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

CHAPTER 2. KRISHNA IS COMPLETE AND WHOLE
between one suffering and another. And this freedom of choice is beautiful. I know that you
were never happy, but you always chose your own kind of suffering. A poor man does not have
this freedom, this choice; his suffering is determined by circumstances. Except this, there is no
difference between a rich man and a poor man in the matter of suffering. A poor man has to suffer
with a woman who comes his way as his wife, but the rich man can afford women with whom he
wants to suffer. And this choice is not an insignificant happiness.”
If you examine it deeply, you will find that happiness and suffering are two aspects of the same thing,
two sides of the same coin, or, perhaps, they are different densities of the same phenomenon.
Besides, what is happiness for me may be a matter of suffering for you. If I own ten million and I
lose five, I will be miserable in spite of the fact that I still own five million. But if you have nothing and
you come across five million, you will be mad with joy and happiness. Although both of us will be
in the same situation financially – we have five million each – I will be beating my head against the
wall and you will be dancing and celebrating. But also remember, your celebration will not last long,
because someone who comes to own five million will also be faced with the fear of losing it. In the
same way, my sufferings will soon wither away, because one who loses five million soon becomes
engaged in recovering that loss – which is quite possible for him.
Strange are the ways of life. My happiness cannot be your happiness, nor can my suffering become
your suffering. Even my happiness of today can not be my happiness for tomorrow. I cannot say if
my happiness in this moment will continue to be my happiness in the next. Happiness and suffering
are like clouds passing through the sky. They come and go.
Both happiness and suffering are there, and they are facts of life. In fact, it is wrong to call them
two, but we have to, because all our languages divide things into two. Really it is one truth,
sometimes seen as happiness and other times as suffering. In reality, pleasure and pain are
just our interpretations, psychological interpretations. They are not real situations, they are largely
interpretations of them. And it depends on us how we interpret something. And there may be a
thousand interpretations of the same thing. It all depends on us.
If you know that both happiness and sorrow are true and are together, then you will also know that
Buddha’s statement that life is all suffering is fragmentary, and that it suffers from over-emphasis.
This statement, however, is going to work; it will appeal to people. Buddha can have tens of
thousands of followers, but not Krishna. Charwaka will attract millions to his fold, but Krishna cannot
have that appeal.
Buddha and Charwaka have made choices, and they have both chosen one of the two polarities
of truth. One says life is all suffering and the other says life is indulgence. And they make their
statements clearly and emphatically. And whenever you find your own situation conforming with
their statements you say Buddha is right or Charwaka is right. You will not agree with Buddha in
every state of your life, you will only agree with him when you are in suffering. When you are not
in any pain you will not say Buddha is right. A happy person, one who thinks himself to be happy,
will ignore Buddha, but the moment he is in pain again, Buddha will become significant for him. It is,
however, a case of your own situation occasionally approximating the statement of Buddha; it does
not testify to its significance, to its meaningfulness.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 35 Osho