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

CHAPTER 2. KRISHNA IS COMPLETE AND WHOLE
Kurukshetra. the bells of war are tolling, and Arjuna is stubbornly refusing to take up arms and fight.
Against Krishna’s exhortations he is raising question after question – which run through eighteen
chapters of the GEETA. Again and again he gently protests Krishna’s seemingly bipolar vision. He
says that Krishna is paradoxical, that he says things that contradict each other.
The questions he has raised in the GEETA are consistent and logical. He feels baffled and confused
and asks Krishna to explain the same thing over and over again. But Krishna fails to explain and
convince Arjuna; even a total person like Krishna fails. And then he takes recourse in another
method: he unfolds himself, his reality before Arjuna.
Krishna knows Arjuna is right logically: he is confused and demands consistency. Krishna really
confuses him. On the one hand he talks of the significance of love and compassion and, on the
other, urges him to boldly take up arms and fight his enemies. So Krishna is tired of talking, because
it is a moment of war. Trumpets have sounded, and this man Arjuna, who is the kingpin of the whole
drama, is still hesitating, wavering. If he runs away, the whole game will fall to pieces. So when
arguments fail, Krishna unfolds his whole being, his immensity before him, and Arjuna is greatly
disturbed to see it. Anyone would be disturbed to see it, because Krishna’s real being, his universal
being, comprises all the contradictions of existence. One sees that life and death are there together.
But one cannot accept them together.
In our ordinary life, birth and death are distanced by a span of time – say seventy years. We are
born seventy years before our death; we die seventy years after our birth. This distance between
birth and death makes us think that life and death are separate things. But when Krishna confronts
him with his immense body, his universal being, Arjuna sees life and death together in him. He
sees both the creation and destruction of worlds taking place simultaneously. He sees the sprouting
seed and the dying tree together. And he panics, seeing the immensity and paradox of Krishna’s
totality. In the midst of it he entreats Krishna to stop; he cannot bear it any longer. But after seeing
this he stops raising questions, because now he knows that what we see as inconsistencies and
contradictions in life are nothing but integral parts of the same truth – which is one. And he quietly
joins the war.
But it does not mean that Arjuna is fully convinced. Although he has had a glimpse of reality, his
mind, his intellect, yet continues to doubt. Doubt is the way of the mind.
Whatever questions you may have, you can direct them to me, but please don’t raise questions
about Krishna while understanding Krishna. Use all your intellect with me, but understand Krishna
without questions. You are going to have very trying times with him, because many times he will
leave the world of the rational and enter the irrational, which is really the space beyond the rational
You may call it the super-rational. There you will need patience and great courage – maybe the
greatest courage possible. Be prepared to walk with me into that unfamiliar unknown territory where
your little lighted world will come to an end, where you will enter a sort of altogether dark space. In
that unlit space you will find no pathways, neither doors nor openings. You will find nothing there
that will resemble the forms and faces you have been familiar with in the past. All old forms will
dissolve and disappear, and all consistencies and contradictions will simply cease to be. And it is
only then that you can come close to that which is immense, to that which is infinite, to that which is
immeasurable – the eternal.
You can have that rare opportunity if you are prepared, with courage and patience, to go the whole
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 32 Osho