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

CHAPTER 3. WHERE BUDDHA ENDS KRISHNA BEGINS
The truth is that freedom means going beyond the chain of cause and effect. The transcendence of
the law of cause and effect is freedom. Really, whatever is subject to the law of cause and effect is
called matter, and what goes beyond the frontiers of this law is known as God.
But where is the frontier, the limit that you are going to cross and go beyond? We are used to
connecting everything with the law of cause and effect.
I was telling a story a little while ago. A villager boards a railway train for the first time in his life.
He has reached the age of seventy-five and his co-villagers have celebrated his anniversary and
want to give him a birthday gift. So they hit upon a novel idea Only recently their village has been
connected to the railroad and trains have been passing through it. And up to now no one among
them has gone on a railway journey. So they decide to give the old man the opportunity to be the
first among them to enjoy such a trip. This will be their birthday gift to him. So they buy the old man
a ticket and put him on the train. A friend of his also goes with him for company and comfort. The
two board the train and are exceedingly happy.
When the train moves out of the village a vendor of soft drinks enters their compartment with a tray
of sodas and begins selling them. The old man and his friend have never tasted soda before, so
they look around to see if anyone is drinking it. When they see some people buying it and drinking it
they buy themselves a bottle and agree to share it between them, half-and-half. One of them drinks
it first and likes it. But when he has consumed his share of the drink, his friend becomes impatient
for his share and snatches the bottle from his hands. Exactly at this moment the train enters a tunnel
and suddenly the whole train is plunged into darkness. And the man who has already tasted the
drink shouts at his friend, ”Don’t touch that stuff! I have been struck blind! It seems to be something
very dangerous!”
The man had no idea of the train entering a dark tunnel, and he thinks the drink has made him blind.
A causal link is established between the drink and darkness, which is absolutely absurd. But this is
how we think and look at life. And this leads us into all kinds of illusions.
The experiencing of freedom is beyond the world of cause and effect. Buddha attained to nirvana
not because of the efforts he made for it, but in spite of those efforts. Mahavira achieved moksha not
because of the severe sadhana he is said to have followed, but in spite of it all. If someone imitates
Mahavira totally from A to Z, he is not going to achieve liberation. Nothing will happen to him even
if, by way of a sadhana, he does everything as perfectly as Mahavira did.
Freedom is a kind of explosion totally outside the chain of cause and effect. There is absolutely no
connections between the two.
Krishna says that if you only understand it for yourself, you can be free here and now. Whether one
deserves it or does not deserve it is not the question. It is not a matter of worthiness or otherwise. It
is also not a question of any sadhana. But we are in the habit of making detours. If we have to reach
our own homes, we go on a tour of the whole village to do so. Even if we have to come to ourselves,
we do so via the other. It has become our lifestyle; we cannot do with out it. Besides, everybody has
his own karmas to fulfill, and they will go through them. But the difficulty is that you not only fulfill
your own portion of karmas, you want to do everything that others have done. And then you are in
a mess. Maybe someone came to himself in a particular way, but you are not that person, you are a
different person altogether. You cannot come to yourself by imitating him.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 55 Osho