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

CHAPTER 13. KRISHNA GOES TO THE WEST
suffering under the crushing weight of the mind. Consequently the younger generation is in revolt.
And it is natural that when a whole generation rebels it does so in many different ways. On their
journey to the unthinkable, some are singing ”Hare Krishna, Hare Rama” and many others are taking
drugs like LSD and mescaline. The same people are now traveling across India and wandering
through the Himalayan mountains. In the search of the achintya, the unthinkable, they will go to
Japan and squat in its Zen monasteries. The quest is the same all over.
In its search for the mysterious, it seems the western world will be coming increasingly close to
Krishna. LSD cannot take them far; travels to India and Japan are not going to last long. Eventually
they will have to discover their own consciousness, their own soul; they cannot live long on credit.
That is why their boys and girls are restless chanting ”Hare Krishna” in the streets of New York,
London and Berlin.
It is remarkable that when young men and young women of the West dance and do kirtan, they do
it with an abandon and joy that cannot be found anywhere in India today. Go round this country
where kirtan has been in vogue for centuries and you will nowhere come across that enthusiasm
and joy among people who do kirtan here. For us it is a well-traveled road, a routine. For us the
kirtan is now a worn out coin; we know it is worthless. For the westerners it is a new coin which is
valuable. When a group passes through the streets of London singing and dancing, even the traffic
police watch them in amazement. They think their youth are going crazy. No one in India will think
like that; here it is an accepted ritual.
But remember, real religion is run by mad people, it is not the job of the so-called wise. Whenever
and wherever a breakthrough happens it always happens with the help of those who are called
crazy by their contemporaries. Now singing and dancing is not thought to be strange in India. It
was considered strange when Chaitanya danced through the towns and villages of Bengal; people
thought he had gone out of his mind. But tradition sucks down everything that comes its way and
puts it in its closet. Even madness is tamed by tradition.
The West is on the brink of an explosion, a breakthrough, a revolution. That is why when young
people in the West move through the streets dancing and singing, there is a newness and simplicity,
beauty and charm in their performance. Certainly it is a preparation, but not for Krishna’s birth; it s
a preparation for the birth of Krishna consciousness in the West.
Krishna consciousness has nothing to do with Krishna. It is a symbolic term which means that now a
consciousness is dawning in the West which will make them give up work and embrace celebration
as their way of life. It is just symbolic. Work has become meaningless. The West has done plenty of
hard work and hard thinking; it has done everything that man is capable of doing, and now it is tired,
utterly tired of all that. Either the West will have to die or it will enter into Krishna consciousness.
These are the two choices before the West. And since death is not possible, because nothing really
dies, Krishna consciousness is inescapable.
Christ has ceased to be relevant for the West, and the reason is again tradition. For the West,
Christ symbolizes tradition and Krishna represents anti-tradition. Christ is an imposition on them
and Krishna is their free choice. And then Christ is very serious, and the West is fed up with
seriousness. Too much seriousness turns into a disease ultimately. So the West is trying hard to get
rid of its seriousness; the cross has proved much too heavy on its soul. Jesus hanging on the cross
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 247 Osho