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

CHAPTER 18. NON-ATTACHMENT IS NOT AVERSION
become busy building boats and preparing for adventures. With the advent of old age, the fire of life
dims considerably. By this time men and women come to know all about each other, and so the pull
of the opposites withers away. Too much familiarity breeds indifference.
As it is the natural law of life that the opposite attracts, so it is the natural law of spiritualism that
self-nature attracts, not the opposite. Here the similar, the same attracts. Because of this, we find
ourselves in trouble when we apply the ordinary law of the world to spiritual discipline. For this very
reason, countries where spiritualism grows become lazy and inactive. India is the living example.
We wrongly applied the law of matter in choosing our spiritual discipline. People with male minds
took paths meant for feminine minds, and those with feminine minds took the opposite paths. The
one who was meant to be a Meera turned into a Mahavira and another meant to be a Mahavira
turned into a Meera. Naturally we made a mess of everything. It was bound to be so.
Therefore, I envision a scientific discipline for the spiritualism of the future whose basic law will
clearly say: no law of biology applies to spiritualism. In biology the opposite attracts; in spiritualism
self-nature is the magnet. Spiritualism is not comprised of the attraction of opposites; it is actually
one’s immersion in self-nature. In the spiritual journey I don’t have to reach the other; I have to reach
myself.
But our lifelong habits come in the way.
I have heard... When electricity became available, Sigmund Freud had his house electrified. Soon
after this he had a visitor from the countryside who had never seen electricity; he was only familiar
with lanterns and lamps as instruments of light.
After the night’s supper, Freud put his guest in one of the bedrooms and took leave of him for the
night. But his guest was immediately faced with a serious problem – it was a problem caused by
electricity.
Since the light in the room was so bright, the man could not sleep. How to extinguish the light
was the problem. Because the bulb hung high from the ceiling of the room, he fetched a ladder from
somewhere, climbed it and began to try to blow out the light. But he failed, and failed miserably. How
can one extinguish an electric light with the breath? He was in a quandary. He looked all around the
room, he examined the bulb from every side again and again to find a hole through which he could
blow it out. But nothing helped. He felt embarrassed to go to Freud and tell him he did not know how
to extinguish the light in his room.
And thus he kept turning and tossing in his bed till his host came to say good morning to him. When
Freud asked him why he did not put out the light he said, ”Now that you have asked I should tell you
of my struggle with your lighting device. I could not get a wink of sleep the whole night as the lamp
stubbornly refused to be blown out.”
Freud pushed a button saying, ”You are a fool; it is so easy.”
Now this man had no idea of light controlled by a distant switch. And we cannot blame him for that.
All our life’s experience can be summed up in two words; attraction of the opposites. So even when
we enter the world of spiritualism – which is a different dimension altogether – we carry our old
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 352 Osho