---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Eternal Quest"
booktype: "Translations"
bookcode: "QUEST"
place: "Date Unknown"
chapternum: "Chapter #6"
chaptertitle: "Religious Scriptures: History or Myth?"
acode: "6700000"
shorttitle: "QUEST06"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Eternal Quest: Chapter #6"
---

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<p class="question">MANY WESTERN HISTORIANS FEEL THAT HUMANITY IS CONSTANTLY MAKING PROGRESS. IF THIS IS THE CASE, THEN HOW IS IT THAT HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS IS SO UNEVOLVED?</p>


The progress of humanity and the progress of human consciousness are two quite different dimensions. The progress of history is in time and the progress of consciousness is not in time. The progress of all that we can see, of all that is visible, is horizontal; while the progress of consciousness -- which we cannot see -- is vertical. And we cannot see it because it is vertical.


That is why history can never be in tune with the evolution of the human mind. At the most it can deal with the outward form; it can never get to the spirit. But that is not the fault of history, or of historians, or of the way in which history is written. Such is the nature of things. History can never be in contact with the formless; it can only talk about the form.


The formless is always transcendental to history -- and the real evolution is always formless. The outward progress is not really evolution; it is simply accumulation. There is no qualitative mutation in it; the change is only quantitative.


History can never transcend time. It can know only about those events which occur in time. It cannot know something that occurs beyond time, that is nontemporal.


Events can be perceived through the historian's eye: events exist at a crosspoint between time and space. An event happens somewhere, at some time. So the questions where and when can be asked about events; it will be relevant.


But where and when cannot be asked about spiritual happenings. There, time and space are both irrelevant. For example, Gautam Buddha achieved realization. He jumped into the absolute. All that can be known and realized he knew and realized. But when did it happen, and where?


History will ask when and where. The event has occurred so we can fix the point; we can know the date, time and place. But even if we know exactly at what time and at what place this happening occurred, we do not have the fact itself. What has occurred remains transcendental. Where it has occurred we can know, when it has occurred we can know. But what has occurred to Buddha, what has happened within him?


History will say that under the bodhi tree -- at 'this' time and at 'this' place -- Gautam became enlightened, became a Buddha. But what is this happening, this Gautam becoming a Buddha? What has happened to him? The happening transcends history completely. And that happening is the real evolution of the human mind.


The nature of things is such. History is not at fault: it cannot go beyond time, it has a limitation. It is a temporal record. When a spiritual happening comes to exist, it touches time but is never within time. It happens some where, but the time and place are irrelevant. Whether Buddha was UNDEr the bodhi tree or not is meaningless. It has nothing to do with the phenomenon that has happened in him.


Whether the bodhi tree exists or not, whether Gautam was in India or Palestine -- it makes no difference. When he became a Buddha, he jumped into nowhereness The phenomenon itself is not at all concerned with time and space. Once he is a Buddha he is nowhere: neither in time nor in space. He jumps out of the realm of history.


That is why we have never been concerned with history in India. We concern ourselves only with that which is meaningful. Concern with death is beyond history, all that is meaningful is beyond history, so history became meaningless to us. It records all that is nonsense. So India, the Indian mind, became nonhistoric It is only with Christianity that history became meaningful.


History became meaningful with Christianity because a time concept, a linear time concept, came into existence. If time progresses linearly, if time progresses in a line, no event is repeatable. History cannot repeat itself because the past goes out of existence. The line is always going forward.


The Indian concept of time is circular. It does not progress in a line. It is always circular, coming back to itself. That is why, in India, the wheel symbolizes time. The wheel of the Indian flag is the Buddhist concept of time. We call the world sansar. The word sansar means the wheel: that which comes back, again and again. Every event returns in infinite repetition. It has been before: it will be again.


Only the unrepeatable, the unique, becomes historic. To Christians, Jesus is a historic personality. He cannot be repeated. But for Indians, Ram is not a historic personality In every age, Ram will be repeated. In the same way, for Jains, teerthankaras are not historic. In every age they appear; there will be a repetition. The same thing will go on and on and on. It has always been the same so no event is particular and individual, and worth recording. To record it makes no sense.


But there are jumps in this circular progression, there are people who jump out of history. These people are religious A person who is part of history is a political being. Politics is always of time, it can never go beyond time. But religion is never part of time. It is always beyond.


A person who has moved into an inner evolution may appear in history, but the moment of his realization is a spiritual phenomenon. When it happens, he is beyond history. That is why no record has been maintained of when Krishna was born or when he died. It makes no sense to us to record it Any date will do, the date itself is meaningless, because the date is part of history, of time, and the person himself is beyond time. In whatever way the record of the happening is maintained, howsoever accurate it may be, it is meaningless because it cannot record that which is worth recording. That, is always lost. And what is the sense of recording dates, years, places, names?


In the West, because of the linear concept of time and because there is so much obsession with temporal events, they have maintained very accurate records. But now the gap is beginning to be felt. The record is accurate, but something is missing. We know when Christ was born and we know when he died, but we still do not know who Christ is, what this phenomenon of Christhood is. The phenomenon itself escapes us. We know the moment, the phenomenon itself is beyond time.


A Buddha is never misunderstood like Jesus because we always know that no matter what he is talking about, he himself is something beyond time. We never misunderstand him, because we know this. But Jesus was very much misunderstood. When he said "the kingdom of God," people misunderstood this as being a kingdom of this earth. When he said "I am the king," he was talking about a phenomenon beyond time, but people understood that he was proclaiming himself the king. Jesus was crucified because his nontemporal words could not be understood. People only knew events; they understood his words in terms of time.


In India, neither Krishna was crucified nor Buddha nor Mahavir. Not because their teachings were less revolutionary than Jesus', but because we knew that they were not talking about this world. We understood that their words were meant for something which is not of this world. If they said, "I am the king," we knew what they meant.


If Krishna says, "I was, always. There was no time when I was not," we understand what he means by that. But when Jesus says, "I was, before Abraham," what he was could not be understood; it was impossible. There is a gap of a thousand years between Abraham and Jesus -- how could Jesus have been, before? In terms of time it is absurd, but in terms of existence it has a deep meaning. But the West could not understand it.


The western attitude is still time-obsessed. There are reason behind it. Why did time become linear in the West? Because the concept of rebirth never became prevalent. The concept was introduced so many times in the West: Pythagorus introduced it, but then it was lost; Jesus hinted about it, he talked indirectly about it. He never talked directly, he indicated it. But it could not be understood.


The concept of rebirth is the reason why the East could conceive of history in a circular dimension. If you are to be reborn again and again there will be birth and death -- then birth will follow and again there will be death. It will be a repetition.


But if there is only life -- birth followed by death, but death not followed by birth -- then birth becomes absolute, death becomes absolute. Neither will come again. That is why time became so important in the West, and the West became time-obsessed.


These are all related things: history, time, tension. Why has the West become so tense about time? Not a single moment is to be lost because. once lost, you cannot find it again; it cannot be reclaimed.


The East is at ease. Nothing is lost, everything can be reclaimed. You cannot lose it even if you try. Things will come back. Death will be followed by birth again, you will be young again. Everything will come back, will return to itself.


This seems more natural. Every movement is circular -- it may be of an atomic particle or it may be of a great star. Everything moves in a circle; there is no movement that is linear. Einstein talks of a limitless circular space. Even space is circular. Not only are things circular but even nothingness the vacuum itself, is circular. Even the movement of a vacuum is circular. In fact, that which is not circular cannot move: movement is circular.


The whole of nature moves in a circle. Summer follows again in the same course; each season comes and goes and is followed in repetitive progress. Time cannot be different. Time is nothing but a medium of movement. If things are static, we will not feel time. We feel time, we become aware of it, only because things are moving. If we could be totally here for one hour, without any movement, we would not feel the passage of time. If you were always to remain the same age -- if nothing moved, if everything remained static -- then even eternity could not be felt.


You become aware of time because of movement. We cannot conceive of movement without time. Time means a sequence between moving events: something is followed by something else. This passage occurs in time. Since everything is moving in a circle, the passage of time cannot be non circular.


History is an awareness of time: its events and their position in a particular framework -- the framework of linear movement. People in the East became aware of linear time and of history, only when the East came in contact with the West. Then the East felt that it was lacking something. We have no history at all; we cannot create any history. Anyone can say that Buddha is mythological and we cannot prove that he is not. Anyone can say that Ram is just a story, a myth We cannot say that he is not because we have not maintained any record of when he lived. Where is the proof?


We were not aware that any proof is needed. We became aware of it only when we came in contact with the West we came to know that they have everything recorded; they have exact proofs. Only then, India began to write its history.


But still, a historic sense is not there. It cannot be, because with a circular time concept, history cannot exist. With an infinite opening toward the future, with an infinite possibility of repetition, a historic sense cannot exist. With the concept that death is just temporary -- just a phase and not the end -- history cannot exist. History can exist only with the concept of absolute death.


Then, each moment becomes significant, You have to live it, otherwise it will be lost. Tension follows; you become tense. How to live each moment so that it may not be lost, how to live it so that it may be lived to its fullest extent? You cannot be relaxed.


The West can never be relaxed unless its time concept changes. Unless death is just a passage for rebirth, unless each moment is a repetition, an infinite repetition, you cannot be relaxed. How can you be relaxed when a moment is going, passing, and it will not come back? And the paradox is that the more obsessed you become with time, the more tense you become and the less you can live each moment.


The moment is lost in tension; you cannot live it. You can only live each moment if you are relaxed -- if you are not aware of time, if you are not obsessed with it.


The more obsessed you are with time, the more you will write history and the less you will live it. History, as it exists -- and it cannot exist otherwise -- this history, this historic attitude, can never confront those phenomena that are beyond time. Even life is beyond time. It passes through time, but ,t is always beyond. It is like a lotus leaf: always in water, but still beyond water, untouched by it. Life is like that. And the deeper life becomes, the more lotus leaf-like it is. Always touching somewhere, but never touched. Always in touch with time, but always beyond time. Untouched, virgin.


That is why we can have a record of political events but not of religious happenings. Religion can never have a history; only politics can have one. We can talk about Ghengis Khan, about Tamerlane; we can talk about Stalin, Mussolini, Churchill, Nehru. We can talk about them because these persons live in events, amidst events; they live in the world of form. But we cannot know any history, any real history, about a Buddha or a Jesus or a St. Francis. We cannot. And if you try to write about them, their lives will be uneventful compared to the lives of Ghengis Khan, Churchill, Stalin. Their lives will be eventless, totally vacant. Nothing happens.


Buddha sits under the bodhi tree. This is the event. But it is nothing; the event is not worth writing about. If he is allowed to continue to sit under the bodhi tree, he will sit under it eternally. He will just be there -- just sitting, not doing anything. Ages will come and pass, and he will still be sitting there just like a stone. That is why we have erected stone Buddhas and stone Mahavirs. It is not just an accident that Buddha is carved in stone It is not accidental, it is meaningful. As far as Buddha's outward life is concerned, he was like a stone to us.


There is no difference between a stone Buddha and a real Buddha as far as the world of events is concerned. It makes no difference at all. On the contrary, you will be more attached to the stone Buddha because a living Buddha, sitting just like a stone, will be more troublesome. You will not be able to bear it, will not be able to tolerate it. You will think that a stone Buddha is better. You know that he is stone, so of course he is just silting. No event is possible -- that is why no event is happening.


A real Buddha is also a stone Buddha as far as time is concerned. He is just a face. All that is meaningful is beyond the grasp of history, because he is beyond the grasp of time. There is an evolution. Spiritual, religious.


There is a progression to political events, a mechanical accumulation. Civilizations come and go, forms change, but there is no evolution in it; there is no qualitative change in it. Nothing changes really, only the form changes. But because of the change in form, a fallacious myth of progress is created. It looks as if things are progressing. Nothing is progressing. Only forms go on changing.


You go on changing your clothes and create a facade that you are changing The change of clothes is not a change i n you. Even a change of education is not a change in you; even changing your house is not your change. Everything can change and you can remain the same. Then, spiritually, no evolution has occurred.


On the other hand, everything can remain the same outwardly and you can change. No one will know it, no one will become aware of it, because outwardly everything is the same. But the person is transformed, he has undergone a metamorphosis. He is a new person; the old one is dead. It is a resurrection.


We recognize change only when form changes. But we never recognize, we never become aware, if the spirit changes. And real progress is vertical; it is not horizontal. Form changes in horizontal lines; spirit changes in vertical lines. Form goes forward; spirit goes upward. The progression of history is just like a bullock-cart: on and on, but on the same level. It is not vertical. It is not jumping from one level to another.


Two more things will also have to be understood. As far as form is concerned, as far as history is concerned, progress is collective; but as far as spirituality is concerned, progress is individual. You cannot evolve collectively. You can go forward, you can go backward, but you cannot go up collectively.


A spiritual happening is individual. That is why, when someone takes the jump, when he becomes enlightened, he goes beyond our grasp. We have not jumped with him; there is no communication. He is somewhere that we are not, so communication becomes impossible. He cannot communicate what has happened to him. He tries but fails, and feels the failure.


He uses our language, but with a very different meaning. We cannot grasp the meaning. We can understand the words all right, but because we cannot understand the meaning, the words become the basis of misunderstanding. He is using them with quite a different meaning.


For example, Christ talks about a kingdom. We understand what is meant by a kingdom. The Roman governor, Pilate, knew very well what is meant by a kingdom. He was an educated person, one of the most educated of those days. He knew everything; he was more educated then Jesus himself. Jesus was an uneducated man, a villager, a carpenter's son. Those who crucified him were cultured, educated, civilized. But they crucified him because they could not understand what he was talking about. They asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
He said, "Yes. I am the king. Who else can be king?"


Of course he was, but in a very different sense. As far as the outward form is concerned he was a beggar and nothing more, but as far as the spirit is concerned he was a king. Those who thought themselves to be like kings were more like beggars so he said, "Yes, I am. Who else can be?"


And whatsoever he was saying, he was saying with much consideration. He was right, a hundred percent right. But those who heard him just laughed. Either he was mad, or a very cunning fellow.


At the last moment, Pilate asked him, "What is truth?" Pilate was well versed in philosophy, he knew all the definitions -- what is meant by truth -- but he asked Jesus, "What is truth?"


It was right before Jesus went to the cross. Jesus just looked at him and didn't answer. He knew very well that whatever he answered would lead to more trouble, more misunderstanding. If he had been silent all along, it would have been better. Whatsoever he had said had come to be understood as something that he had never meant. And these people who were crucifying him were all educated, they were all well cultured. They were people who knew.
Pilate asked again, "Tell me, what is truth?" Jesus remained silent.


This silence is very meaningful. He was not a silent person, he was always ready to answer. He never lost an opportunity to talk about the kingdom of God and the truth about God. But now, he remained silent. It was a silent commentary, a silent verdict of a great failure. He had been saying things that were not understood. Each word he had uttered had led to a new misunderstanding.


Truth is individual. That is why it is incommunicable. And because it is individual and not collective, society is not interested in religion at all. It appears to be interested, but it is not interested. It shows interest to the extent that religion, too, can be made into a social affair. Otherwise society is very anti-religious. Whenever there is an individual who is really religious, society goes against him. It begins with a sort of religious facade (a deception), but whenever there is a religious individual or a genuine religion, it goes against them.


It cannot tolerate a Christ but it tolerates popes, because popes are not religious at all. It can tolerate priests, but it cannot tolerate enlightened persons. Popes, priests, all the so-called organized religious sects, all create a deception, a false illusion of being religious. They create a sort of respectability.


Society is never interested in religion because religion is individual and society is always afraid of individuals. It is fearful of individuals, it is fearful of spiritual persons, because they go beyond society. They are rebellious. But not consciously, not knowingly. The very nature of a religious mind is rebelliousness. Religious people are not against anybody, they are not destroying things, they are not destructive in the least -- really, they are the only creative minds -- but their very existence is rebellious.


Society will not allow genuine religiousness. It will only allow the false faces of religion. Society creates civilizations, not religion. Civilizations can have a history, but religion has no history at all. It only has certain religious individuals that exist here and there. Sometimes someone takes a jump, becomes a flame and goes beyond. But the moment someone somewhere becomes a flame, a spiritual flame -- the moment he goes beyond our so-called world of forms -- he becomes one with all the flames that have ever gone beyond. Jesus is a different person from Gautam, but Buddha is not a different person from Christ. They are one flame.


Another thing; religious evolution is not collective. It is individual, yet universal. That is what makes it look so mysterious. It is not collective, it is individual, but it is still universal because the person who undergoes the religious evolution is annihilated. He transcends collectivity, but becomes one with the universe. He becomes cosmic, divine.


This divine phenomenon cannot be recorded. We have tried to record it, but all that we have succeeded in recording is just a bare outline. It looks absolutely dead.


What do you know about Christ? That he was born into a poor carpenter's family? Nothing else is known about him until after seven years. And then only one event is known -- that he was missing during some festival and his mother and father were searching for him. Then again there is a gap and then, when he is thirty, some events are recorded. And when he is thirty-three, the crucifixion is recorded. This is all that is known about his life: his birth and one or two events, ordinary events of childhood, and then whatever he said after his thirtieth year, as recorded in the gospels.


Whatsoever he said... The moment something is uttered, it becomes part of time; it can be recorded. But where a person like Jesus is concerned, every record contradicts every other record. St. Luke says one thing, St. Mark says something quite different, because what is recorded is not exactly what Jesus said. Only what is heard by the recorder is recorded.


So there are some sayings of Jesus that are recorded and then there is the crucifixion. This is all of Jesus' life that is known. Compare with it the life of Adolf Hitler. Then you will see what the recording of a life means. Events and more events and still more events.


Is this record of the life of Jesus really a record? If this is really the record of the person Jesus was... It is such a bare, naked outline that no one seems to be behind it. It is not a biography, but only footnotes. The real biography is lost; only footnotes remain. Something that is not substantial, something that can be complementary only if the substance exists. In itself, it is meaningless.


Jesus himself denied that anything that could be recorded about him was true. Once his mother and his brothers came to see him and someone said to him, "Your mother is asking to meet you. And your brothers have also come."


He said, "Who is my mother? Who is my brother? No one is my mother, no one is my brother." All that you can record is about he who was born and yet Jesus said, "No one is my mother, no one is my brother. And unless you deny your mother, you will not be able to come to me."


Jesus said, "Unless you deny your mother, unless you cut yourself off from your father, you will not be able to come to me." He said: unless you deny the life of the form, you can never know the life of the spirit. If you do not deny history, you cannot know the mystery of existence.


That is why history could not record what happened to Jesus. It cannot record such things. But history is not at fault. The phenomenon itself is such. It is completely transcendental to history.


History goes on recording progress. This progress is a horizontal progress: the progress of things, the progress of scientific knowledge, the progress of medicine, the progress of health. All that is concerned with the outward form is recorded, but the inner cannot be recorded. And the inner is the real, the significant, the substantial.


With the inner, is the authentic spiritual evolution. History is meaningless as far as spirituality is concerned. It is a political affair. By 'political' I mean all that goes on outwardly. For example, the birth of Gautam is a political event, but his enlightenment is spiritual.


If you can see that the dimension of the spirit is a very different dimension then you can understand that history is just a collection of events about the form, that it is just on the periphery never at the center. Those cultures that have realized how shallow and limited history is have left it. They didn't bother to keep records. They said: it is enough that Krishna was. It is enough. It is an eternal epic. And even if someone says that he was not, that he never existed. it makes no difference. If there is even a possibility that he ever existed, it is enough. If he can ever exist, even in the future, it is enough.


Jesus' life was recorded by those who were trying to record him historically. The record is very naked: fragmented, useless. If you do not create a Christ of your own in your recording, then the record is meaningless.


Those who were writing about Krishna knew that the phenomenon was not historic, that they could not record it. But their record is very rich; it is very imaginative. It is very fulfilling. It is total in a way. How much they have written about Krishna! They could write it because there was no limit to it. There was no temporal limit, they were not bound by any temporal limits. They could be creative with it. No one could say what they should be writing. Something may never have happened but they say that it need not have happened.


An epic was created around Ram, a story was created around Krishna. Everyone was at liberty. Valmiki wrote one thing; Tulsidas wrote something else. No one can say that they are contradictory.


Mark and Luke are contradictory because they are writing history. But Tulsidas and Valmiki are not contradictory. They are not writing history, they are not concerned with history at all. They are reliving, in their imaginations. They say, "We cannot say much. We cannot say enough because we are not capable. All that is said is only a fragment. It is not the whole story."


If you yourself see Krishna, you will see something else altogether. But you are at liberty to see it because the event is not historical. So the life of Krishna or of Ram, becomes very rich.


Jesus' recorded life was very poor because his followers were obsessed with history. They could not write anything that was beyond history.


The eastern mind could see that we cannot do justice to Krishna or Buddha if we limit ourselves to bare events. This will be an injustice because the real has happened somewhere else. Then how to record the real?


It cannot be recorded. But, we can create a myth. And that myth can indicate, can show something about it. Those who will read the myth will not read a bare statement of events. They will go deep into the poetry of the myth, deep into the imagination.


And it may be possible that somewhere, from their own imagination not from the facts -- very far from the facts, from somewhere deep in their own unconscious minds, from what Jung calls 'archetypes' -- they might get a glimpse; they may be able to know what has happened beyond history. They may be able to know, from deep down within themselves.


History cannot go deep inside you. Only poetry can. But only from within you can something happen which will be in sympathy with the nontemporal, which can be in communion with the nonhistorical. Krishna's life and Buddha's life are only jumping points to enable you to go deeply inside yourself.


If you read Tulsidas, a western historian will say that this is not history; this is imagination. It is. But I still say that Tulsidas does more justice to Ram than Luke can ever do to Christ because he knows the secret. By going deeply into what Tulsidas has written, you will again relive the whole phenomenon. Time will be transcended; you will again be in the time of Ram. Now there are no space/time relationships. Deep within yourself, you are in Ram's milieu -- as if Ram was present, as if he was somewhere nearby.


That is why in India we perform the ram leela every year. We go on performing it every year just to create the same milieu again. When someone acts the part of Ram, it is not only that he is acting Ram. If you go into villages where the people have been untouched by today's concepts, the person who is playing Ram is Ram. The villagers behave with him as if he is Ram. They touch his feet. He is not an actor; he is Ram revived. The milieu is created. They will chant poetry, the whole story will be unfolded -- the story that they believe in.


That, too, is miraculous. If you see a film two or three times, you will feel bored. And if it goes on again and again, You will be mad. But even though everyone already knows the whole story when the the ram leela is unfolding, everyone is thrilled. If it was just a story or a drama, you would be bored. It is ram: alive again Re-enacted. It is not only a stage, but the whole world. Ram has come again It is as if you are living with him. The whole thing is being repeated. Everyone knows what is going to happen and, still, everyone is thrilled.


This is a rare phenomenon It is almost impossible. Ordinarily you will not be thrilled about something that you already know is going to happen But this is what happens in an Indian village. Villagers who see the ram leela are as thrilled as if something new is going to happen It is not just a story. A certain milieu is being recreated and the villager who is seeing the play is not only seeing a drama He is part and parcel of a great spiritual phenomenon. He is in it! The thing is unfolding and, by and by, his heart is unfolding


This is a mythological approach to the nontemporal. Re-enacting it. Reviving it. Resurrecting it. History cannot do this; only myth can do this. Myth is helpful but not substantial: A creative imagination is needed to fill in the substance.


This attitude -- the nonhistorical, mythological -- is more in tune with the unconscious. History is in tune with the conscious, myth is in tune with the unconscious. Myth is in tune with eternal, history is in tune with the temporal. History is yesterday's news and tomorrow's news. Today's news will become history: history is just an accumulation of news, a newspaper accumulation. It goes on becoming greater. But history is unnecessary, spiritually. Unnecessary, because it can never grasp the significant phenomena. In another sense, it is not only insignificant but dangerous also, because the more you record the past as the past -- and the more the accumulation grows -- the more you are burdened, unnecessarily burdened.


For a moment, imagine that we could destroy the whole history of the world. Ninety-nine percent of our problems would disappear. They all come from the past. The Mohammedan problem, the Hindu problem, the Vietnamese problem, the Kashmiri problem -- they all come from the past. It is sad but true that ordinarily ninety-nine percent of our lives are dictated to us through the grave. Those who have died are ordering the whole nonsense! If history was not given so much importance, much unburdening would happen.


Myth is needed. History is always of the past but myth is not only of the past; myth is also of the future. The form of the myth comes from the past, but the opening is always toward the future. If someone is thinking about Krishna in terms of myth. he is not only thinking about the past. He is thinking about the potentiality, about what is possible. Human consciousness can become Krishna-consciousness, it can evolve to that point. So myth is only nominally of the past. It always has an opening into the future.


History is always of the dead past. It has no future at all. But it dictates the future; the dead go on dictating. Stalin is still dictating, Hitler is still dictating. They go on dictating because of the obsession with history. If we can remove history, they will not be able to dictate. We will be free of them, unburdened.


Myths should be continued. They open into the future. But history should be discarded. It should not be taught or thought about. It is concerned with absolutely unnecessary things, with nonsense. To me, all that is meaningful in the past must be made into a myth not a history. It must be thought about in terms of poetry not in terms of temporal events.


Poetry is never a closing; it is always an opening. It is never limiting. You can give poetry your own meaning; you have a certain freedom. But not with a newspaper. The more down to earth the record is, the less free you are. You cannot give it a meaning. You cannot relive it, you cannot create it. You cannot be creative with it; you can only be passive.


What can you do? Hitler is born in a particular year -- how can you be creative about it? It is a dead weight; you can only be passive with it. But with Krishna, you can be creative. There is no date. In a way, he is never born. You can give birth to him anytime. With poetry you are at liberty; with myth you are at liberty. You can create... and when you create, you are also transformed. In creating, the creator is always transformed by his own creation; he never remains untouched.


To me, history is a very worldly thing. Sometimes it is necessary, but usually it is an absolute burden.


Myth is a record of all that cannot be recorded, but that can be indicated. Some indications can be made. They have been made! Christianity would have been all the more richer if they had created a myth around Christ. But they could not create a myth. They were so obsessed with history that they could not add to it. They could not give a meaning to it, they could not develop or unfold the story. They were not even able to call it a story...


In India, we do not say 'the history of Ram'. We say 'the story of Ram': ram katha. It is not accidental. We give more importance to a story than to a history because with a story there are possibilities; with history there is no possibility. It is a dead thing; it is already in the grave. A story is a living thing. You can do something with it and it can also do something to you.


Because they could not create a myth around Jesus, Christianity could not really flower into a religion. Without a myth, no religion is possible. Christianity remained a clerical thing. It could not create sannyasins. It could not. It could only create preachers -- trained, dead, disciplined, knowing. The beauty and the poetry of a sannyasin is not here, the original source is not there.


Because they could not create a myth around Christ, they tried to make a history out of him. Western history begins with Jesus, the very beginning of western history is Jesus That is why you calculate time 'before Jesus' and after Jesus'. He is the midpoint, the calculation begins with him. After Christ: A.D.; before Christ: B.C.


The West tried to create history out of Jesus' life and they killed Jesus in the process. When they tried to deal with Jesus historically, it became absurd. They were not able to explain the miracles, the resurrection could not be explained. The attempt was bound to be a failure. They were not able to explain the miracles, because miracles exist only in myths; they never exist in history. Because the western mind was trying to create history, the miracles of Jesus became absurd, contradictory.


In India, if someone says that a dead person has returned to life it is not a miracle. It is an ordinary thing. After death, there is no way to move except to rebirth. Someone in India who reads about such a thing will definitely think in terms of rebirth. But in the West, Jesus became 'resurrected'. He came again to life. If became a problem that Christianity could not solve. They feel guilty: something is wrong somewhere -- how is it possible that a person who has died can come back to life? Because there was no myth surrounding it, the isolated phenomenon of 'coming back to life' became absurd.


It is never claimed that Buddha was resurrected, nor Mahavir, nor Krishna, because everyone is going to be resurrected. It is not a miracle. If someone had said that Buddha is great because he came back to life, everyone would have laughed. Everyone comes back to life! This is not something to be talked about.


Fragments in Jesus' life appear to be contradictory. They cannot be explained. But if we call it 'the story of Jesus' rather than 'the history of Jesus' there is no contradiction. Everything is possible in a story because logic is not needed. The only requirement is that the story be poetic, flowing. That is all; no logical reality is needed. The question of whether someone comes back to life again after crucifixion comes only if it is history. If it is a story then there is no problem. Then if someone says it is absurd, he himself becomes absurd. In a story you cannot raise questions. Only in a history can you raise questions and show contradictions.


Christianity would have been richer if, instead of history, there was a myth surrounding Jesus. If there had been a myth, then Christianity would not have become such a political religion. It would have been more religious.


The source is there. You can go deep into Christianity and be revived by it. Then you will not only be a Christian by doctrine. You can become a Christian by unconscious communication.


One thing to be noted is that whenever someone in the West goes deeply within, goes deep into his unconscious roots, he becomes an easterner. The very quality of the mind changes. Jesus is an easterner, Francis is an easterner, Eckhart is an easterner, Bohme is an easterner. It makes no difference where they are born. The quality of the mind changes.


On the other hand, whenever an easterner becomes superficial, his mind becomes western. Events become very meaningful to him, things become very meaningful. All that is on the surface becomes significant and all that is deeper is denied, negated.


The person who lives at his depths can accept all that is on the surface, but the person who lives on the surface cannot accept all that is deeply within him because the very acceptance will be humiliating To acknowledge that he has deeper depths within him will be a proof that he is only living on the surface. He will deny it. But a person who lives at his depths can accept the surface. He can say, "Yes, it is true. It is there; it exists. But deeper layers are there also. It ;s not everything."


History is just on the surface because time is on the surface. Consciousness is at the very depths. Then there is no time. But this will be more meaningful to you when you go deep into meditation. Then you will feel that your time sense is lost. By and by, you will feel that time is stopping. Finally a moment comes when there is no feeling of time. Time has stopped! Somewhere on the surface it is still going on, but inside, it has stopped. Then you yourself will be able to understand clearly what is meant by a spiritual evolution that transcends time.


When we live in time, in the world of events, if someone's s not doing anything it seems as if he is not. Doing is everything. Doing is in the realm of history, but being is in the realm of the spirit. You are; you just are. You are not doing anything, not even mentally. Nothing either physical or mental is happening There is no doing at all, no ripple of action at all you are in an absolute nondoing state. But you are!


This beingness is the vertical dimension. Through this beingness, you jump into the unknown, into the divine. And unless one jumps into this non-historical, non-temporal moment, one has not known what life is.
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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