Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 4. RELIGION HAS NO HISTORY, IT IS ETERNAL
begins with birth and totally ends with death. There is no other life either before or after this one.
It is therefore not accidental that people who think that life completes its entire tenure in the brief
interval between one birth and death should insist on keeping a record of it all. It is simply natural,
But those who have known that life recurs again and again, that one is born and then dies count less
numbers of times, that the chain of arrivals and departures is almost endless, see no point in writing
its history. It is rather impossible to write about an event which extends from eternity to eternity, And
moreover it would deny our own understanding of it. For this reason history was never written in
the East. And it was a very deliberate omission, an omission that came with our understanding of
reality. It is not that we lacked the ability to write history or that we did not possess a calendar. The
oldest calendar of the world was produced here. So it is obvious we refrained from writing history
knowingly.
You also want to know why an enlightened person cannot rightly say when Krishna was born.
An unenlightened person may tell you when Krishna was born, but an enlightened person cannot,
because there is no connection whatsoever between enlightenment and time. Enlightenment begins
where time ends. Enlightenment is non temporal; it has nothing to do with time. It is timeless.
Enlightenment means going beyond time to where the count of hours and minutes comes to an end,
to where the world of changes ceases to be, to where only that is which is eternal, to where there is
no past and no future, to where an eternal present abides.
Samadhi or enlightenment does not happen in the moment, it happens when the moment ceases to
be.
Let alone telling Krishna’s story, an enlightened person cannot even tell his own. He cannot say
when he was born and when he is going to die, he can only say, ”What is this question of birth and
death? I was never born and I will never die.” If you ask an awakened one what it is we call the
river of time that comes and goes, that constantly moves from the past to the future, making a brief
present, he will say, ”Really, nothing comes and goes. What is, is. It is immovable and unchanging.”
Time is a concept of an unenlightened mind.
Time as such is a product of the mind, and time ceases with the cessation of the mind.
Let us understand it from a few different angles. For various reasons we say time is the handiwork
of the mind. Firstly, when you are happy time moves fast for you, and when you are unhappy it
slows down. When you are with someone you love time seems to be on wings, and when you are
with your enemy the clock seems to move at a snail’s pace. So far as the clock is concerned it
goes its own way whether you are happy or miserable, but the mind takes it differently in different
situations. If someone in your family is on his deathbed the night seems to be too long, almost
unending, as if another morning is not going to come. But the same night, in the company of a
loved one, would pass so quickly, as if it were running a race. The clock remains the same in both
situations. Chronological time is always the same, but psychological time is very different, and its
measure depends on the changing states of the mind. But the movement of the clock indicating
chronological time is unconcerned with you.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 64 Osho