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

CHAPTER 1. THE FUTURE BELONGS TO KRISHNA
It is very difficult for an individual Hindu to set fire to a mosque, but a crowd of Hindus can do it for
fun. An individual Mohammedan will find it hard to stick a knife into the chest of a Hindu child, but
a horde of Mohammedans can do it without a qualm of conscience. In fact, the bigger a crowd the
less soul it has. But it is the sense of responsibility that forms the kernel of the soul. When I go to
push a knife in somebody’s chest my conscience bites at me. It says, ”What are you doing?” But
my soul does not feel disturbed when I am with a crowd, killing people recklessly and burning their
property. Then I say it is not me but the people, the Hindus or Muslims, who are doing it, and I am
just keeping company with them – and tomorrow I will not be held individually responsible for it.
The side of evil always wants to attract the crowd; it depends on the crowd. Evil wants to destroy the
individual whom it feels is a thorn in its flesh. It wants the crowd, the mass to live and grow. Good,
on the contrary, accepts the individual and wants him to grow to his supreme fulfillment and, at the
same time, it wants the crowd to disappear gradually from the scene. Good stands for a society
of individuals, free individuals. Individuals will, of course, have relationships, but then it will be a
society and not a herd, not a crowd.
This needs to be rightly understood. Only free individuals make a society, and where the sovereignty
of the individual is denied, society turns into a herd, a mob. This is the difference between a society
and a crowd. Society is another name for the inter-relationship of individuals, a cooperative of
individuals – but the individual has to be there, he is the basic unit of society.
When an individual freely enters into relationship with another individual, it makes for society. So
there cannot be a society inside a prison; a prison can only have a crowd, a collection of faceless
individuals. Prisoners also relate with each other, exchanging greetings and gifts among themselves,
but they are definitely not a society. They have just been gathered together and forced to live within
the four walls of a prison; it is not their free choice.
Therefore I say that Krishna will choose the side where freedom and the sovereignty of the
individual, where religion and the possibility to seek the unseen and the unknown will be available
in predominance. I say ”in predominance” because it never happens that one side has all these
values and the other side is wholly devoid of them. The division between good and evil is never so
clear-cut, even in a battle between Rama and Ravana. Even in Ravana there is a little of Rama, and
there is a little of Ravana in Rama too. The Kauravas share a few of the virtues of the Pandavas,
and the latter a few of the vices of the former. Even the best man on this earth has something of the
worst in him. And the meanest of us all carries a bit of goodness in him. So it is always a question
of proportion and predominance of one or the other.
So freedom and the individual and the soul and religion are the values with which the intelligence of
good will side.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 19 Osho