Krishna is one of the incarnations of god. The Hindu concept of god coming to earth is not like the Christian – not that god has only one son, not that god only comes in one form, as Christ: god comes in many forms, god comes in every age. God comes in every country, every time, because god is not yet in a state of becoming careless towards man, and will never be. God still hopes that man can be redeemed, that man is not a hopeless case, so god comes again and again.

 

And whenever there is enlightenment, god takes possession of the enlightened person, because the enlightened person is not a person at all; he is just emptiness. And only in that emptiness can god take possession. So whenever there is this emptiness, whenever the ego disappears, god immediately appears. These are two aspects of the same phenomenon: the ego disappearing and god appearing; the death of the ego is the birth of god.

 

So in India we have many incarnations of god. Every enlightened person is a god person. His own personality is gone. Now he is just a hollow bamboo, and god can make a flute out of him and can sing his song. And one of the best songs that he has sung is through Krishna… one of the most beautiful, most enchanting. The very word ’krishna’ means enchanting, that which attracts, magical, that which is like a magnet and by which people’s hearts are suddenly moved. And Krishna is also one of the most affirmative expressions of god.

 

Jesus is a little sad. And who knows? – Christians may be right; they say he never laughed. At least in the way they have depicted him he seems to be completely incapable of laughter. He may have laughed, but the story that has come through the Christians is not of a laughing Christ, and you cannot think of him as dancing. Somehow they have made him fit with the cross. He looks perfectly made for it; the sadness, the heaviness, the seriousness, go perfectly well with the cross.

 

Krishna goes perfectly well with the flute, with flowers around his neck, with beautiful clothes – the clothes of a dancer, with ornaments on his body and with a throne, with all the grandeur, with a crown made of peacock feathers… utterly beautiful, utterly affirmative. The message is that religion should be a matter of dance, laughter, love. It should not be serious. It should be light – it should not be grave. It should be capable of loving this world and of affirming life, not negating it.

 

-Osho, “Don’t Look Before You Leap, #27”