What is the correct caste classification of Krishna?

Once you said that krishna was a brahmin, but really he was a kshatriya. Nobody is ready to accept him as a brahmin. Which is correct?

WHEN I SAY SOMETHING there is no need to ask anybody about it. Meditate over it. When I said that Krishna was a BRAHMIN I mean that he has known the ultimate truth. BRAHMA is the ultimate truth. By knowing it one becomes a BRAHMIN. When I say Krishna is a BRAHMIN I mean Mahavira is a BRAHMIN, Buddha is a BRAHMIN -- so is Moses, so is Jesus, so is Lao Tzu. I don't mean the caste BRAHMIN. By birth nobody is a BRAHMIN, nobody can be. I also know that he was a KSHATRIYA a KSHATRIYA by birth. That is meaningless. That is formal, accidental. I don't talk about accidents. By accident I was born in India but I am not an Indian. By accident you may have been born in Germany but you are not a German. By accident you may be black or white but you…

Questioner: did he come to wholeness straightaway?

To us it seems difficult to understand how one can come straightaway to wholeness. We think one must pass through a criss-crossing of roads before he arrives. Again, this is the same question that pilgrims asked of the Zen monk Lying near a cave. The monk says he does not have to do a thing, because he is already there where one should be. The pilgrims wonder how one could arrive without traveling, it seems impossible. They all had to walk long distances before they reached the place of pilgrimage, but the sage says to them, "If you cannot attain to truth right here, how can you attain to it by going to the mountain top? Truth is everywhere. It is here and now. This is not something that one needs any traveling to arrive at." But there are some types who cannot arrive without making a long journey. Even…

I have heard—one man died. He reached heaven and knocked at the gate. From within—“Who?” He said, “I come from the earth.” Then again, “Were you married?” He said, “Yes.” Instantly the sentry opened the gate—“Welcome, come in—for you have already seen hell.” The sentry barely shut the door when another knocked. “Who?” “I come from the earth.” “Were you married?” “Not once, twice.” The sentry said, “Then go to hell; there is no place for fools here.” To err once is understandable—pardonable; but twice!... And how many times have you erred? A life full of errors upon errors. And the greatest, the most fundamental error—from which all other leaves and branches sprout—is ego. Remember two words. I call one “ahancharya”—the practice of ego; the other “brahmacharya”—the practice of Brahman. Only two kinds of people exist in the world.

Osho, there seems to be another contradiction. You have said that Krishna is accomplished from birth and Mahavira is a seeker. Yet in the Kashmir camp you said about Mahavira that he had completed all his practice in previous lives. In this life he had nothing to practice, only to express. Then Mahavira too was accomplished from birth and was like Krishna.

No, I did not say that. I only said that whatever Mahavira became, he became through becoming—through practice. Whether he practiced in the last life or the one before that makes no difference. Whatever he is, he is through sadhana. Before his state of perfection there is a journey of practice. Krishna, in no life, ever practiced. Straightaway complete? We find that difficult. We find it difficult that one could be complete straightaway. We feel one can become perfect only by walking in zigzags. We feel… It is the same question as with that fakir. People passing by say to him, “So, you reached just lying here? We climbed all the way up to the shrine to reach—how could you reach lying here? That can’t be!” But the fakir says, “If you cannot reach while lying here, how will you reach by climbing up? Where there is to be reached…

Osho, here Krishna is telling one to subdue the senses through the mind; but you tell us to dissolve the mind itself! How does that make sense?

Therefore Krishna says: what must be done, do it wholly aware, as your own dharma. And he adds another point: let it be shastra-sanctioned. Your svadharma, sanctioned by shastra. Shastra does not mean “a book.” Its original, deeper meaning is: that which is sanctioned by those who have known—what the knowers, the realizers, have affirmed. Human consciousness has a long journey. We come for a hundred years or so and depart. The individual comes and goes; humanness continues. Humanity’s experience is of millions of years; there is a distilled essence of that experience. Those who have known have said certain things. Krishna says: let your svadharma be what is sanctioned by that—the science known by the knowers since beginningless time. Two things here need to be understood. In this country since ancient times society was divided into four varnas. Arjuna belongs to the kshatriya varna. From birth we divided society…