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

CHAPTER 19. RITUALS, FIRE AND KNOWLEDGE
unknown person who first discovered fire. Even the splitting of the atom and landing on the moon
are not that important.
Now the same fire is such a common and ordinary thing in our day-to-day life – we have captured it
in a tiny matchstick – that we cannot comprehend its pristine glory; but it was not so ordinary in the
distant past. We are indebted to fire for most of the growth and progress our civilization and culture
have achieved down the ages. Human civilization today is essentially the product of fire. None of
the great inventions of history would have been possible without this igniting spark called fire. Fire
is foundational to everything in our life.
Evidently when it was first discovered, we celebrated the occasion by dancing around it in utter
ecstasy. This celebration, now turned into a ritual, was so natural and spontaneous – as if it had
exploded on us from nowhere. There was no other way to ex press our gratefulness to existence
except by dancing and celebrating. And we said fire was God, because it occupied such a central
place in man’s life.
Every religion in ancient times grew around fire or the sun. The night was frightening it was full of
darkness and danger and man was terribly afraid of wild animals and snakes and reptiles. And the
day was comforting, full of light and warmth. One could look around and take care of himself against
any danger. So darkness looked inimical and the sun seemed friendly. With darkness there was
danger and death. With light there was hope; fear disappeared and everything was relatively safe.
So human beings worshipped the sun as God. When fire was discovered, it heralded man’s victory
over darkness, and so he began to love fire more than anything – including the sun. Naturally many
beautiful things like song and dance, love and festivity grew around fire.
You know when Yuri Gagarin returned from his voyage into space – he was the first man to enter
outer space – the whole world joined to celebrate the event. Overnight Gagarin became world
renowned; his name reached the farthest corners of the earth. Hundreds of thousands of newborn
babies all over the world were named after him. It takes a lifetime to attain to the fame which this first
astronaut achieved in no time, because he orbited the earth. It was a great event, an epochal event.
Wherever Gagarin went, people went mad to receive him; wherever he went, millions thronged to
see him. Hundreds of people lost their lives in stampedes caused by his visit. Why this madness?
The advent of the new fills man’s heart with delight and joy, and he always celebrates the occasion
with great fanfare. As we celebrate the birth of a child with song, music and feasting, so we welcome
everything new and rejoice over it. That is how it should be. It will be a sad day when we cease to
rejoice over the new; it will mean the death of all that is meaningful and vital in our life.
I say all this to explain to you how yajna came into being and how it became so significant in our
life. Yajna was our way of celebrating the discovery of fire; we danced around it with abandon and
offered to it every good thing we had.
Our ancestors who initiated these sacrificial rituals did not have much to give. They had wheat
and they made an offering of it to the fire. They had somras, the best wine of their times, and
they offered it to the fire. They sacrificed even their best cows to greet this god who had come
to transform their life so radically. And everything was so impromptu and spontaneous. It was an
outpouring of a simple, innocent and unsophisticated heart-mind that our people had then. They
were a rural people – cities had yet to come into being – who lacked sophistication.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 359 Osho