Shankara says doing doesn’t matter, Tilak says doing right matters, and Osho says the Gita’s truth isn’t made by mixing views but by realizing a living wholeness beyond them.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, a part of my earlier question remained to be taken up. It is this: by combining Shankara’s supermoralism and Tilak’s activism, do you think the Gita would be complete? Because the supra-morality you speak of is what Shankara speaks of, not Tilak. Tilak is intensely moralistic. And the engagement you speak of is what Tilak speaks of; Shankara does not—he follows the path of renunciation (nivritti-marga).
A dead sum is only the complete total of its parts. A living whole is a little more than its parts. Consider yourself: if we calculate all the constituents of your body—how much iron, copper, aluminum, salt, water, phosphorus—we could list it all. In a human body, at best there are only a few rupees’ worth of materials; most of it—perhaps ninety percent—is just water. If we were to put all this on paper, add it up, the sum would be complete. But you would not be in it. Everything would be there—except you. Because you are a living person, something more than that sum. You are within the sum, yet you are not the sum. The total can be complete, and yet you will be absent. Krishna’s life-vision is an organic unity. A thousand commentaries have been written on its many facets. Ramanuja says one thing, Shankara another, Nimbarka…
Questioner: a part of my question remains unanswered. Do you think the geeta will be complete if shankara's supra-moralism and tilak's activism are made into one piece? Because the supra-rationality that you speak about is echoed by shankara, not tilak; the latter is out and out a moralist. On the other hand tilak, not shankara echoes your positivism, your dynamism. Shankara is for renunciation.
Putting different parts together is a mechanical process, it cannot be organic. We can break up a machine into its parts and remake it by putting the parts together again. But we cannot do the same with a live, organic body. Please bear in mind this fundamental difference between organic unity and mechanical togetherness. While a mechanical combination is equal to the totality of parts, an organic unity is much more than the sum total of its parts. For example. if we make a list of all the ingredients that make up a human body -- like iron, copper, sodium, aluminum, phosphorus and the rest of it, they will be worth four to five rupees, not more, Nine-tenths of a human body is water, which does not cost anything at the moment. And the rest of these things are available in the market. If however, you put them all together…
Osho, a very small question: you just said that a person is partly introvert and partly extrovert. Does this mean that one will have to practice both Sankhya and Yoga together?
But no one properly understood this truth: the Gita is a consideration of all the paths. And when Krishna speaks of one path, he becomes so absorbed and one with it that he says, “This is the ultimate; this alone is the ultimate.” When that proves useless for Arjuna, he speaks of the next path; then again he says to Arjuna, “This alone is the ultimate; this is the absolute; this is the complete truth.” Because Krishna wants Arjuna to choose it. And since Arjuna is already indecisive, if Krishna were to speak in the language of syadvada—“perhaps this is right, perhaps that is right”—then choice would become impossible for Arjuna. If Krishna were to say, “That is also right, this is also right; for some that is right, for others this; sometimes that, sometimes this,” then for Arjuna—caught as he is in indecision, in anxiety, with no path in…
Osho, you just said that sannyasins like Buddha and Mahavira are sorrow-centered. But their sannyas arose out of a life of great splendor; renunciation was the next phase of their opulence. So you can’t put sorrow at the base of it.
But Gandhi was far removed in time; there are five thousand years between Krishna and Gandhi. So calling a five-thousand-year-old story “myth” is not hard. The Jains did not have such distance, so they could not call the story a tale—the event happened. Jain thought is as ancient as the Vedas; the first Jain Tirthankara is mentioned in the Vedas. The antiquity of Hindus and Jains is equal. The Jains could not deny the war, nor that Krishna had it fought. So what could they do? Had they had Gandhi’s convenience, they would have done what Gandhi did—who, in the body a Hindu but in mind deeply Jain—dismissed it as myth. The Jains could not; it was contemporaneous. They had to consign Krishna to hell. Their scriptures had to say that Krishna went to hell. If someone causes so great a violence and does not go to hell, then what…
If you could be in the marketplace as if in solitude; if you could work as a profit-seeker works—without the seeking—then you have attained a rare vision. Then nothing needs to be left. Then it is enough to know: the fruit is in his hands; the action is in mine. I must act; whether he gives fruit or not is his will. Whatever he gives, you are content. If he does not give, you are content with that too. If he snatches away, you are content with the loss. Then no one can break your contentment. Take this as a touchstone. If your contentment trembles—if profit in the shop makes your feet move more quickly, your face light up, you feel satisfied; if loss makes you dejected, humbled, your feet drag—then do not think you have renounced the fruit.