What does 'paritrāṇāya sādhūnām, vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām' mean?

Osho, there is one condition he laid down: “paritrāṇāya sādhūnām, vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām.” What does it mean?

“To protect the righteous and to end the evildoers, I will come.” All right. Both clauses mean the same. “To end the evildoers” means the same thing too. When does the end of the wicked really happen? By killing them? Killing does not end wickedness, because Krishna knows perfectly well that nothing truly dies by being killed. The end of the wicked happens only when the wicked can be turned into a saint; there is no other way. Killing does not end the wicked; it only changes his body. Nothing essential changes. The end of the wicked comes only when he becomes a sadhu. And the amusing part is the second clause: “to protect the sadhus.” Protection is needed only when they have become showpiece sadhus, otherwise not. Why would a sadhu need protection? If even a sadhu needs protection, things have gone very wrong. “I will come to protect…

Questioner: what does krishna mean when he says in the geeta, "I will come into being for the protection of the righteous and for the destruction of the wicked"?

"Protection of the righteous and destruction of the wicked" -- both these phrases mean the same. But it is necessary to understand how the wicked are destroyed. How are the wicked finished? Are they destroyed by killing? Killing does not destroy the wicked. Krishna knows very well that nothing is killed by killing. The only way to finish a wicked person is to help transform him into a righteous person, into a sage. Killing will never finish him, it will only result in a change of body for him. Killing will not make a difference, he will continue to be wicked in his next life. The wicked can come to an end only if they are helped to become righteous. There is no other way. Another amusing thing Krishna says is that he will come for the protection of the righteous, of the sage. A sage is in need of…

Osho, in connection with the earlier discussions, please clarify two things. In the Hindi translation of the second verse it is written that for a very long time on this earth yoga has become almost extinct, whereas in the Sanskrit verse it says yogo nashtah—meaning not nearly lost, but that yoga has been destroyed. Kindly explain this a little. And in the Hindi translation of the eighth verse it is written that I manifest for the uddhar of the sadhus, but in Sanskrit it says for the paritran of the sadhus. Please clarify the meaning of paritran in place of the “uddhar of the sadhus.”

Paritran has the same meaning as uddhar. There is no difference between them. To take nashtapray, or yoga nasht ho gaya, in the sense of luptapray is also not wrong. In fact, the meaning of “destruction” in Sanskrit has to be understood in light of what that word meant at the time it was used. In this land it has never been held that anything can be utterly destroyed. “Destroyed” has meant only that it has disappeared. Today science too agrees with this. Destruction does not mean being wiped out; it only means disappearance. Because nothing can be completely destroyed. Not even a tiny grain of sand can be destroyed. We can only transform it, make it disappear in one form to reappear in another. It cannot be annihilated. On this earth, nothing is ever destroyed and nothing is ever created. When we say we have made something, it does…

Osho, the second part of the first question was left—From “vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām” you take the meaning not as the destruction of the wicked, but their transformation. But then why did Krishna kill so many wicked people? Why did he not transform them?

This too needs to be understood. What appears to us as killing is not killing for Krishna. Whoever understands the Gita will be able to see it. What looks to us like killing is not killing for Krishna—that’s one. From Krishna’s side, no one is killed, nor can anyone be killed. Then what is Krishna doing? Yet we see that he killed some demon, some Putana, someone or other. To understand this, we have to go a little deeper and also keep in mind a few principles that lie beyond the ordinary understanding. If we grasp it in the precise language of the full science of dharma, it means simply this: the setup of a particular demon or evildoer was dismantled—the whole web of that person’s samskaras, their body, their mind, was dissolved. And the soul within was freed from its old mesh of habits and samskaras. In the terms…

Osho, there is this verse in the Manusmriti: “Dharma eva hato hanti, dharmo rakṣati rakṣitaḥ. Tasmād dharmo na hantavyo mā no dharmo hato vadhīt.” “A slain dharma slays; protected dharma protects. Therefore one must not slay dharma, lest the dharma we have slain slay us.”

Sahajanand, this verse is delightful. The Manusmriti is, for the most part, full of rubbish—but if you search, even in ashes you sometimes find a live ember; even in trash, sometimes your hand closes on a diamond. Ninety-nine percent of the Manusmriti has long since become useless. It would be good if India were relieved of its weight upon her chest. In it lie the roots of many of India’s diseases—varna hierarchy; abuses against the untouchables; the humiliation of women whose natural culmination is rape; the praise of Brahmin superiority—which expands pedantry but never flowers into buddhahood. And yet sometimes a rare sutra does appear. This is one of those few. If you understand this sutra properly, you will also grasp why I say that ninety-nine percent of the Manusmriti is trash—this sutra itself makes that clear. This sutra certainly cannot be Manu’s; it must be older than Manu. For…