BookMarks #111: Krishna – the Man and His Philosophy

Title: Krishna – The Man and His Philosophy

Author: Osho

Genre: Non-fiction, Philosophy, Religion

Published: 1991

BookMarks

The book is compilation of talks given by Osho on Lord Krishna, the Bhagavad Gita and contrasts with Jesus Christ, Gautam Buddha and Mahavira. The narration is in a Question & Answer format and covers the course of a few days as Osho talks to his followers.

Some of the messages are:

On God & the world: God and the world are not two separate entities. They are like body and soul. The visible part of the soul is known as the body, and the invisible part of the body is called the soul.

On war: 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. All our cooperative efforts and institutions are the products of war. It is called cooperation for conflict.

Individual vs collective: If you want some evil act to be done, you will find it easier through a group than through an individual. The law of evolution doesn't apply on individual it applies on group

All great persons are born ahead of their time, and all insignificant people are born after their time. It is only mediocre people who are born in their time.

We worship those who perplex and defeat our ability to understand them.

If one has wealth, one can have the suffering of his choice

Happiness and suffering are like clouds passing through the sky. They come and go.

Nobody has any difficulty finding in the Gita what he wants to find.

They say that man has only to remember what he has forgotten. has to remember who he really is, who he is right now. He does not have to do a thing except recollect what he has forgotten.

Everyone is unique: Everybody has his own karmas to fulfill, and they will go through them. Everyone is unique and different. God is a creator, not a technician, and he only creates original things, first-hand things. To be oneself is the only virtue and to be another is a sin. Imitation is wrong. It is ironic that we imitate those who never imitated others.

The story of a great person can never be historical, it is always poetic, mythical, mythological. It is so because it is written retrospectively.

To live on this planet problems will always be needed, because it is through our struggle with problems that we grow and mature.

On Work: Work for what? Why does man work? Man works so he can live. And what does living mean? To live means to celebrate life. We work so that we can have a moment of dance in our lives. Really, work is just a means to celebrate life. But the irony is that the way we live there is no leisure left to sing and dance and celebrate life. We turn means into an end; we make work the be-all and end-all of life. And then life is confined between two places, our home and the office. Home to office and back home is all we know of life. (In the WFH environment, even that “to” has gone missing.)

Everyone is mad with running and reaching somewhere. And no man knows where this "somewhere" is.

Entertainment and celebration are never the same. In celebration you are a participant; in entertainment you are only a spectator.

On future: Man is an animal who makes promises. We are captives of the future, we live in future hopes. Man wastes all his todays in the hope of a tomorrow that never came.

The meaning of a word does not, as is usually believed, come from the dictionary.

Life begins where logic ends.

That which attracts you is not your type; it is the opposite of your own nature, because the opposite attracts. Opposites are complementary to each other.

One who clings to his past cannot come to truth, because truth is always now and here, it is in the moment. Truth has nothing to do with the past nor with the future. Truth is really timeless, and one who lives in the past can never be in the present. Truth and time don't walk together."

That which helps life grow, flower and dance ecstatically is religion. And that which impedes life's growth, which distorts and stifles life's flowering, which smothers life's joy and festivity is irreligion.

Some simple explanations and some complex ones. Do not necessarily agree with all of them, but he does present and interesting perspective. No wonder Osho was so wildly followed. 

Previously on BookMarks: The Importance of Being Earnest