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

CHAPTER 13. KRISHNA GOES TO THE WEST
The beggar said, ”It seems you are also going the same way. I gave away my wealth in the same
way you gave me food and clothes a little while ago. You will not take long to join me in the street.”
Clinging to money is characteristic of a poor society; even its rich people suffer from this malady.
And clinging disappears in a rich society; even its poor can afford to spend and enjoy what little they
have. They are not afraid, they know they can make money when they need it.
It is in this sense that I said Krishna consciousness happens in an affluent society, and the West is
really an affluent society.
The questioner also wants to know why the revolt, the breakthrough in the West is being led by
people like Ginsberg, who are irrationalists. It is true that all the young rebels the West, whether
they are existentialists, the Beatles, the beatniks, or the hippies or the yippies, are irrationalists who
represent a revolt against the excessive rationalism of their older generations. It is also true that
the intellectuals of the West are yet uninfluenced by these offbeat movements. In fact, irrationalists
appear only in a society that goes to the extreme of rationalism. The West has really reached the
zenith of rationalism. Hence the reaction; it was inevitable.
When a society feels stifled and strangled by too much logic and rationalism, it inevitably turns
to mysticism. When materialism begins to crush a people’s sensitivity they turn to God and
religion. And don’t think that Ginsberg, Sartre, Camus, and others who speak about the absurd,
the illogical are like illiterate and ignorant villagers. They are great intellectuals of irrationalism.
Their irrationalism, their turning to the unthinkable is not comparable to the ways of the believers,
the faithful. It is a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, like Chaitanya who after stretching thinking
to its extremity, found that it was unthinkable.
So if Ginsberg’s statements and his poetry are illogical and irrational, it has nonetheless a system
of its own. Nietzsche has said somewhere, ”I am mad, but my madness has its own logic. I am not
an ordinary madman; my madness has a method.” This irrationalism is deliberate. It stands on its
own ground, which cannot be the ground of logic. It is a candid, ingenuous refutation of rationalism.
Certainly it will not base its assault upon logic; if it does, it will only support rationalism. No, it
opposes rationalism through an irrational lifestyle.
Somewhere Ginsberg is reading his poetry to a small gathering of poets. His poetry is meaningless;
there is no consistency between one concept and another. All its similies and metaphors are just
inane. Its symbolism is utterly unconventional; it has nothing to do with poetic tradition. It is really a
great adventure; there is no greater adventure than to be inconsistent and unconventional. He alone
can have the courage to be inconsistent who is aware of his innate consistency, his inner integrity,
whose innermost being is consistent and clear. He knows that however inconsistent his statements
may be, they are not going to affect the integrity and consistency of his being.
People lacking in spiritual consistency and innate harmony weigh every word before they make a
statement, because they are afraid that if two of their statements contradict each other their inner
contradictions will be exposed. One can afford to be inconsistent only when one is consistent in his
being.
This Ginsberg is reading a poem which is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. It is an act of
rare courage. Someone from among his listeners rises up in his seat and says, ”You seem to be an
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 250 Osho