It is just as it happens to small children. They were dreaming of a beautiful toy and they wake up: the toy is not there and they are crying – “Where is my toy?” And you cannot convince them, “You were dreaming, and this is reality. You have changed the whole dimension. That was your fiction, your idea, your mind and your imagination, and this is reality. It has nothing to do with your mind and your imagination.”

All the religions have been teaching fasting. Nobody has bothered to ask why all the religions are agreed on fasting. My own understanding is that the reason is that after a certain time of fasting…. Your intelligence needs protein continuously to remain functioning. After three weeks the reservoir of protein in your brain is exhausted – then you are again in the state of a child. You don’t know what is dream and what is real.

It is those moments when people have realized Jesus Christ, Krishna, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, or whatever has been always conditioned in their mind; it becomes projected. And they don’t now have intelligence enough to feel the distinction between the real and the unreal.

The people like Moses or Jesus who have said that they have encountered God face to face must have been in such a state – which can be experimentally created. And things are very clear: a Christian never comes to see Krishna; a Hindu never comes to see Christ because a Hindu mind is not being continuously conditioned to Christ – he sees Krishna. The Buddhist never sees Krishna, the Jaina never sees Krishna.

You will be surprised that according to Jaina scriptures, Krishna is suffering in the seventh hell because he was the cause of the greatest war this country has suffered, of the whole violence. And in fact there is some truth in it.

Arjuna was not willing to fight. He wanted to retire from fighting; he wanted to go to the Himalayas to meditate. He said, “It is better – the others can keep the throne. Anyway they are my brothers. And what is the point of killing all these people?” – because it was a family struggle and both parties were connected in many ways.

Arjuna’s own master, who had made him the best archer in the world, was on the other side because he was also the master of his brothers.

Krishna was fighting on the side of Arjuna, and his own army was fighting on the other side because both parties had approached Krishna to join them.

He said, “Now this is difficult. I am alone – how can I join two parties? You are both friends so you can choose: I will fight from one side and my army will fight from the other side.”

It was a very strange war in which everybody was related. The grandfather of Arjuna, whom he loved and respected, was on the other side. The people with whom he was fighting were his cousin-brothers – whom he had played and grown up with. Millions of people would be killed.