Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 6. NUDITY AND CLOTHING SHOULD GO TOGETHER
or ”me”. For you, your own ”I” will be yours, not mine. If Krishna means to say that you should
surrender to him, to Krishna, it will mean you have to surrender to some ”you”, to the other, and not
to your own ”I”, to yourself. When Krishna says that Arjuna should take refuge, he knows that he,
Krishna, is not the ”I” of Arjuna; Arjuna’s own ”I” is his ”I”. So Arjuna will seek shelter in his own ”I”,
which means he will take refuge in his own swadhanna, in his self-nature, in his own innate nature.
Krishna certainly did not say it as a joke. It is a rare statement, a statement of tremendous depth and
significance. Perhaps no other statement in all the history of mankind has this depth: ”Abandoning
the many take refuge in the one; abandoning the ’thou’ take shelter in the ’I’; abandoning religions
with adjectives, traditional religions, take refuge in religion, which is one and only one.”
But this statement has still deeper meanings. If Arjuna says that he will take shelter in himself, then
also he fails to understand Krishna, because in order to find the shelter of religion one has to give
up his ego, his ”I” first. To surrender it is essential to renounce the ego. Surrender really means
surrender of the ”I”, annihilation of the ”I”. If Arjuna says he will surrender to himself he has missed
the whole point. Surrender is possible only after the complete cessation of the ”I”.
Now we are treading on a difficult and complex ground when we say, ”Abandoning yourself, take
shelter in yourself; renouncing religions take shelter in religion; giving up many take shelter in the
one.” But if you are left with one you are left with many, because we cannot think of one without
many. There fore to seek shelter in the one you have to give up the one too; you have to give up
numbers altogether.
That is why, eventually, a new term had to be invented when it was realized that the word ”one”
was likely to create confusion. The new term is adwaya, meaning non-dual, not two. We did not go
for monism, because the one presupposes the existence of two, something other than one. So we
opted for non-duality, which is a negative term. It means not two, one without the second; it means
beware of two. It is so because one is relative to two, one can be known only in the context of two. If
I know that ”I am” then I know it only in the context of ”you”, in relation to you. Without ”you” where
is ”I” going to begin and end? What is its limit? Whoever knows that he is, knows it in contrast with
the other. One cannot be without the other. If someone says truth is one, his very emphasis on its
being one says that he is aware of the other which he is denying.
Therefore this statement of Krishna’s is tremendously profound.
In this context, remember firstly that Arjuna is not being asked to surrender to Krishna, but to himself;
he is being asked to be self-surrendered. The second thing to bear in mind is that when Arjuna
is being asked to be self-surrendered, he is being asked to surrender not to his ego but to the
egolessness innate nature that he is. And thirdly, remember that he is being asked to renounce all
religions without the exception of any particular religion. All religions, without exceptions like the
Hindu religion, have to be given up, because so long as one clings to any particular religion he
cannot attain to religion, to true religion.
How can one attain to true religion, which is not bound by any adjectives whatsoever, as long as he
owes allegiance to any particular religion, Hindu, Christian or Mohammedan? Religion is that which
comes into being after a seeker like Arjuna gives up the particular religion he traditionally belongs
to, after he gives up all religions that bear adjectival and divisive names like Hindu, Christian and
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 101 Osho