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

CHAPTER 1. THE FUTURE BELONGS TO KRISHNA
The old religions taught suppression as the way to God. Man was asked to suppress everything –
his sex, his anger, his greed, his attachments – and then alone would he find his soul, would he
attain to God. This war of man against himself has continued long enough. And in the history of
thousands of years of this war, barely a handful of people, whose names can be counted on one’s
fingers, can be said to have found God. So in a sense we lost this war, because down the centuries
billions of people died without finding their souls, without meeting God.
Undoubtedly there must be some basic flaw, some fundamental mistake in the very foundation of
these religions.
It is as if a gardener has planted fifty thousand trees and out of them only one tree flowers – and yet
we accept his scripture on gardening on the plea that at least one tree has blossomed. But we fail
to take into consideration that this single tree might have been an exception to the rule, that it might
have blossomed not because of the gardener, but in spite of him. The rest of the fifty thousand trees,
those that remained stunted and barren, are enough proof the gardener was not worth his salt.
If a Buddha, a Mahavira or a Christ attains to God in spite of these fragmentary and conflict-rid den
religions, it is no testimony to the success of these religions as such. The success of religion, or let
us say the success of the gardener, should be acclaimed only when all fifty thousand trees of his
garden, with the exception of one or two, achieve flowering. Then the blame could be laid at the
foot of the one tree for its failure to bloom. Then it could be said that this tree remained stunted and
barren in spite of the gardener.
With Freud a new kind of awareness has dawned on man: that suppression is wrong, that
suppression brings with it nothing but self-pity and anguish. If a man fights with himself he can
only ruin and destroy himself. If I make my left hand fight with my right hand, neither is going to win,
but in the end the contest will certainly destroy me. While my two hands fight with themselves, I and
I alone will be destroyed in the process. That is how, through denial and suppression of his natural
instincts and emotions, man became suicidal and killed himself.
Krishna alone seems to be relevant to the new awareness, to the new understanding that came to
man in the wake of Freud and his findings. It is so because in the whole history of the old humanity
Krishna alone is against repression.
He accepts life in all its facets, in all its climates and colors. He alone does not choose he accepts
life unconditionally. He does not shun love; being a man he does not run away from women. As
one who has known and experienced God, he alone does not turn his face from war. He is full of
love and compassion, and yet he has the courage to accept and fight a war. His heart is utterly non
violent, yet he plunges into the fire and fury of violence when it becomes unavoidable. He accepts
the nectar, and yet he is not afraid of poison.
In fact, one who knows the deathless should be free of the fear of death. And of what worth is that
nectar which is afraid of death? One who knows the secret of non-violence should cease to fear
violence. What kind of non-violence is it that is scared of violence? And how can the spirit, the soul,
fear the body and run away from it? And what is the meaning of God if he cannot take the whole of
this world in his embrace?
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 4 Osho