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

CHAPTER 15. LIFE AFTER DEATH AND REBIRTH
Now an image, an icon of his wave form – Krishna the man – can be used to come in contact with his
oceanic form, with Krishna-consciousness. But when you will really come in contact with Krishnaconsciousness,
this image, this symbol of Krishna will disappear and only the superconsciousness
will remain with you. While it is true that his statue can be used for connecting with Krishna’s
superconsciousness, if someone sees only visions of Krishna and does not experience his
consciousness, then it is merely a case of mental projection and nothing else.
The experience of Krishna-consciousness does not happen by way of visions and images. It is pure
consciousness without any shape or form. We associate Krishna’s name with it because a person
loves Krishna and comes to this consciousness with the help of his image. Another person can
come to it with the help of Buddha’s image, and he can call it Buddha-consciousness. It can he
called Christ-consciousness if someone attains it through the image of Christ. Names don’t matter;
the real thing is the oceanic consciousness, which is without name and form.
Arvind’s experience of Krishna-visions is concerned with Krishna’s image, his physical form. He
says that Krishna appeared before him in physical form. This is simply a case of mental projection.
Of course such an experience is pleasant and gratifying, but it is nonetheless a projection of our
mind. It is an extension of desire; it is exactly dreamstuff. It is our mind’s creation.
We can begin with the mind, but we have to go beyond the mind. The journey begins with the mind,
and ends with the no-mind, cessation of the mind. It is significant to know that the mind is the world
of words, forms and images; words, forms and images constitute the mind. And where forms and
images disappear the mind disappears on its own. There is no way for the mind to exist without
words, forms and images. The mind cannot exist in emptiness, in void; it lives on the determined,
the concrete. The moment the concrete world comes to an end, the mind itself comes to an end.
Krishna-consciousness is attained only when the mind ceases to be; it is a state of no-mind.
Whoever says he has encountered Krishna in his physical form is a victim of mental projection; he
is projecting his own mental images on the vast screen of universal consciousness and viewing the
objective reality. It is like a movie projector projects fast moving pictures on all empty screen; there
is really nothing on the screen except shadows. Such visions are not a spiritual experience, they
are wholly psychic. They are, however, very gratifying; a Krishna devotee is bound to be overjoyed
to see visions of one he has been desiring to see all his life. But remember, it is only a kind of
happiness, not bliss. Nor can you call it an experience of truth.
I don’t mean to cay that Arvind’s experience is not real, but he describes it in the way of a scholar, an
intellectual. And this makes the experience appear to be one of mental projection. It is not difficult
to distinguish a real experience, an experience of the oceanic consciousness from the one that is
projected or imagined. An oceanic experience is everlasting; once it comes it comes forever, and
it wipes out all other experiences from your mind. It really wipes out the mind itself. One blessed
with such an experience sees the divine everywhere – in trees and rocks, in streams and rivers, in
mountains and stars. But so far as projected visions are concerned, they appear and disappear,
they never last. They are transient, momentary. Being an intellectual, Arvind is not able to portray it
rightly; for a man of intellect such a task becomes difficult.
But there is another side of Arvind which is poetic. He is not only an intellectual but also a great
poet. As a poet he is not less than Rabindranath Tagore. If he failed to receive the Nobel Prize, it
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 284 Osho