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

CHAPTER 12. DISCIPLINE, DEVOTION AND KRISHNA
Rumi’s song ends here.
I think Rumi could not get inside the spirit of devotion fully; he fails to reach to the height of Krishna.
He walks with him, but does not go the whole length. If I have to write this song, I would have the
beloved say again to the lover, ”As long as ’thou’ remains ’I’ will be here – maybe in hiding. So go
back again and return here after you are finished with ’thou’ too.”
The awareness of ”thou” cannot exist without ”I”. Whether one uses ”I” or not, does not make a
difference. As long as ”thou” exists for me, I exist Maybe my ”I” hides itself in the dark recesses of
the unconscious, but it is there. Because who will say ”thou” if the ”I” is not there? So it does not
make any difference if one says, ”Only thou art”; it is like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. If I am going
to write this poem I would have the beloved say, ”As long as ’thou’ is, ’I’ cannot be erased. So go
back and get rid of ’thou’ as you got rid of ’?’.”
But do you think the lover will return after losing both ”I” and ”thou”? He will not. And then my poem
will be in real difficulty, because then it cannot be completed. The lover will not return – Who will
come? And to whom? Then he will never come again, because the inner distance, in which coming
and going happens, is gone. In fact, the distance is made by the awareness of ”I” and ”thou”; with
the cessation of ”I” and ”thou” distance is completely obliterated. So on coming to its end my song
will be in real trouble. Maybe, for this very reason Rumi concluded his song the way it iS. One cannot
take it any further, because nothing remains to be said after it. The song has to be concluded there.
There is no one who will go, and there is no one who will receive him. Who will go to whom? And
for what?
As long as one comes and goes, there is distance. And when ”I” and ”thou” disappear, distances
disappear. And with the disappearance of distances the meeting happens, merging happens
A devotee need not go anywhere. The meeting happens wherever he is. It is not a question of going
anywhere; one has to die as a self and one comes close to the supreme.
Question 2
QUESTIONER: PLEASE TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT MARTIN BUBER.
Martin Buber’s whole thinking is concerned with the relationship, with the intimacy between ”I” and
”thou”. Martin Buber is one of the most profound thinkers of our age. But remember, profundity
is not all; whatever the depth it is only the other end of the superficial, the shallow. Real depth
comes when one is neither shallow nor deep, when both shallowness and depth disappear. Martin
Buber has come upon something very profound: he says that life’s truth lies in the interrelationship
between ”I” and ”thou”.
An atheist, a materialist, believes that only matter is; there is nothing other than matter. His world
does not consist of ”I” and ”thou”, it consists of ”I” and ”it”. There is no place for ”thou”, because
for ”thou” it is necessary that another person possess a soul. So an atheist’s world is confined to
the relationship between ”I” and ”it”. That is why it is such a complex world, where on the one hand
he calls himself ”I” and as such invests himself with a soul, he deprives others of this l-ness and
reduces them into things, into ”its”. A materialist reduces every man and everything into matter. If I
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 224 Osho