Osho Quotes on Krishna

Osho Quotes on Lord Krishna

1. Not one commentary on Krishna is complete. It is not possible, unless someone like Krishna himself comments on him. Every interpretation of Krishna is incomplete and partial. There are many sides to a single thing, and Krishna is a man of infinite dimensions. So every commentator chooses from them according to what appeals to him. Shankara establishes that sannyas and inaction form the cornerstones of the GEETA. From the same GEETA, Tilak chooses karmayoga, the discipline of action, and he brings all his arguments to prove that action IS GEETA’S central message. Now Shankara and Tilak are polar opposites.
2. It would be better if, instead of looking at Krishna through the screen of our concepts and categories in order to reconcile him with our conditioned minds, we look at him directly and as a whole. To do so, it will be necessary to put aside all our concepts and categories and all our prejudices.
3. My own view is that with all these contradictions there is only one Krishna, and that is his great ness and glory. Shorn of it he becomes meaningless, insignificant. His significance, his greatness lies in the fact that he is all things together, all things rolled into one, all contradictions living hand in hand, and there is a great harmony in all his contradictions. He can play the flute and he can dance, and with the same ease he can fight his enemy in the battlefield with his chakra, his wheel-like weapon. And there is no contradiction between the two roles. He can play pranks with the girls of his village, running away with their clothes when they are bathing in the river, and he can also make the most profound statements like in the GEETA. He can be a thief and a perfect yogi together. Krishna is one person in so many diverse roles — and that is his grandeur, his glory. And this is the uniqueness of Krishna, his individuality. You will not find it in Rama, Buddha, Mahavira of Jesus Christ. Krishna is a blending of contradiction, a beautiful synthesis of all contradictions. I say so for the reason that I don’t find these contradictions to be really contradictory. In fact all of life’s truth is a blending, a synthesis of contradictions. The whole of life is based on contradictions, and there is no discordance in those contradictions; rather, there is full accord, absolute harmony among them.
4. I am aware I am going to be in difficulty on this score. It is going to be the same difficulty that Krishna had created for himself. For thousands of years people have been struggling to interpret and understand what Krishna said in the GEETA. In the same way, what I am saying now will need to be interpreted and you will all strain yourselves to under stand it. I am unveiling Krishna in his entirety with out caring for the inconsistencies and contradictions inherent in his life and teachings. I don’t care if one of my statements about him is going to clash with another statement that I may make subsequently. I will go on revealing his life and philosophy as it authentically is. I want to give you Krishna whole and in one piece. So what I am saying to you is not a commentary.
5. Krishna says: When the body dies, the soul does not die. You can burn the body, but the fire cannot consume the soul. NA HANYATE HANYAMANE SHAREERE — you can kill the body, but you cannot kill the spirit, you cannot kill the soul, because no arrow can reach to it, no sword can cut it. NAINAM CHHINDANTI SHASTRANI, NAINAM DAHATI PAVAKAH — neither any weapon can cut me nor fire burn me. Go on repeating it again and again and again, year in, year out; you become autohypnotized. You start believing it, although you have not created any soul in you yet. Krishna is right: the soul is eternal — but in the first place you have to have it. It is not there. Soul means consciousness, soul means integratedness. Soul means that you know through your own experience that you are not the body and not the mind. It arises only through witnessing the bodymind mechanism; it is not created by repetition. Repetition is hypnosis. It is experienced just the other way: you have to become dehypnotized, you have to become unconditioned. You have to forget all the scriptures and all the priests and you have to look into yourself. Howsoever fearful it is, you have to encounter your interiority.
6. Krishna says, “Don’t think of the result. Leave the result to me: you simply act.” The mind cannot do that. Before the mind acts it asks for the result; it acts because of the result. If there will be a result, only then will it act. People come to me and ask, “If we meditate, what will happen? What will be the result?” Remember, meditation can never be result-oriented; you simply meditate, that’s all. Everything happens but it will not be a result. If you are seeking the result nothing will happen; meditation will be useless.
7. Just be there; feel the whole situation, be in rapport with the whole situation, and let your inner consciousness do whatsoever comes. You should not be the doer, you should be just a witness. A doer has to decide beforehand, a witness need not. That is the whole message of Krishna and the Gita. Krishna says: Just see the whole situation, and don’t follow moralists’ dead rules. See the situation and act as a witness; don’t be a doer. And don’t be bothered what the result will be, nobody can say what the result will be. In fact there is no result, cannot be, because it is an infinity.
8. Krishna says you need not be bothered with decision, because it is such a vast thing that you will never be able to make a decision. So don’t think about the result, simply respond to the situation. Be spontaneous, alert; be a witness and not a doer.
9. In fact, a man who lives in awareness also sleeps in awareness. Krishna, in the Gita, says: The real seeker is awake even while others are fast asleep. When it is night for others it is still day for him. Something deep inside him remains constantly alert. That which is a night for everybody else is not a night for the one who is aware, who is alert, who is meditative, who is balanced, who lives in equilibrium, who lives in silence. Something deep inside him keeps awake. The body sleeps, the mind sleeps, but the soul is always alert. It is never tired so it need not sleep at all. It is awareness itself; it is made of awareness.
10. The fourth state is called TURIYA. The fourth is simply called ‘the fourth’. TURIYA means ‘the fourth’. The fourth state is that of a Buddha. It is almost like dreamless sleep with one difference — that difference is very great. It is as peaceful as deep sleep, as without dreams as deep sleep, but it is absolutely alert, aware. Krishna says in his Gita that a real yogi never sleeps. That does not mean that a real yogi simply sits awake in his room the whole night. There are a few foolish people who are doing that. That a real yogi never sleeps means that while he is asleep he remains aware, alert.
11. For a Buddha dreams disappear; they don’t happen, they cannot happen — because he becomes so alert that even in sleep a subtle layer of awareness remains. He never loses his awareness. That’s what Krishna means when he says in the GEETA, “When everybody is fast asleep, the yogi is awake.” It does not mean that the yogi just stands in the room and remains awake — he would go mad! He also sleeps, but somewhere deep down a substratum remains alert, a small lamp continues burning inside. And in that light, no dreams can penetrate.
12. Krishna says in the Gita to Arjuna, “Fight, but fight with absolute surrender to God. Become a vehicle.” Now, to surrender means absolute awareness, otherwise you cannot surrender. Surrender means dropping the ego, and ego IS your unconsciousness. Krishna says, “Drop the ego and then leave it to God. Then let his will be done. Then whatsoever happens is good.”
13. Krishna can say, “I am God,” because he is not. In fact, it is not Krishna saying, “I am God.” It is God saying, “I am.” Krishna is not there. He appears to Arjuna because our eyes are blind. He appears to us because we cannot see. When Krishna says, “I am God,” we think it is Krishna saying, “I am God.” In fact, Krishna is no more there. It is God saying, “I am! I am! ” — that’s all.
14. One can claim from the ego. All our claims are from the ego, so we cannot see how a person can claim without the ego. Krishna in the Gita says to Arjuna, ‘Come to my feet. Leave all, and surrender to me.’ Hindus are not so bold, and they are very mannerly; they have not written that this man is an egoist. But in the West many have felt the same as with Jesus: What manner of man is this who says, ‘Come to my feet!’ Our egos cannot feel that when Krishna is saying to Arjuna, ‘Come to my feet,’ there is no one inside. It is coming to nobody’s feet. But egos cannot see this. You can see only that which you are, you cannot see that which you are not.
15. When Krishna says, “Come to my feet! ” he is saying, “Here, look! The emptiness is standing before you. Dissolve into it! ” But that won’t be direct. He has to use Arjuna’s language. He says, “Come to my feet.” If Arjuna is ready and willing to surrender, if he trusts and surrenders, when he touches the feet of Krishna he will touch emptiness. Only then will there be a realization of what Krishna was saying. There are no feet, no Krishna — just a tremendous quality of emptiness. The temple of God is emptiness. Touching Krishna’s feet he will bow down to emptiness and the emptiness will pour down into him. But that will be possible only when he trusts.
16. That’s what Buddha says. He said,”Simply surrender.” But that looks very difficult for the mind. You need some excuse. Jesus says, “Surrender to God.” If you cannot just surrender, then surrender to God. Krishna says, “If you cannot surrender, then surrender to me. Let me be the excuse.” But when you surrender, then you know that Krishna tricked you. When you surrender you will not find Krishna there: you will find the whole cosmos and you floating in it, part of it. Then you are no more separate — not going on your way. Then everything is beautiful, blissful. Without conflict ugliness disappears; without conflict sadness disappears; without conflict sorrow disappears. Then whatsoever is, is beautiful.
17. You need not push anything. You can just relax and let God do. You can become a vehicle, you can become an instrument — what in India we call nimitta. You can become instrumental. That’s what Krishna goes on teaching to Arjuna in SRIMAD BHAGAVAD GITA. The whole teaching can be condensed into one thing, into one essential point — that you need not be a doer. Let God do it.
18. Krishna does not deliver the GEETA with a view to persuading Arjuna to fight. No, he delivers it only to reveal to him his true nature, the nature of a warrior.
19. Your so-called mahatmas go on teaching you, “Become a Buddha, become a Christ, become a Krishna.” Nobody tells you just to be yourself. Why should you become a Buddha? If God wanted a Buddha he could have produced as many Buddhas as he wanted. He produced only one Buddha, and that was enough. And he was satisfied to his heart’s desire, utterly satisfied. Since then he has not produced another Buddha or another Christ. He has created you instead. Just think of the respect that the universe has given to you. You have been chosen! — not Buddha, not Christ, not Krishna. You will be needed more, that’s why. YOU fit more now. Their work is done, they contributed their fragrance to existence. Now you have to contribute YOUR fragrance.
20. Krishna does not create Arjuna, he only uncovers him, only uncovers his self-nature. He makes him see what he is. Krishna’s chisel cuts away the unnecessary and ugly parts of his personality and restores him to his pristine being and beauty. What emerges at the close of the GEETA is Arjuna’s own being, his individuality. But it seems to us that Krishna has created a new statue of Arjuna. The sculptor’s visitor said the same thing, that he had seen him create it with his own eyes. But this is not what a sculptor feels about his art. Many sculptors have confessed they had seen the statues inside the rocks first and only then uncovered them. Rocks speak out to sculptors that statues are hidden inside and call to be uncovered. Not all rocks are pregnant with statues; not all rocks are useful for sculpting. Sculptors know where a statue is hidden and they uncover it. This statue happens to be the being, the individuality of the rock that bears it. The entire GEETA is just a process of uncovering. It reveals the pristine possibilities of Arjuna.
21. In the GEETA Krishna tells Arjuna, “Don’t be uncertain, indecisive. Be certain and decisive. Use your decisive intelligence and know for certain who you are, what you are. Don’t be indecisive as 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.”
22. While concluding the GEETA, Krishna says to Arjuna, “Give up everything, give up all religions, all sense of the doer and doing, give up your ego and be established in inaction.” Inaction is the technique of remembering.
23. Krishna is not aware that his dialogues with Arjuna are going to turn into the BHAGWAD GEETA. It is incidental that they turned out that way. It is Krishna’s spontaneous discussions with Arjuna while the two of them were standing on the battlegrounds of Kurukshetra. He does not know that his sayings are going to be so significant that they will be discussed for centuries upon centuries to come. They are meant for Arjuna alone, for his spiritual transformation. They are very intimate conversations meant exclusively for a close friend. My own experience says that every significant and momentous word of wisdom came into being by way of an intimate dialogue. A writer can never touch that depth which a speaker does. All that is of the highest in the world of wisdom has been spoken, not written.
24. A Buddha speaks in one language, Jesus in a different one, Krishna in another. They use different factual knowledge, they use different techniques, devices, but the central core of their teaching is the same. And that, if you allow me to say it, is how to attain to total awareness. Awareness is the basic teaching of all the enlightened ones. They use many parables, techniques, devices, symbols, myths, but those are irrelevant. You can cut them away, you can put them aside and just bring out the basic core. The basic core of all the awakened persons is awareness. So Jesus goes on telling his disciples how to be more awake — not to be sleeping, not to move in dreams, but to be alert, awake.
25. We suffered not because of Krishna. On the contrary, we suffered because we failed to continue the line of Krishna, because we ceased to produce more Krishnas after him. Of course, it was natural that after Krishna’s war a note of pessimism, of defeatism, became prominent in our life — it always happens in the wake of wars — and that a row of defeatist teachers successfully used this opportunity to tell us that war is an unmitigated evil to be shunned at all costs. And this defeatist teaching took root, deep in our minds. So for five thousand years we have been a frightened people, frightened for our lives. And a community that is afraid of death, afraid of war, eventually begins, deep down in its being, to be afraid of life itself. And we are that community — afraid of living. We are really trembling with fear. We are neither alive nor dead, we art just in limbo.
26. If I had been in place of Arjuna I would have told Krishna clearly that, “Who are you to decide God’s will? I can hear my own heart and I feel God’s will is that I should go to the Himalayas and meditate. I don’t want to fight. Why should I listen to you? Why should I have a mediator between God and me? I can listen to my own heart.”