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

CHAPTER 7. MAKE WORK A CELEBRATION
into a flower, and then this flower will have certain attributes, qualities. It will be red in color, it will be
fragrant; then it will have an individuality of its own. But right now, as a seed, there is nothing in it. It
will take on attributes only after it comes to express itself, after it sprouts, grows and blossoms into
a flower.
The world has many attributes; God has none. God is seed-like; he is unmanifest. When God
manifests himself in the form of the world he acquires attributes, and these attributes disappear
when he again becomes unmanifest. Someone is a saint and another person is a thief. As saint
and thief they have certain attributes, but when they, the saint and the thief, go to sleep, they are
without any attributes. Neither does the saint remain a saint nor the thief remain a thief. In sleep
all attributes disappear; sleep is a state without attributes. Attributes appear with the waking state;
with sleep they go to sleep too. When they wake up the saint will become a saint and the thief will
become a thief again. In sleep we are very close to our individuality, our innate nature; rather, we
are closest to it. And in samadhi, in ecstasy, we actually attain to our supreme nature, which is of
the highest.
So the experiencing of the pristine nature has no attributes, no traits whatsoever. But when selfnature
manifests itself it acquires attributes. Attribute and non-attribute are not two things; they are
not contradictory. They are just the ways of the manifest and the unmanifest.
Self-nature, supreme nature, has two states. One is the unmanifest state when it is in seed form,
asleep, absorbed in itself. And the other is the manifest state when it takes form and attributes.
Really, no manifestation can be without form and attributes; it has to have a form, a shape, a color
and a speciality.
A small story comes to mind, a Zen story. A Zen Master teaches his disciples how to paint.
Painting is the medium through which he really leads his disciples into meditation. One can travel
to meditation from anywhere and everywhere. There is no point in the world from where you cannot
make a start for meditation. This Master has ten disciples who are gathered round him one morning.
He tells them, ”Go and make a picture whose broad outlines should be like this. There is a cow in a
grassy land, and the cow is grazing. You have to paint it, but remember, the painting has to have no
form, no attributes.”
The disciples find themselves in great difficulty. It is the job of a Master to put his disciples in difficulty,
in crisis, because only in crisis can they become aware of themselves. The disciples find it extremely
hard to paint a picture without form and attributes; it seems an impossible task. They have to use
lines and colors. They have to give the cow some form; they have to show the grass all over the
field.
Nine of the ten disciples attempt to paint and the next day return with some sort of paintings which
don’t have any clearcut outlines, everything is hazy and unclear. But a sort of cow is there in each
painting. In drawing the grass they certainly made use of abstract art so it is formless as much as
possible. Nevertheless, they have to use colors of some sort.
Inspecting each other’s paintings, a disciple asks one of his friends, ”Where is the cow?”
The other says, ”I had some idea of a cow when I was in the process of painting, but now I cannot
say where the cow is.”
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 138 Osho