it, it’s eternal. That’s why it feels like heaven. “It will always be like this.” Pleasure, beautiful pleasure, unending pleasure, the world of the Gods. Heaven. The lower Gods. The devatas. Indra and the whole posse. But then there’s also hell, which they also say is eternal. But it’s not like it lasts forever. It only lasts as long as your karma puts you there. And when you’re there, it feels eternal. That’s why it feels so bad. It’s always going to be like this. It’s like our normal depression states. We think they’re going to last forever, but then they’re gone after ten or fifteen years. Or until we meet somebody else that knows how to push the right buttons. So, He lost himself in love. That’s how Maharajji said Jesus meditated. He didn’t watch His breath. He didn’t stand on one toe. He lost Himself in love. He immersed Himself fully in the love that surrounds us all the time. That lives within us. That’s who we really are. So, now that makes sense to me.

There’s so many stories about Maharajji.

You know, He used to talk sometimes about these, “Oh, there’s a Saint that lives there and He’s a really good saint and He feeds people and this and that, you know, and there’s another Saint that lives over there.” So, after Maharajji left the body, His greatest devotee, Siddhi Ma, they took off on a pilgrimage and they went to these places, two or three of these places that Maharajji used to talk about, and they get there and they asked to see this Saint and they said, “Oh, He just left the body.” And then they’d describe. “Well, tell us about Him.” And they described Maharajji to a ‘t’. So, it was like He was living in three or four places at the same time. And because, you know, He used to say to us, “I have the keys to the mind. I can turn your minds against me.” “No Baba! Don’t do that!” He’d laugh. Can you imagine waking up one day, you’ve been in India, you know, you wake up one day, “What am I doing here? I’m going home. When’s the next bus out of here.” Because all of a sudden, it’s really interesting. And he would say, “I’ll transfer you.” “No Baba! Don’t do that!” And He’d laugh. He had a great time teasing us. But then time would come He would transfer us. Like, about five or six years ago, a couple that had been with me and others in India with Maharajji, they came back to India for the first time and we were out singing the Hanuman Chalisa out in front of the mandir, the temple for Maharajji, and this, I noticed the woman standing over on the side where there was a place where Maharajji used to sit just like on a porch. And she was standing on one of the steps of the porch, just like standing there like this. And I noticed it and I said, “Oh, something’s going on over there. “ So when I finished, we finished singing, she came over to me, she said, “Krishna Das, I think only you can understand when I’m going to tell you.” I said, “What’s that?” She said, “I was just standing on those steps and I remembered standing there, what was it, 40 years ago, right? Standing there 40 years ago, looking at Maharajji and thinking, ‘this is where I, I’ve finally made it, I’m home. This is where I’ll always be.”  She looked at me and she said, “What happened?” She married, had two kids who were now, then in college, she’s got a real estate business, a big house, a whole life going on, and she remembered standing there and thinking, “This is where I’ll always be. Standing here looking at Him. This is where I want to be. This is where I’ll always be.” Transfer. Back into the karmas. Back into your life. He brought us there. He gave us what we needed. He shipped us back into our lives. He didn’t need people to be there. I remember this old couple came from Lucknow, a whole family actually that came from Lucknow and they a train, then they took the bus, then they got another bus. They got off at kainchi and they walked inside. Maharajji looks, “You’ve come? Good. Now go.” And they got up. Got back on the bus and went home, you know? He didn’t need you to be there because He’s everywhere. These great beings are everywhere. We’re the ones who are stuck in this thing that limits us so totally. They’re not. You don’t… and they’re running the show, PS. So, good luck thinking you’re making any decisions. But you have to.

People ask me all the time, you know, is it all grace, what should I do? I say, if you think there’s a choice to make, make it. Make the best choice you can make. Don’t sit around doing nothing. That ain’t going to work. That is not going to work. Because doing nothing is still doing something and it’s not very helpful. Make a choice. Make the right choice, the best choice you can make for yourself and the people you’re around and the situation you’re in. Make that choice and go for it 100%.

So, He used to say, one time I was with Siddhi Ma, who’d been with Maharajji for 40 years and the fire company’s coming, I wonder what they want… So, I said, “Ma, Maharajji said, He had the keys to the mind. Ok. Let’s say He does. If He does, that means that I am exactly where He wants me to be. Otherwise I’d be somewhere else, right? He would just move me. So, is it all grace? Or is it my own effort?” And She said, “It’s all grace. But you have to act like it isn’t.” The deal is done but we don’t know it. So we have to act. We have to deal with who we believe ourselves to be. We’re not who we think we are. But we think we are who we think we are. So, we have to make the best decisions in life and be the best person we can be. But in the other picture, the big picture, it’s already done, but we’re not seeing the Big Picture and you can’t pretend that you are. And just, even if you know there’s a big picture, that’s not enough. You still will come across choices that you have to make in your daily life. Like, where do you put your food in the morning? Do you throw it over your shoulder? Or do you put it in your mouth? That’s a choice. There’s so many choices all day long. Do I go to pee now? Or do I wait? It’s ok. We’ll be there. So, that’s the deal. So until we uncover what really lives within us, who we really are, we should be kind to ourselves and kind to others and do some practice. That’s the whole thing. You can’t figure it out. You can’t think yourself out of a prison that’s made of thought. Right? How can you do that? Every thought is the prison because you’re identified with it, you think you’re really thinking. It’s ridiculous. But we believe that. So, that’s the level we live on. That’s the level we have to go through our lives on and make our choices and one choice is sitting our asses down and doing some practice. One choice was coming here to be abused. It gets so bad sometimes, people make t-shirts saying “I survived the Krishna Das workshop.” Really. I don’t know what to do. Anybody else? Questions?