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

CHAPTER 8. HE ALONE WINS WHO DOES NOT WANT TO WIN
This is what I call a state of prayerfulness, a state of consciousness. And this is what I call prayer.
No one ever sees Kabir praying. He never goes to a temple or a mosque, as others do to say their
prayers. He says in one of his beautiful poems, ”O priest, is your God deaf that you shout your prayer
to him? I don’t even say my prayer and he hears it; I don’t even utter a word and he understands
it. So why do you make so much noise about it?” Here Kabir is kidding those who have turned
prayer and worship into a ritual. And he can well joke at their expense because he is really prayerful;
otherwise, he cannot poke fun at them.
So I stand for prayerfulness, and not for prayer.
Question 8
QUESTIONER: A PART OF THE QUESTION STILL REMAINS UNANSWERED. IT IS ABOUT
KRISHNA’S CONCH, PANCHJANYA, AND HIS WEAPON, CHAKRASUDARSHAN. AND WHAT
ABOUT THE BHAGWAD’S DESCRIPTION OF MAHARAAS – THE GREAT DANCE – AS A
CHILD’S PLAY WITH HIS SHADOWS?
Everything associated with Krishna has a symbolic meaning. Man has five senses, five doors
through which he expresses himself and relates with the rest of the world. These are eyes, ears,
nose, mouth and skin. We know and experience everything through them, and it is through them we
go out into the world and relate with it.
When the storyteller writes that Krishna blew his panchjanya on the battlefield of Mahabharat, it only
means that he was totally present on the battlefield with all his five senses, nothing more. War is not
an occupation for him; nothing is an occupation for him, so whatever he happens to be doing at the
moment he does totally. As Kabir goes to the market with his total being to sell cloth, Krishna goes
to the battlefield with his whole being. Through the panchjanya he announces his total presence on
the battlefield. He is not there partially; in fact, he does nothing partially. Wherever he happens to
be, he is there in his totality, with all his senses, with all his being.
Everyone taking part In the war of Mahabharat has his own conch, with a special name and quality
of its own. It has its own special sound too. And every conch has a corresponding unity with
the personality of the warrior who wears it. But Krishna’s panchjanya is unique and incomparable.
Except him, nobody is present there totally. And the irony is that he is the one person who is not
going to take part in the fight. He is not committed to fight.
The truth is that only he who has no commitments can be total. If you are committed to anything, you
are bound to be partial in your endeavor to fulfill it. You cannot stand totally behind your commitment;
at least ”you” will be left behind. Only the uncommitted can be total; he will be wholly in whatever he
does. That is why Krishna alone is totally in the battlefield, although he is not going to take part in
the fighting. And the panchjanya heralds his total presence there. He has really nothing to do with
the war that is going to be fought on the Kurukshetrai he is neutral. He is not interested in victory or
defeat he has no vested interest in either of the two sides of the war. And yet a moment comes and
he enters the war with his own weapon, the sudarshan.
This sudarshan too has a great meaning symbolically. The people who wrote the epic of the
Mahabharat worked very hard with words. Really, it is the words that constitute the heart of a
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 153 Osho