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

CHAPTER 4. RELIGION HAS NO HISTORY, IT IS ETERNAL
to whether you are a kshatriya or a brahmin, whether you are going to fight or you are going to
renounce the world and take sannyas. You have to be clear and decisive about your basic role in
life. Indecision splits one into fragments, and fragmentation leads to confusion and conflict, to grief
and disintegration. Then you will disintegrate, you will perish.”
The word sanshaya in the GEETA has been taken to mean doubt, and therein lies the whole
confusion and mistake. I am in support of doubt, but I don’t support indecision. I say it is good
to doubt, that skepticism is necessary. And Krishna, too, would not deny skepticism. He stands by
skepticism, and that is why he asks Arjuna to put his questions again and again. To raise a question
means to raise one’s doubts. But at the same time Krishna warns him against indecision. He tells
Arjuna not to be indecisive, not to remain in conflict and confusion. He should not be incapable
of deciding what he should do and what he should not do. He should not get bogged down in the
quagmire of either-or, either to be or not to be.
Soren Kierkegaard was an important thinker of the last century. He wrote a book with the title,
”Either-Or”. Not only did he write a book with this title, his whole life was the embodiment of this
phrase, either-or. People in Copenhagen, his birthplace, forgot his real name and called him only
”Either-Or”. When he passed through the streets of his town they said to one another, ”Here goes
Either-Or.” He would stand a long while at a crossroad, thinking whether he should turn to the right
or to the left. After inserting a key in the lock he took long to decide which way to turn it.
Soren Kierkegaard was in deep love with a woman named Regina. When Regina proposed to him,
for his whole life he could not decide whether to marry her or not to marry her.
This is indecisiveness, not doubt.
Krishna admonishes Arjuna not to fall prey to indecisiveness, because it will destroy him. Whosoever
becomes a prisoner of indecision inevitably falls to pieces, because indecision divides one into
contradictory fragments, a sure way to disintegration and ruin. Integration is health, and it comes
with decisiveness. If you have ever taken a clear decision in your life you must have immediately
become integrated in that moment. The bigger the decision, the greater the integration. And if
one comes to a total decision in life, he has a will of his own, he becomes one, he attains to a
togetherness, to yoga, to unio mystica.
All of Krishna’s effort is directed toward eradicating indecisiveness, it has nothing to do with doubt.
He says, ”Doubt fully, but never remain indecisive.” I am fully in favor of doubt. Doubt you must. Go
on using the chisel of doubt until the statue of trust becomes manifest. Keep chiseling from the rock,
with the hammer of doubt, the foreign elements that have entered your nature, until you eliminate
the last of them and nothing remains to be eliminated. Then the statue of trust will appear in its full
splendor.
But remember, if you continue to use the hammer of doubt even after the statue has manifested,
you will injure the statue, you will hurt your own being.
Trust is the ultimate product of doubt, and insanity is the ultimate result of indecision. An indecisive
person will end up insane; he will disintegrate and perish.
If you understand it in this light, you will understand what Krishna means to say.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 82 Osho