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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