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

CHAPTER 7. MAKE WORK A CELEBRATION
While Krishna has gone beyond mind, the animal is below the level of mind. The animal does not
have a mind, it has only a body and instincts and it functions mechanically. So there is a kind of
similarity between one who is above mind and one who is below it.
There is an old saying prevalent among sages that when one attains to the highest wisdom he
becomes like the most ignorant person on the earth. There is some truth in this saying.
One of the sages of ancient India is known as Jarbharat, which literally means Bharat the Ignorant.
Really, he was one of the wisest sages of this country, but he was named Jarbharat, Bharat the
Ignorant, because he looked like an extremely ignorant person. In a way perfect wisdom looks like
perfect ignorance; at least in perfection they are similar. A man of wisdom is at rest, because he
has known everything, nothing remains to be known. An ignorant person is also at rest, because
he does not know a thing. To be restless it is necessary to know a little. An animal functions very
unconsciously; Krishna functions with full awareness. Nothing happens to him in unawareness.
That is why we say when someone attains to the highest wisdom he becomes like a child. Somebody
asks Jesus, ”How is your kingdom of God? How is one who attains to God?”
Jesus says, ”One who attains to God becomes like a child.” But Jesus does not say that a child
attains to God. If it were so all children would attain to God. He does not say that one who attains
to God becomes a child, he says he becomes like a child. If he says that a sage becomes a child, it
would mean that a child has perfect wisdom, which is not the case. If children were perfect we need
not do anything with them. No, the child is below the level of the developed mind, while the sage has
gone beyond. The child will have to pass through a phase of conflict, tension and struggle; the sage
has outlived all conflicts and tensions. The child potentially carries with him all the sicknesses man
is heir to; the wise man has outlived such sicknesses. In the course of evolution even the animal
will have to pass through all the sicknesses of man. But here is Krishna who has outlived them,
transcended them, gone beyond them.
The similarity and difference between man and animal are well-defined.
Question 8
QUESTIONER: YOU TALKED ABOUT SWADHARMA,
SELF-NATURE, THE INNATE INDIVIDUALITY OF MAN. THE GEETA SAYS THAT ONE’S OWN
NATURE, EVEN IF IT BE INFERIOR IN QUALITY, IS PREFERABLE TO AN ALIEN NATURE OF
SUPERIOR QUALITY. THEN THE QUESTION IS: HOW CAN SELF-NATURE, WHICH IS ONE’S
INNATE INDIVIDUALITY, BE INFERIOR IN QUALITY?
Let it be the last question for this discourse, and then we will sit for meditation.
You ask how one’s self-nature or the innate individuality can be inferior in quality. In this connection
two things have to be considered.
The first. Everything in its origin is without any attribute, quality; it gathers attributes only after it takes
a form and grows. There is a seed; it has no attributes whatsoever. The seed has just potentiality; it
has no quality other than this. It can give birth to a flower which is not yet there. Tomorrow it will turn
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 137 Osho