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

CHAPTER 21. CHOOSE THE FLUTE OR PERISH
”Then sit down.” said Rinzai patting the youth’s back. ”Now we will talk about truth. I brought up the
question of the price of rice only to know if you yet carry your past with you. Had you remembered
the price of rice in Peking when you left it, I would have flatly refused to talk about truth. One who
clings to his past cannot come to truth, because truth is always now and here, it is in the moment.
Truth has nothing to do with the past nor with the future. Truth is really timeless, and one who lives
in the past can never be in the present. Truth and time don’t walk together.”
The Mahabharat happens in spite of Krishna. And yet Krishna becomes a participant in the war,
because a partisan of bliss can become a partisan of war too. And Krishna believes that war is as
much part of life as peace is. One cannot be without the other. And war will be with us as long as
life exists on this earth. Maybe, the character of war will change, its structure and shape will vary, its
plane, strategy, and style will be different, but war will continue.
It is impossible that war will ever disappear from the earth. It can only disappear from the earth if
man himself disappears from here. Or it can disappear if man becomes perfect. Unless the human
race as a whole reaches its perfection, or becomes extinct as a species, there is no way to abolish
war. Man as he is cannot do without war. War has always been with us; it is with us now, and it is
going to be with us in the future. Then what is the problem in regard to war.
Krishna’s answer to this question is, war should be righteous, it should be waged for the highest
values of life like freedom and truth.
In the same way, peace needs to be righteous. Remember, some kinds of peace can be unrighteous,
irreligious, and war can be made to uphold religion and truth.
The pacifist thinks that peace is always righteous, and the warmonger thinks that war is right in every
case. Krishna is neither a partisan of peace nor of war; he really has no ”isms.” He is not bound to
any ideology, he is liquid like water. He is never stagnant, he is always moving with life. He is not
solid and immobile like a rock; he is fluid like air. So he says, ”Peace can be evil too.”
For example, a pacifist who is religiously committed to peace is passing a street where someone is
being robbed. He can say that he has nothing to do with others’ feuds and strifes, and he refuses to
interfere in the matter, going peacefully on his way. This peace is irreligious, because it is indirectly
helping someone rob another person who may be innocent and helpless. It is not necessary that
peace is right in every case. Men like Bertrand Russell think that peace is always right, it is inviolable.
But he is only being dogmatic about peace.
Sometimes cowardice and impotence can take shelter behind the facade of peace. Krishna tells
Arjuna again and again, ”Give up faint-heartedness, O Arjuna. I had never thought that you could
be as unmanly and impotent as your words reveal you to be. When war faces you, war that forces
of unrighteousness have unleashed, it does not become you to talk like a coward. Where is your
manliness, your skill?”
Peace is not necessarily righteous, nor is war unrighteous. It depends on the conditions that bring
the forces of peace and war into play. But then you can say that warmongers are right in claiming
that war is righteous. They can claim so, and nobody can prevent them. Life is very complex. But
they will find it increasingly difficult to make such a claim if understanding grows among the people
of what religion is.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 411 Osho