Friday 30 August 2013

Osho : Post Freudian Krishna

Krishna has a great future, says OSHO, because he stands out as the very personification of unconditional love and so transcends all duality

Albert Schweitzer made a significant remark in criticism of religion in India. He said that the religion of this country is life negative. This remark is correct to a large extent — if Krishna is left out. But it is utterly wrong in the context of Krishna. If Schweitzer had tried to understand Krishna he would never have said what he said. Krishna alone accepts the body in its totality. And he accepts it not in any selected dimension, but in all its dimensions. 
The old religions taught suppression as the way to godliness. Man was asked to suppress everything — his sex, his anger, his greed, his attachments — and then alone would he find his soul, would he attain to godliness. This war of man against himself has continued long enough. And in the history of thousands of years of this war, barely a handful of people, whose names can be counted on one’s fingers, can be said to have found God. So in a sense, we lost this war, because down the centuries billions of people died without finding their souls, without meeting God.Undoubtedly there must be some basic flaw, some fundamental mistake in the very foundation of these religions.
The old religions taught suppression as the way to godliness. Man was asked to suppress everything — his sex, his anger, his greed, his attachments — and then alone would he find his soul, would he attain to godliness. This war of man against himself has continued long enough. And in the history of thousands of years of this war, barely a handful of people, whose names can be counted on one’s fingers, can be said to have found God. So in a sense, we lost this war, because down the centuries billions of people died without finding their souls, without meeting God.Undoubtedly there must be some basic flaw, some fundamental mistake in the very foundation of these religions.
It is as if a gardener has planted 50,000 trees and out of them only one tree flowers — and yet we accept his scripture on gardening on the plea that at least one tree has blossomed. But we fail to take into consideration that this single tree might have been an exception to the rule; that it might have blossomed not because of the gardener, but in spite of him. The rest of the fifty thousand trees, those that remained stunted and barren, are enough proof the gardener was not worth his salt.
Krishna alone seems to be relevant to the new awareness, to the new understanding that came to man in the wake of Freud and his findings. It is so because in the whole history of the old humanity, Krishna alone is against repression.
He accepts life in all its facets, in all its climates and colours. He alone does not choose. He accepts life unconditionally. He does not shun love; being a man, he does not run away from women. He is full of love and compassion, and yet he has the courage to accept and fight a war. His heart is utterly nonviolent, yet he plunges into the fire and fury of violence when it becomes unavoidable. 
 Krishna accepts the duality; the dialectics of life altogether and therefore transcends duality. What we call transcendence is not possible so long as you are in conflict, so long as you choose one part and reject the other. Transcendence is only possible when you choicelessly accept both parts together, when you accept the whole.
That is why Krishna has great significance for the future. And his significance will continue to grow with the passage of time. For the first time, man will be able to comprehend him, to understand him and to imbibe him. And it will be so because, for the first time, man will really deserve him and his blessings.

It is really difficult to understand Krishna. It is easy to understand that a man should run away from the world if he wants to find peace, but it is really difficult to accept that one can find peace in the thick of the marketplace. It is understandable that a man can attain to purity of mind if he breaks away from his attachments, but it is really difficult to realise that one can remain unattached and innocent in the very midst of relationships and attachments, that one can remain calm and still live at the very centre of the cyclone. Krishna: Man And His Philosophy, courtesy Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com 

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