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

CHAPTER 21. CHOOSE THE FLUTE OR PERISH
misery. One who lives in time does not live really, because all the time he is either brooding over
his past, which is gone forever, or he is worrying about a future which is yet to be born. When it is
morning he is thinking of the evening; when he is alive he is worrying about death. The moment he
meets a loved one, he begins to grieve over the separation that is going to happen in some future.
Krishna is accused of breaking promises he makes from time to time. A moment comes in the battle
of Mahabharat when he takes up arms, his sudarshan chakra, although he had given his word that
he would not take an active part in the fighting, he would only act as Arjuna’s charioteer.
In answer to the charge, Krishna would say, ”The one who made the promise is no more, nor is the
moment which had brought forth the promise.” He will ask, ”Where is the Ganges that was there at
the time my promise was being made? Where are the flowers that had bloomed at that moment?
Where are those clouds that had glided through the sky when I had given the assurance in question?
Everything has changed, everything has moved away since then. How can you bind me with that
moment which too is gone? I am now existing in the moment that is before me, and I am responding
to it totally.”
Krishna does not apologize for the so-called breach of promise, nor does he regret it. He never
repents; he never recants. He is true to the moment.
What do I mean when I say he is true to the moment? He is so utterly true to the existing moment
that even if it confronts him with an unthought-of eventuality he goes into it without flinching and as
totally as ever.
Of course, he will seem, at times, to be some what unfaithful to us, to the conventional society,
because he does not keep his promises. That is the difficulty with a person like Krishna who is true
to existence. Such a person cannot be as true to the society he lives in – because while the society
lives in time, he lives in the timeless, in eternity. The society has a past and a future to care for, while
Krishna has none. He is free, absolutely free,
A young man came to Rinzai, a celebrated Zen sage who lived in the mountains. The young man
said to Rinzai, ”I am in search of truth, and it is this search that has brought me to you from a long
distance.”
Rinzai said to him, ”Leave aside this matte of truth for the present. I want to know something else
from you since you are coming from Peking. Can you say what is the price of rice in Peking?”
The youth was flabbergasted to hear such a question from a great Master like Rinzai, who
supposedly had nothing to do with such mundane matters as the price of rice in Peking. He had
made a long and arduous journey in search of the highest. He had never imagined that a great sage
like Rinzai would talk about such a petty thing in place of truth.
So the young man said to Rinzai, ”Excuse me, sir, for my impertinence. But I say it so you don’t ask
any more questions like the one before me. I don’t carry any past with me, I leave behind me the
paths that I travel, burn the bridges that I cross, pull down the stairs that I climb. I die to the past
totally, even to the minutes just gone by.”
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 410 Osho