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

CHAPTER 2. KRISHNA IS COMPLETE AND WHOLE
Up to now it was difficult to think that a man of religion carried a flute and played it. We could not
imagine that a religious man wore a crown of peacock feathers and danced with young women. It
was unthinkable that a religious man loved somebody and sang a song. A religious man, of our
old concept, was one who had renounced life and fled the world. How could he sing and dance
in a miserable world? He could only cry and weep. He could not play a flute; it was impossible to
imagine that he danced.
It was for this reason that Krishna could not be understood in the past; it was simply impossible to
understand him. He looked so irrelevant, so inconsistent and absurd in the context of our whole
past.
But in the context of times to come, Krishna will be increasingly relevant and meaningful. And soon
such a religion will come into being that will sing and dance and be happy. The religions of the
past were all life-negative, defeatist, masochistic and escapist. The religion of the future will be
life-affirming. It will accept and live the joys that life brings and will laugh and dance and celebrate
in sheer gratitude.
In view of this immense possibility for a good life in the future I have chosen to talk about Krishna.
Of course it will be difficult for you to understand Krishna, because you are also conditioned, heavily
conditioned by the misery of life in the past. You have, up to now, associated religion with tears and
not with flutes.
Rarely have you come across a person who took to sannyas out of life’s joys. Normally, when
a man’s wife died and his life became miserable, he turned to sannyas as an escape from his
misery. If someone lost his wealth, went bankrupt and could not bear it, he took to sannyas in sheer
despair. An unhappy person, a person ridden with sorrow and pain, escaped into sannyas. Sannyas
stemmed from unhappiness and not from happiness. No one comes to sannyas with a song in his
heart.
Krishna is an exception to the rule. To me he is that rare sannyasin whose sannyas is born out of
joy and bliss. And one who chooses sannyas for the joy of it must be basically different from the
general breed of sannyasins who come to it in misery and frustration.
As I say that the religion of the future will stem from bliss, so I also say that the sannyas of the future
will flow from the joy and ecstasy of life. And one who chooses sannyas for the joy of it must be
basically different from the old kind of sannyasin who left the world simply out of despair. He will
take sannyas not because his family tortures him, but because his family is now too small for his
expanding bliss – and so he adopts the whole world as his new family. He will accept sannyas not
because his love turns sour, but because one person is now too small to contain his overflowing love
– and he has to choose the whole earth as the object of his love.
And they alone can understand Krishna who understands this kind of sannyas that flows from the
acceptance of life, from the juice and bliss of life.
If someone in the future says he took sannyas because he was unhappy we will ask him, ”How
can sannyas come from unhappiness?” The sannyas that is born out of unhappiness cannot lead
to happiness and bliss. The sannyas that arises from pain and suffering can at best lessen your
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 22 Osho