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

CHAPTER 15. LIFE AFTER DEATH AND REBIRTH
Diogenes first shouts at the manager, ”Shut up, if you don’t know how to sell a master.” Then he
says to the bidders, ”Here is a master for sale; whosoever can afford a master should bid for him.”
If you are forced against your will to be an instrument. if it is not your own choice, then you are
certainly a slave and your individuality is killed. But Krishna does not ask Arjuna to be such a slavish
instrument; he only wants him to understand the reality and to flow with the stream of existence. It
is foolish to fight with the river of life and try to swim upstream. He says to Arjuna, ”Leave yourself in
the hands of life, of existence, and you will be fulfilled.” If someone surrenders himself to existence,
to truth, to the whole, and surrenders with full understanding and joy, then his individuality, instead
of being crippled, attains to full flowering and fruition. Then he is his own master. And there is no
better way of proclaim ing one’s mastery than the way of surrender.
Try to understand this thing very clearly. There is no better way of proclaiming one’s mastery over
himself than the way of surrender. If I surrender it means that I am my own master; no slave
surrenders, he is just overpowered and captured. By surrendering, Arjuna does not become a cog
in a machine; he really becomes a man with a soul, he becomes godly. For the first time, his
individuality attains full flowering, and it happens effortlessly and naturally.
Question 2
QUESTIONER: WE WOULD LIKE TO RETURN TO ARVIND SEEING VISIONS OF KRISHNA,
WHICH YOU THINK TO BE A CASE OF MENTAL PROJECTION. IN THIS CONNECTION WE
RECALL WHAT YOU ONCE SAID ABOUT THE TIBETAN LAMAS, THAT ON A PARTICULAR DAY
OF EACH YEAR SOME COMPETENT LAMAS GATHER TOGETHER AND ESTABLISH CONTACT
WITH BUDDHA. ON ANOTHER OCCASION YOU HAD SAID SOMETHING ABOUT GANDHI AND
ON BEING FURTHER QUESTIONED YOU SAID THAT YOU HAD YOUR FACT FROM GANDHI
HIMSELF. AND WE HAVE HEARD THAT TILL RECENTLY THERE WERE LAMAS IN TIBET WHO
TRAVELED ASTRALLY FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER WHERE THEY AGAIN APPEARED IN
THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES. WILL YOU PLEASE SHED SOME MORE LIGHT ON THIS MATTER?
In this context a few things have to be understood first.
It is true that on a particular full moon night, which is known as Buddha’s full moon night, five hundred
lamas gather at one of the summits of the Himalayas – the same Himalayas where we are gathered
at this moment – and see visions of Buddha. The number of lamas who gather there never exceeds
five hundred; it is fixed for good. It is only on the death of one of them that another lama is admitted
in his place. But there is a basic difference between this and Arvind seeing visions of Krishna. In
the case of his visions of Krishna, it is Arvind who takes the initiative and makes efforts to see them.
The lamas don’t have to do anything; Buddha himself appears before them according to a promise
he had given to his disciples in his lifetime. The lamas have only to be present there at the appointed
time. And this difference between the two events should be clearly understood.
Buddha has left behind him a promise that at a particular time of Buddha’s full moon night of each
year and at a particular spot in the Himalayas, he would appear for his chosen disciples. At this
promised moment Buddha’s oceanic body takes the form of a wave body, seen by five hundred
lamas together. But the lamas have no part in it except that they present themselves on the said
occasion. This is one difference between this encounter, this darshan, and the one that Arvind has.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 288 Osho