Bhagwad Gita As Seen By Osho

I have always been intrigued by one question the response to which I was always not able to a find or say this one question always confused me , baffled me or say that this very question always made me contemplate or say left me pondering. Every time I would see a court scene in a Hindi movie, I would find it very funny rather very strange. A witness or an accused being called to the witness box , he being made to take an oath in the name of the holy Bhagwad Gita by touching it and saying “mein jo hi kahunga sach kahunga , sach ke siva kuch na kahunga.” I would find it funny and would think whether it was some kind of narco test being conducted or what, that the truth will automatically start flowing from the mouth of the person. I could never understand and thought would perhaps never understand the reason behind it. Every time the same holy Gita and the same old oath. Then why only the Gita why not some other religious scripture. Well it could always be the Ramayana, the Upanishads, or say the Puranas. The other day the same question again came to my mind and I found the answer to it in one of the editions of Osho times and I found it quite convincing and relevant and at the same time very interesting. In the words of Osho, no other person on earth has been as complete as the Krishna. Looking at the personality and the character of the Lord Krishna , one would observe that he has been the only multidimensional person with so many faces and in a way complete, imbibing in himself almost every possible aspect of human nature . If he is a warrior, a Kshatriya at the same time he is a very learned being, a knowledgeable person, a great pundit, a Brahman. At the same time a lover, a flirt, a musician, a dancer, a thief, a liar, and a politician as well. There is hardly any aspect of human nature, which you will not find in the Lord Krishna. It is almost impossible, something which is not imaginable. Krishna is a complete man, which is why he has been called a purna avatar. Before him and after him no body has ever been so complete and so multidimensional. Ram has been there, Vishnu has been there but no one so complete, so interesting and so varied in his personality with all shades and colors of human nature. According to Osho, if God descends on earth, he would look somewhat like Krishna and no one else. Lord Ram, however big he may be, in the consciousness of this country has never been a complete avatar, he always been a part of it but never the complete. The rishis of Upanishads however knowledgeable they may have been are not complete avatars. Only Krishna has been complete and that’s why the majority of Indian consciousness and mind has been touched by him .And the reason for this is his being a multidimensional person who touches all the aspects of human personality. As far as Lord Ram and others are concerned, they are all one-dimensional and they can be loved and worshiped by only a particular category of people. As far as Krishna is concerned, it will be hard to find a person on this earth who will not fall in love with any of the aspects of the personality and the being of Shri Krishna. A thief may fall in love with him, a dancer will love him, a sanyasi may adore him, a nonsanyasi as well and he may even be source of inspiration for a Kshatriya. Therefore, Krishna is like a complete orchestra with all the musical instruments and in this orchestra, everybody finds an instrument of his choice. However, the strangest thing is there has never been anyone who would have loved Krishna as a whole. Surdas loves only the BAL Krishna, he is afraid of the Krishna who dances around with the Gopies and flirts with them. Keshavdas on the other hand will love the young Krishna dancing and enjoying himself. But to love him as a whole is very difficult or rather impossible. To be able to love him as a whole requires one to be multidimensional. And the majority of us happen to be one-dimensional and all of us we have a single track mind set and in Krishna we choose what suits us. That is why all love Krishna and everyone finds a reason to do so. According to Osho, in a court of law, one will seldom find good people; people who are bad in some way or the other usually frequent court. A bad person in love with Ram may perhaps never go to the court .So taking an oath in the name of Ram is almost impossible. Taking an oath in the name of Krishna is quite relevant and possible because Krishna seems to be open to even the criminals and all kinds of bad people .His doors are open for all. That is why even the bad people, the offenders, love Krishna. According to Osho, it will be hard to find a person who would not feel like hugging Krishna, who would say that Krishna is not meant for him or her. Moreover, for Osho the greatest truth greater than truth is love and it is almost impossible to lie in front of a person we are in love with. Truth can be found only in a love relationship. If one is not able to be truthful towards ones lover then it is something else in the name of love and love not at all. Moreover, the psychology has proved that if somebody’s cord of love is touched it will be impossible for him to lie. So it is all in the name of love for Krishna that all the accused and the witnesses are made to take an oath in the name of the Bhadwad Gita.

Like wise there have been other questions too troubling me and keeping me pensive all the time since my child hood. I have my exams and say I m not well prepared, I m worried and my parents would always say “karm kar fal ki icha mat kar”; this again would leave me wondering. How can you do anything, perform any karma without thinking of the outcome at all. Finding it written everywhere would again make me feel guilty because lord Krishna had said so as my parents told me. I would feel something wrong with me as I never did anything without the outcome, and even today, I do not do anything with out the result in mind. There are expectations all the time. But today there is no guilt associated with it at all and again Osho helped me resolve this quarry of mine which earlier would never let me feel free of my guilt. I used to feel as if I was a criminal. But I was not responsible because that was how my parents and the people around had interoperated it. But the Osho does it, it’s really incredible. He says something very interesting. “Karmanye vadhikareste aˆ¦..” he interprets it not by associating it with any result at all. According to him, it means being here and now completely. What so ever one does if done with full concentration and by immersing into it in ones totality, he or she would never fail. That is it. But the way people have been interpret ting it has been very unrealistic and impossible. How can you do anything without having the purpose in your mind? And doing anything without anything in mind would be foolish and stupid at the same time. But that is what we have told by all kinds of idiots and cunning people, or says the followers of Hitler. According to Osho, misinterpretation is done only with the purpose of creating guilt in the people. And it is very simple to dictate upon the people who feel guilty. Hitler also did that. He also created guilt among his people, ruled over them, and could have his way. Karma kar aˆ¦ That simply means doing everything with full samagrata, with full concentration, by being here and now and that is what epitomizes the whole philosophy of Osho.

Like wise, there are other questions as well. I once saw a film in which a serial killer goes around killing people and saying “Na koi Marta hai na koi maarta hai aˆ¦.. Aisa main nahin Gita kehti hai aˆ¦.” “Nobody ever dies nobody ever kills”, this again seems to be justifying the violence committed by General Dyer or the killings done by Hitler. But this is not what Krishna means to say. According to him just because no one dies does not in any way justify the desire to kill or the passion for violence? According to him, there is nothing wrong in the occurrence of violence but the sin is in the act of violence. So listening to Gita if someone concludes that killing someone is not killing at all is not right, that is all a fiction. Krishna is not saying, “Go ahead and kill people”. He is saying only if it becomes your experience that no one is ever killed, then, and only then, can you let whatever happens, happen. And there is one more thing who is Krishna addressing this to. This is very important. This discourse is not meant for the common man, it is meant for the Arjuna who has refused to kill. And then he tells Arjuna that he is a Kshatriya and that he should perform his duty that of being one. But does that mean that Krishna is a warmonger? No. According to Osho, Krishna is only trying to help Arjuna realize who he is and what his duties are and how can he achieve the pinnacle of his being and that naturally is possible only by being what he is. In the battlefield, Arjuna has dropped his weapons and is talking like a Brahman, which he is not suppose to. This has only one message that all of us we should do everything to be what we are and that we should realize all our potentials and possibilities we have born with.

Then there is one more important thing, which Osho says in the context of Bhadwad Gita. According to him, the Bhagwad Gita happens to be the first psychological scripture available to the East long before the works of Freud, Adler and Jung. And in his words, it would not be an exaggeration if Krishna were called the father of psychology. In the Bhagwad Gita, the way Krishna approaches Arjuna’s problems can only be appreciated once we really understand the working of the human mind with all its intricacies and complexities. According to Osho, all of us all the time carry an Arjuna within us and all the time we are confronted with situations and are facing one crises or the other. And as we listen to him it becomes clear that our situation too is not very different from that of the Arjuna, it is perhaps more complex and of a greater magnitude. In the words of Osho, the root cause of all of our problems, difficulties, miseries, dilemma, conflict and war is nothing else but mind. So in order to find a solution to all these problems it’s very important rather imperative to understand the working of mind, its patterns and conditionings. According to Osho, only mind is the problem and all that chaos which we find all around ourselves, behind all this only mind is the one who is responsible. Some people have called the Bhagwad Gita a spiritual shastra but its not so according to Osho.In his opinion no shastra can ever be spiritual, it can only be psychological. Rather shastras have nothing to do with spirituality. The spiritual journey starts where the mind ends. And Osho goes further and says that there is nothing like a spiritual shastra because as far as spirituality is concerned, spirituality itself is life, is experience and shastra only helps understand the functioning of mind.

Bhagwad Gita is not spiritual also because the problem of Arjuna is not spiritual; it is more of a psychological problem, a practical one. And the answer to a psychological question can only be a psychological one. According to Osho if someone says that Krishna is, addressing to Arjuna’s problem in spiritual words, that too would be wrong because then no communication would be possible between the two.

According to Osho, no problem can ever be spiritual because spiritualism can be the solution and the problems always arise from the mind. In his words, all problems are psychological whereas spirituality itself is solution. “Only mind is the problem”. Mind itself is the chaos. That is why whatever is shastra cannot be beyond the mind and whatever is beyond mind has no name at all.

According to Osho since most of our problems, arise from the mind, since most of them happen to be psychological, so the solutions to them too have to be of the same level. That is why Krishna in order to resolve Arjuna’s problem brings himself down to his level or say to his pedestal. How ever if Krishna addresses his problem from he already is i.e. is from his own pedestal, in that case no communication will be possible between the two; Arjuna wont understand anything. And that what happens to be difference between the modern teacher and the rishi of Upanishads. The difference is that of the methodologies. A modern teacher always keeps his student on the centre whereas the rishi of Upanishads, he himself happens to be the centre. Krishna talks to Arjuna just like a modern teacher. He does not preach him at all rather he discusses the problem with him.

According to Osho, only those scriptures have future that are psychological. Metaphysics has no future at all. People have problems and they want those problems to be solved. All they want is a solution to them; and who so ever will solve them who so ever will answer to their questions will have a place, will have a future. According to Osho only if Krishna shows the courage to stand in a queue with Freud and Jung, then and only then Gita will have a future.