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

CHAPTER 1. THE FUTURE BELONGS TO KRISHNA
conflict and struggle. It seems we cannot act without choosing. But the world is a unity of
contradictions and dialectics. The world is an orchestra of opposite notes; it cannot be a solo.
I have heard that once someone was playing a musical instrument. He played a single note on
a single string at a single point, and he played it for hours on end. Not only his family, even the
neighborhood felt disturbed by it. Finally a group of people came and said to him, ”We have heard
any number of musicians and they all play a number of different notes. How come you are stuck
with a single note?” The man answered, ”I have found the right note; others are still searching for it.
That is why I stick to the right spot. I need not search any more.”
Our minds would like to choose a single note of life and deny all others. But only in death can one
find a single note. As far as life is concerned, it is composed of different and contradictory notes.
If you have seen an arched door in some old building, you might have noticed that, to construct it,
opposite kinds of bricks are laid side by side. And it is the opposite kinds of bricks, placed together,
that hold the heavy burden of the house on their shoulders. Can you conceive of using the same
kinds of bricks in the construction of an archway? Then the house cannot be constructed; it will
collapse then and there.
The entire structure of our life is held together by the tension of its opposites – and war is a part of
the tension that is life. And those who think that war is totally harmful and destructive are wrong;
their vision is fragmentary, myopic. If we try to understand the course of development that man and
his civilization have followed, we will realize that war plays the largest share in its growth. Whatever
man has today – all the good things of life – were found primarily through the medium of war. If we
find today that the whole earth is covered with roads and highways, the credit should go to war and
to preparations for war. These roads and highways were first constructed for the sake of waging war,
for the purpose of dispatching armies to distant lands. They did not come into being for the sake of
two friends meeting or for a man and a woman belonging to two distant towns to marry. The fact is,
they came into being for the encounter of two enemies, for the purpose of war.
We see big buildings all over. They all came in the wake of castles. And castles were the products of
war. The first high walls on this earth were built with a view to keep out the enemies, and then other
high walls and buildings followed. And now we have skyscrapers in all the big cities of the world.
But it is difficult to think that these highrises are the progenies of war.
All of man’s modern affluence, backed by scientific inventions and high technology – indeed all his
achievements – basically owe their existence to war.
In fact, war creates such a state of tension in the mind of man and presents such challenges, that
our dormant energies are shaken to their roots and, as a result, they awaken and act. We can afford
to be lazy and lethargic in times of peace, but moments of war are quite different. War provokes our
dynamism. Confronted with extraordinary challenges, our sleep ing energies have to awaken and
assert themselves. That is why, during a war, we function as extraordinary people; we simply cease
to be the ordinary people that we are. Confronted with the challenge of war, man’s brain begins
to function at its highest level and capacity. In times of war man’s intelligence takes a great leap
forward, one it would ordinarily take centuries to make.
Many people think that if Krishna had pre vented the war of Mahabharat, India would have attained
to great affluence, she would have touched high peaks of growth and greatness. But the truth is
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 9 Osho