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

CHAPTER 4. RELIGION HAS NO HISTORY, IT IS ETERNAL
Then Rinzai said, ”Yes, I was mad for so long, because I believed that Buddha happened.” One who
happens in time will someday cease to happen. So there is no sense in saying about the eternal
that it happens. That is why I say Buddha never happened, and all stories about him are lies.”
But the listeners said, ”How can you say that when the scriptures say that Buddha happened, that
he walked on this earth, and that there are eyewitnesses to this event?”
But Rinzai insisted that Buddha never happened. ”Maybe his shadow arose and walked. But
Buddha? Never.”
That which is now born and then dies, which now appears and then disappears, is nothing more
than our shadow; we are not it. So, deliberately, no chronological records of Krishna’s life were
maintained.
Religion has no history. That which appears and disappears, comes and goes, begins and ends,
has history; religion is eternal, without beginning and without end. Eternal means that which is
everlasting, timeless. So religion cannot have a history, a record of events and dates. And no
enlightened person can say when Krishna happened or did not happen It is not at all necessary, nor
has it any relevance. If someone says it has, he only betrays his ignorance.
We were never born, nor are we ever going to die. We have been here since eternity. Only eternity
is.
But we all keep track of time continuously, from morning to morning And we measure everything
with the yardstick of time, which is natural and yet not true. It is an index of our poor understanding,
and we cannot do better than our understanding. In this context I am reminded of a fable.
A frog from the ocean visited his friend living in a small well. The well-frog wanted to know what the
ocean was like. The visiting frog said it was much too big to be known from such a small space as
a well. The well frog jumped halfway across the well and said, ”Is your ocean this big?”
The other frog said, ”Excuse me, it is impossible to measure the vastness of the ocean by the tiny
yardstick of a well.”
Then the well-frog took a bigger jump, jumping from one end of the well to the other, and said, ”This
large?” But when the visiting frog shook his head his friend grew angry and said, ”You seem to be
crazy. No place on the whole earth can be bigger than my well. Yet I will try another way to know
how large your ocean is.” And then he made a round of the whole well and said, ”It cannot be more
than this.”
But he still failed to convince the visitor who said again, ”In comparison with the ocean this well is
nowhere; it is too small to be a measure of the ocean.”
The well-frog lost his temper and said to his visitor, ”Get out of here! I cannot stand this nonsense.
Have you ever seen anything bigger than this well? Even the sky, which is said to be the largest
space, is only as big as this well, no bigger. I have always watched it from here; it is no more than
the well.”
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 66 Osho