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

CHAPTER 3. WHERE BUDDHA ENDS KRISHNA BEGINS
discipline? Did he ever meditate? Did he practice yoga? Did he ever fast and undergo other
austerities? Did he retire to a jungle to practice asceticism? There is nothing, absolutely nothing like
a sadhana in his whole life.
What Buddha and Mahavira attain after heroic efforts Krishna already has, without any effort
whatsoever. He seems to be eternally enlightened. Then why a sadhana? For what? This is
the fundamental difference between Krishna and others. So there is no way for the ego to affect
Krishna’s vision in the least, because there is no ”thou” for him, no one is the other for him.
I was talking about Kabir only this morning. There is another anecdote, which is as beautiful, in the
life of Kabir and his son Kamal. One morning Kabir sends Kamal to the forest to bring green grass
for the cattle. Kamal goes to the forest with a sickle in his hands. Plants are dancing in the wind, as
they are dancing right here before us. Morning turns into midday and midday passes into evening,
and yet Kamal does not return home from the forest. Kabir is worried, because he was expected
to be back home for his midday meal. Kabir makes inquiries and then goes to the forest with a few
friends in search of his son. On reaching the forest, he finds Kamal standing in the thick of grass
tall enough to reach his shoulders. It is wrong to say that he is standing, he is actually dancing with
the dancing plants. The wind is dancing, the plants are dancing and Kamal is dancing with them.
His eyes are closed and he is wholly absorbed in the dance. Kabir finds that he has not chopped a
single blade of grass for the cattle. So he gently puts his hands on his shoulders and asks, ”What
have you been doing, my son?”
Kamal opens his eyes and looks around. He tells his father, ”You did well to remind me,” and then
picks up his sickle with a view to his assigned task. But he finds it is already dark and not possible
to cut any grass.
The people with Kabir asked him, ”But what have you been doing for the rest of the day?”
Kamal says, ”I became just like a grass plant; I forgot I was a man or anything. I also forgot this was
grass I came to chop and take home to my cattle. The morning was so beautiful and blissful, it was
so festive and dancing with the wind and the trees and the grass, it would have been sheer stupidity
on my part not to have joined the celebration. I began dancing, forgetting everything else. I did not
even remember I was Kamal who had come here to collect food for my animals. I am aware of it
again only now that you come to remind me.”
Krishna, like Kamal, is engrossed in a dance, the cosmic dance. Kabir’s son dances with a few
plants in a small forest, but Krishna dances with the whole universe: he dances with its stars, with
its men and women, with its trees and flowers and even its thistles. And he is so one with the cosmic
dance there is no way for ”I” and ”thou” to exist in that space. The state of egolessness Krishna
achieves in this moment of dance is the same that Buddha and Mahavira achieve at the end of a
long and arduous journey, a journey of hard work, austerity and asceticism. Where Krishna begins
his journey, after completing a marathon race Mahavira and Buddha arrive.
Krishna is not a seeker. It would be wrong to call him a seeker. He is a siddha, an adept, an
accomplished performer of all life’s arts. And what he says in this siddha state, in this ultimate state
of mind, may seem to you to be egoistic, but it is not. The difficulty is that Krishna has to use the
same linguistic ”I” as you do, but there is a tremendous difference in connotation between his ”I” and
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 50 Osho