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

CHAPTER 4. RELIGION HAS NO HISTORY, IT IS ETERNAL
We all live in the well of time. Here everything appears and disappears, comes and goes. Here
everything is fragmented something has become the past, something is future, and in between the
past and future there is a tiny movement known as the present, which goes as soon as it comes.
And we want to know who happened in what moment. In some moment we experience ourselves
imprisoned in some well and we want to know that moment and that well.
No, Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira and Krishna cannot be imprisoned in a moment. We do try to imprison
them so, because we are attached to our limitations, to our fragments. The day people in the
West grow in understanding, they will forget all about the time of Christ’s birth and death. In this
matter the understanding of the people of the East is much deeper. And it has given rise to a lot of
misunderstanding in the West in regard to us. The way we look at things, the way we think and say
things is such that the world cannot understand. When someone from the West wants to know about
the lives of the tirthankaras he is astounded to hear that some of them lived for millions of years.
How can he accept it? It seems to be impossible. How can he believe that some of the tirthankaras
were as high as the skies? It cannot be so.
It is not a matter of believing, it is a matter of understanding. If a well-frog wants to be bold enough to
describe the measurement of an ocean, what will it say? It will say it is equal to hundreds of millions
of wells combined. The well has to be its yardstick and there has to be a figure. So we represent
the age of the eternal with a figure of a thousand million years. And to describe the magnitude of
the infinite we say that while its feet are firmly rooted in the earth its head reaches the sky – even
the sky is not the limit.
That is why those who knew decided to drop all measurements and did not write the history of
religion.
Krishna is immeasurable, eternal. And he is inexpressible, beyond words.
Question 2
QUESTIONER: IF A RECORD OF CHRIST’S LIFE COULD BE MAINTAINED, WE KNOW HE
WAS BORN NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY YEARS AGO. HOW IS IT THAT A SIMILAR
RECORD OF KRISHNA IS NOT AVAILABLE?
It was possible to keep such a record and it depended on the people who lived with Krishna. The
people living with Jesus kept a record of his life, Jesus himself did not do it. If you look at a saying
of Jesus’ you will understand what I mean.
When someone asked Jesus if Abraham happened before him, he said, ”No, before Abraham was,
I am.” What does it mean? By saying it, Jesus denied time altogether. Abraham had happened
thousands of years before Jesus, but Jesus says, ”Before Abraham was, I am.” The people who
lived with Jesus had a concept of time, were time-oriented. They had not seen an ocean, they had
only seen wells. So they thought Jesus was saying something mysterious, they failed to understand
that Jesus denied time itself.
Someone asks Jesus, ”What will be the special thing in your kingdom of God?” Jesus says, ”There
shall be time no longer.” But again his disciples failed to understand him. Neither Jesus nor Krishna
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 67 Osho