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

CHAPTER 20. BASE YOUR RULE ON THE RULE
Krishna is not a witness. Of course he asks Arjuna to become a witness, but he is all the time
aware that witnessing is only a means, a transitory phase. So he also talks of moments when even
witnessing will cease to be. Krishna explains both to Arjuna – the means and the end, the path and
the goal. And when he speaks about being unperturbed and steady, he does not speak about the
means but the end, the goal itself – although most interpreters of the Geeta think that he is talking
about the means, the witness. They think if someone remains a witness in happiness and pain
without experiencing it, without indulging it, he will attain to the state that is unperturbed and steady.
But in my view, this is a wrong approach. If someone only witnesses without living it, this witnessing
will become a kind of tension, disturbance, restlessness for him. Then he will always be on the
defensive, trying to protect himself from happiness and pain.
To be undisturbed, to be relaxed and peaceful, it is essential that one is not at all conscious of
happiness and pain. If one is conscious it means a kind of disturbance is happening, a kind of
agitation is alive and there is a separation between the two – the observer and the observed. This
consciousness, this separation is subtle, but it is there. So long as one continues to know this is
happiness and that is pain, he is not integrated and whole. And he is not settled and steady in
himself; he has not attained to equilibrium and peace and wisdom. He is not a sthitaprajna.
To me, the state of unperturbed and steady intelligence and the way to it are altogether different.
My approach is one of total involvement in the experiencing of pleasure and pain, love and hate, or
whatever it is. I don’t want you to be a distant watcher, a mere spectator. I want you to be an actor,
fully involved in your role, in your acting, I want you to be totally one with it.
All duality, every division between the actor and the act, between the experiencer and the
experienced, the observer and the observed, has to disappear. I say that if a river drowns you it
is because you are separate from the river. If you become one with the river, if you become the
river itself, then the question of being drowned by the river does not arise. Then how can the river
drown you? Who will drown? And by whom? And who will shout for help? Then you are one with
the moment – totally one. If you can be totally one with the moment at hand you will have learned
the art of being one with another moment that is on its way. Then you will be one with every coming
moment.
And then a miracle will happen; both pleasure and pain will chasten you, enrich you, add to your
beauty and grandeur. Then both happiness and misery will be your friends and they will have equal
share in making you. And when your time to leave this world will come, you will thank both in
tremendous gratefulness.
The truth is that it is not only light that creates you, darkness has an equal hand in your creation. Not
only happiness enriches you, pain and suffering have an equal share in building your richness. Not
only life is a moment of rejoicing and celebration, death also is a great moment of bliss and festivity.
It is possible only if you can live each moment totally, if you can squeeze out every drop of juice the
moment possesses. Then you will not be able to say that happiness is friendly and pain is inimical.
No, then you will gratefully accept that happiness and misery are like your own two legs on which
you walk, and that now they are together available to you. Then you will realize how you have tried
impossibly all your life to walk on one leg alone – the leg of happiness.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 386 Osho