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

CHAPTER 7. MAKE WORK A CELEBRATION
And then the sage said, ”There is no connection whatsoever between world conquest and rest. Here
I am, resting well, without having to go in conquest of the world.”
What Diogenes told Alexander at the end of their dialogue proved to be prophetic. He said, ”You
will in fact, turn back mid-journey. Who has ever returned after completing his journey?” On his way
back from India the conqueror died; he could not reach Greece.
All Alexanders die, and die mid journey. They gather wealth but don’t have the time to enjoy it. They
do everything to collect all the instruments of an orchestra, and when everything is ready they find
to their despair that they have lost the capacity to play them. Their hands are empty and they can’t
do anything but weep. Alexander died empty handed.
No, life is meant to be a celebration; celebration is its central note. If someone asks you, better ask
this question of yourself: ”Do I live to work or work to live?” Then the answer will become very clear
to you, and you will move much closer to Krishna. You do everything so you live, and not so you
live to work and work meaninglessly. And to live you don’t need to do much; too much doing has no
meaning.
If this attitude that we work to live gains ground, much of our trouble and misery will disappear. Most
of our troubles arise from our madness to do too much, and if this madness goes, there will be much
more peace and joy and cheer in the world than we have at the moment. With the disappearance
of overdoing, many things will disappear – tension and anxiety will disappear, mental diseases and
madhouses will disappear. This much harm it will do, if you take it as harm. It will be a sane world
indeed.
Therefore I say that I am in complete accord with Krishna’s festive vision of life.
You also want to know why all the avataras and Tirthankaras of this country, like Rama, Krishna,
Mahavira and Buddha, have been portrayed without beards. What may the reasons be?
I don’t think all of them were without beards; one or two might have been exceptions to the rule. It is
not factual that they did not have beards, yet it is true that not one of them has been portrayed with
a beard. There must be reasons for it.
Firstly, the time before one grows a beard is the freshest and finest time of his life. That is the
peak moment of life’s freshness; after that it begins to decline. But as far as men like Krishna are
concerned we saw them as the very picture of that freshness, of that infinite freshness, and saw
that they retained this freshness through their whole lives. There is never a point of decline in their
freshness; they are always young and new. Not that they don’t age and grow old. They all age, but
as far as their consciousness is concerned it is always in the adolescent state. Their consciousness
is eternally young, eternally new, eternally fresh.
These paintings and portraits of Rama, Krishna, Mahavira and Buddha that we see without beards,
do not represent their persons; they represent their spirit, their soul, their consciousness. We saw a
constant freshness, youthfulness, accompanying them through their childhood, their youth and old
age, and we captured that freshness in our paintings and pictures of them.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 131 Osho