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

CHAPTER 2. KRISHNA IS COMPLETE AND WHOLE
If I take you in my embrace you will feel happy about it, but if I continue to hug you for a few minutes
you will begin to find the same hug becoming painful. And if I continue to hold you in my grip for
half an hour, you will feel restless and think of shouting for help; you may even call the police. So
one who knows, releases you from his embrace before you would like to be released. And one who
is unaware of this law soon turns his happiness into suffering. So when you take someone’s hand
in your hand, take care that you release it sooner than later, otherwise the pleasure will very soon
change into pain. We are all wont to reduce our happiness into pain and suffering. Since we don’t
want to part with happiness, we cling to it, and it is clinging that turns it into suffering.
We very much desire to be rid of pain and suffering, and for this very reason our suffering deepens.
But if we accept suffering and stay with it for a while, it will be transformed into happiness. The
feeling of suffering stems from its being unfamiliar, but it will not take you long to become familiar
with it. The same is the case with happiness. Familiarity changes everything.
I have heard that a person came to visit a new village where he asked someone for a loan. The
other person said, ”It is strange that you ask me for a loan when I don’t know you at all. You are a
complete stranger to me.” The visitor answered, ”It is strange that you should talk like this. I left my
own village and came to yours because my co-villagers refused to give me a loan on the grounds
they knew me well. And now you say that because you don’t know me you will not give me a loan.
Where can I go now?”
All our troubles begin when we break life up into segments and see things fragmentarily. No, all
places are alike. There is no such place in life where only happiness abides. And similarly there
is no such place where you meet with suffering and only suffering. Therefore, our heaven and hell
are just our imagination. Because we have gotten into the habit of looking at things fragmentarily,
we have imagined one place with abounding happiness and another with unmitigated sorrow and
suffering – and we call them heaven and hell. No, wherever life is there is happiness and suffering
together. They go together. You have happy moments or relaxation in hell and painful spells of
boredom in heaven.
Bertrand Russell has said he would not like to go to heaven, where only happiness abounds. How
can you know happiness without knowing suffering? How can you know health without knowing
sickness? Where you have everything just by wishing for it, there cannot be any joy in having it.
The joy of having something comes from the length of time you have been wanting it, expecting it.
Happiness really lies in the expectation. So once you achieve it, it loses its charm for you. Every
happiness is imaginary: so long as you don’t possess it, it seems to be abounding happiness. But
as soon as it is actualized, it ceases to be happiness; our hands are as empty as before. And then
we seek some other object for our desire, and we begin to expect it again. We feel so unhappy
without it and imagine that happiness will come with it.
Rothschild was one of America’s multi-millionaires. There is a story about him, and I don’t know if
it is true or not. He was on his deathbed, and he said to his son, ”You have seen from my life that I
made millions and they didn’t make me really happy, they didn’t bring happiness with them. Do you
see that wealth is not happiness?”
His son said, ”It is true, as I learned from your life, that wealth is not happiness, but I also learned
from your life that if one has wealth, one can have the suffering of his choice; one can choose
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 34 Osho