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

CHAPTER 10. SPIRITUALISM, RELIGION AND POLITICS
The choice before Krishna is between lesser evil and greater evil. It is not a simple choice between
good and evil. The fighting tactics which Krishna uses are nothing compared to those used in the
war of Mahabharat by the other side, who are capable of doing anything. The Kauravas are no
ordinary evil-doers – they are extraordinarily evil. Gandhi would be no match for them; they could
crush him in moments. Ordinary good cannot defeat an evil that is colossal. Gandhi would know
what it is to fight with a colossus of evil if he had fought against a government run by Adolph Hitler.
Fortunately for him, India was ruled by a very liberal community – the British – not by Hitler. Even
among the British – if Churchill had been in power and Gandhi had to deal with him, it would have
been very difficult to win India’s independence. The coming of Atlee into power in Britain after the
war made a big difference.
The question of right means, which Gandhi talks about so much, deserves careful consideration.
It is fine to say that right ends cannot be achieved without right means. However, in this world,
there is nothing like an absolutely right end or absolutely right means. It is not a question of right
versus wrong; it is always a question of greater wrong versus lesser wrong. There is no one who is
completely healthy or completely sick; it is always a matter of being more sick or less sick.
Life does not consist of two distinct colors – white and black, life is just gray, a mixture of white and
black. In this context men like Gandhi are just utopians. dreamers, idealists who are completely
divorced from reality. Krishna is in direct contact with life; he is not a utopian. For him life’s work
begins with accepting it as it is.
What Gandhi calls ”pure means” are not re ally pure, cannot be. Maybe pure ends and pure means
are available in what the Hindus call moksha, or the space of freedom. But in this mundane world
every, thing is alloyed with dirt. Not even gold is unalloyed. What we call diamond is nothing but old,
aged coal. Gandhi’s purity of ends and means is sheer imagination.
For example, Gandhi thinks fasting is a kind of right means to a right end. And he resorts to fasting
– fast unto death every now and then. But I can never accept fasting as a right means, nor will
Krishna agree with Gandhi. If a threat to kill another person is wrong, how can a threat to kill oneself
be right? If it is wrong of me to make you accept what I say by pointing a gun at you, how can it
become right if I make you accept the same thing by turning the gun to point it at myself? A wrong
does not cease to be a wrong just by turning the point of a gun. In a sense it would be a greater
wrong on my part if I ask you to accept my views with the threat that if you don’t I am going to kill
myself. If I threaten to kill you, you have an option, a moral opportunity to die and refuse to yield to
my pressure. But if I threaten to kill myself, I make you very helpless, because you may not like to
take the responsibility of my death on yourself.
Gandhi once undertook such a fast unto death to put pressure on Ambedkar, leader of the millions
of India’s untouchables. And Ambedkar had to yield, not because he agreed that the cause for which
Gandhi fasted was right, but because he did not want to let Gandhi die for it. Ambedkar was not
ready to do even this much violence to Gandhi. Ambedkar said later that Gandhi would be wrong
to think that he had changed his heart. He still believed he was right and Gandhi was wrong, but
he was not prepared to take the responsibility for the violence that Gandhi was insisting on doing to
himself.
In this context it is necessary to ask if Ambedkar used the right means, or Gandhi? Of the two,
who is really non-violent? In my view Gandhi’s way was utterly violent, and Ambedkar proved to he
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 178 Osho