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

CHAPTER 7. MAKE WORK A CELEBRATION
night. And if you ask him why he works, he will say that he works today so he can relax tomorrow.
He postpones relaxation and continues to work in the hope that he will relax some day. But that day
never comes for him.
I am in complete agreement with Krishna’s vision of life, which is one of celebration. I am a
celebrationist. May I ask what man has achieved by working day in and day out? It is different
if he works for the love of work, but I would like to know what he has achieved so far by working
meaninglessly?
There is the story of Sisyphus in Greek mythology. He was a king who was condemned by the
gods to push a heavy stone uphill and, when it rolled down the hill, to begin again. Time and again
Sisyphus had to carry the stone from the base of the hill to its top; this is what ”an uphill task”
means. A workoholic is a Sisyphus endlessly pushing a stone uphill and beginning again when it
rolls down. He is now engaged in pushing the stone uphill and then chasing it when it rolls down
and then beginning to push it up again. And he never comes to know a moment of leisure and joy in
all his life.
These workoholics have turned the whole world into a madhouse. Everyone is mad with running
and reaching somewhere. And no man knows where this ”somewhere” is. I have heard that a man
got into a taxi and asked the driver to drive fast. And the taxi sped. After a little while the driver
inquired where he had to go, and the man said, ”That is not the question, I have to go fast.”
Everyone in the world is running like him, everyone is hurrying through life. ”Hurry up,” has become
our watchword. But no one asks, ”Where are we going?” We work hard, but we don’t know why
we work so hard. One does not even have time to think why he is toiling day in and day out. He
is running just because his neighbor is running, his friends are running, the whole world is running.
Everyone is running for fear of being left behind the other runners.
His son said, ”It is true, as I learned from your life, that wealth is not happiness, but I also learned
from your life that if one has wealth, one can have the suffering of his choice, one can choose
between one suffering and another. And this freedom of choice is beautiful. I know that you
were never happy, but you always chose your own kind of suffering. A poor man does not have
this freedom, this choice; his suffering is determined by circumstances. Except this, there is no
difference between a rich man and a poor man in the matter of suffering. A poor man has to suffer
with a woman who comes his way as his wife, but the rich man can afford women with whom he
wants to suffer. And this choice is not an insignificant happiness. ”
If you examine it deeply, you will find that happiness and suffering are two aspects of the same thing,
two sides of the same coin, or, perhaps, they are different densities of the same phenomenon.
The workoholics have done immense harm to the world. And the greatest harm they have done is
that they have deprived life of its moments of celebration and festivity. It is because of them that
there is so little festivity in the world, and every day it is becoming more and more dull and dreary
and miserable.
In fact, entertainment has taken the place of celebration in the present world. But entertainment is
quite different from celebration; entertainment and celebration are never the same. In celebration
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 128 Osho