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

CHAPTER 14. ACTION, INACTION AND NON-ACTION
time. If we understand Krishna rightly, then we have to accept that for the truth to untruth it essential
and inescapable. Truth and untruth are as inescapably interconnected as light and darkness, life
and death, health and sickness. The opposites are not really opposites, they are compementaries.
They are two sides of the same thing But our difficulty is we take them not only to be opposites, but
enemies to each other.
People often ask me about the source of untruth, but they never ask about the source of truth. If
truth comes from nowhere, why cannot untruth come from the same source? Those who debate
over the ultimate knowledge always ask, ”Who is the author of falsehood?” But they never raise the
question ”Who is the mother of truth?” And if truth can happen without a mother, why should untruth
have any difficulty? In fact, in this regard, untruth is in a better position than truth, because untruth
means that which is not. It does not need any source, any gangotri.
No, it is wrong to ask about the source of truth and untruth; they exist simultaneously, together. The
question of their source does not arise. The day you were born your death too was born. Death is
not going to come to you in some future, it always walks in step with you. Death is another side of
birth, but it may take you about seventy years to see this other side. It is your incapacity that doesn’t
allow you to see the two simultaneously. But they are there together. Similarly truth and untruth
are together. It is wrong to speak in terms of their coming and going; they are. Truth is, untruth is.
Existence is, and non-existence is.
Shankara emphasizes one side of the coin, and for this reason we have to look into the other side
too. Then only the coin is complete.
Shankara says that which is observed is maya, false. Buddha says just the opposite, and Buddha’s
philosophy finds its culmination in Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna says that the one who observes is false,
the observer is false. If the world is false in the eyes of Shankara, the soul is false in the eyes
of Nagarjuna. This giant among the Buddhist thinkers says that between the observer and the
observed the former is much more basic, and this basic element itself is false. All that is false flows
from this basic falsehood.
When I close my eyes, the world becomes invisible, but then I begin to dream with eyes closed. I
am the basic lie; even when the world is absent 1 can create another world by dreaming. The most
amusing thing is I can create dreams within dreams. Sometimes you too might have dreamed that
you are dreaming. It is really a miracle that one dreams that he is dreaming. Like the magician’s
boxes within boxes you have dreams within dreams. You can dream that you are watching a movie
about your own life and you go into sleep and start dreaming. There is no difficulty about creating
such a dream. Therefore Nagarjuna says it is no use trying to prove the world to be false; the false
is really within you; you are false. Nagarjuna asserts that the self is false.
In fact, the true and the false go hand in hand. If someone asserts that only truth is, then he will
have to assign a place to untruth and say, ”It is here.” In the same way one who asserts that only
the untruth is, has to say where truth is. Krishna is not that assertive, he hesitates. And Krishna’s
hesitation is deep. People who don’t hesitate are often superficial, shallow. Hesitation arises from
the depths of one’s being; hesitation is very significant. You are fortunate if you are gifted with a
grain of hesitancy. Your hesitation will show that you have begun looking at life in its totality. Then
you will not say that this is true and that is false. Then you will not say that only the truth is, or only
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 272 Osho