Questioner: A part of our previous question remains unanswered: it is about Shree Arvind seeing visions of Krishna. You had once said at Ahmedabad that such visions are mostly nothing more than mental projections. Is it a mental projection or a real mystical experience in the case of Arvind?

There is another question:

If Arjuna is just an instrument in the hands of existence, what about his individuality?

Visions of Krishna, or of Buddha, Mahavira or Christ are seen in two different ways. One is what we call a mental projection – what you see is nothing but your dreams, your desires, your imaginations taking a visual form, a shape in front of your eyes. There is nothing real in front of you; it is all imagination. The mind is quite capable of it; it can project an image of your dreams and desires, and you can think it is real. As you dream in sleep, so you can dream in the waking state. This is how a Hindu sees visions of Krishna or Rama, a Christian sees visions of Christ or Mary. It is just mental, imaginary, hallucinatory. The other way is real, but it does not bring you face to face with Krishna or his image; it makes you encounter and experience what may be called the Krishna-consciousness. In an experience like this there is no image whatsoever of Krishna or Christ, there is only a state of heightened awareness, a contact-high.

As I said yesterday, there are two forms of Krishna: one is his oceanic form and the other is his wave form. While his oceanic form represents the universal consciousness or superconsciousness, his wave form represents Krishna the man who happened some five thousand years ago.

Now an image, an icon of his wave form – Krishna the man – can be used to come in contact with his oceanic form, with Krishna-consciousness. But when you will really come in contact with Krishna-consciousness, this image, this symbol of Krishna will disappear and only the superconsciousness will remain with you. While it is true that his statue can be used for connecting with Krishna’s superconsciousness, if someone sees only visions of Krishna and does not experience his consciousness, then it is merely a case of mental projection and nothing else.

The experience of Krishna-consciousness does not happen by way of visions and images. It is pure consciousness without any shape or form. We associate Krishna’s name with it because a person loves Krishna and comes to this consciousness with the help of his image. Another person can come to it with the help of Buddha’s image, and he can call it buddha-consciousness. It can he called Christ-consciousness if someone attains it through the image of Christ. Names don’t matter; the real thing is the oceanic consciousness, which is without name and form.