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

CHAPTER 7. MAKE WORK A CELEBRATION
you are a participant; in entertainment you are only a spectator. In entertainment you watch others
playing for you. So while celebration is active, entertainment is passive. In celebration you dance,
while in entertainment you watch someone dancing, for which you pay him. But there is a world of
difference between dancing and watching a dance performed by a group of professionals who are
paid for it. You work hard during the day, and when you are tired in the evening you go to a concert
to watch others dancing. It is all you can do, but it is not even an apology for celebration.
Albert Camus has said that the time is very near when we will have servants to make love on our
behalf, because we don’t have time for love. We are so busy we don’t have time for love; we will
employ others to do this job for us. Love is a celebration, but for workoholics it has become a
superfluous thing. It does not yield any profits; it does not add to their bank balances. Love is an
end unto itself; it cannot be turned into a business. So those who are addicted to work think it a
waste of time to indulge in love. A kind of secretary can be asked to deal with it and dispose of it.
Obsession with work has taken away the moments of celebration from our life, and we have been
deprived of the excitement and thrill that comes with celebration. That is why nobody is happy,
nobody is cheerful, nobody is blossoming. That is why suffering has become the badge of mankind.
We had to find a substitute for celebration, and entertainment is that substitute, because we do need
a few moments of relaxation, a brief spell of diversion. But entertainment is a very poor substitute,
because others do it and we are only spectators. It is like the vicarious pleasure we derive from
watching someone in love. This is precisely what you do when you watch a movie. You watch a man
and woman loving each other and you enjoy it vicariously. It is a false substitute; it is utterly useless.
It is not going to give you a taste of love; it is not going to satiate your thirst for love. On the other
hand, your disaffection and torment will deepen and land you in still greater misery.
For God’s sake, know love directly, enter into it, and only then you will be satiated and happy. Real
love alone can make life festive, entertainment won’t.
Krishna is all for celebration; he takes life as a great play, a mighty drama. The work-addicts have,
instead of doing any good to the world, only created confusion and complication in the life of man.
They have made life so complex that living has become extremely hard and painful.
It is true that devotees of Rama, like Hanumana, seem to be strong, active and sincere people, the
devotees of Krishna are not so. Meera goes about dancing and singing, but she does not seem to
be as dynamic as Hanumana. She cannot be. The reason is that while Rama takes life seriously,
believes life is all work, Krishna is non-serious and takes life as a dance, a celebration. And life as
celebration is a different thing altogether. Life as work pales in insignificance before it. If you are
asked to spend twenty-four hours in the company of Hanumana you will think twice. You would want
to run away from him if you were made to live in the same room with him for a long while. But you
can live with Meera joyfully for any length of time.
It is true that Krishna’s lovers gradually withdrew themselves from the world of outer activity, from the
world of extroversion. They dived deep into the interiority of life and drank at the fountain of its bliss.
This is as it should be, because Krishna knows how, when you lose yourself in its outer activities,
you are missing life itself.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 129 Osho