That’s why I say I am a contemporary to Buddha, a contemporary to Jesus, a contemporary to Zarathustra, a contemporary to Lao Tzu. Once you know, you become contemporary to all the knowers. All small time gaps simply disappear, they are so tiny. Twenty-five hundred years make no difference at all.

That’s why in the East we have not bothered much about time. Nobody knows when Krishna was born. We could have also created a calendar in the name of Krishna – before Krishna, after Krishna – we could have made a history. And Krishna certainly preceded Jesus by at least three thousand years, so his calendar would have been five thousand years old by now. But we have never bothered about it. Nobody knows when the founder of Jainism, Adinatha, was born or when he died. He must have preceded even Krishna by at least five thousand years. If we had a calendar then, his calendar would by now have been at least ten thousand years old. I am saying “at least,” because Jainas say that he is far older. According to them he is almost ninety thousand years ancient; it is possible.

But we have not created history, we have not written history, for the simple reason that the people who are worth writing about go beyond time; for them time becomes irrelevant. And the people who are not worth writing about, only they make much noise in the world of time. Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Ayatollah Khomeiniac, these people make much noise in the world of time. A Buddha, a Krishna, a Jesus, a Zarathustra simply make no trace in time; they disappear without leaving a trace, as if they are not part of history, or they are part of a totally different kind of history which is nontemporal.

The gods argued with Buddha. They said, “We agree about that one person: he will find it whether you tell him or not, he is so intelligent; if he can understand you immediately, then he will find it by himself. And we also agree about the others, that thousands will not understand you at all; they will, on the contrary, misunderstand you. But they are already misunderstanding, what more misunderstanding can there be? So you need not be worried about that point. They are already in confusion, you cannot confuse them any more.”

And this is my experience too: howsoever I try I cannot confuse you any more! You have already touched the rock bottom; there is nothing below it, you can’t go deeper than that. You are utterly secure.

So the gods said, “You cannot confuse them more. They are so skillful in confusing themselves, they have done it already to the maximum. So about that we don’t agree.

“And one thing more: there may be one or two people among ten thousand who are just between these two sorts of people – the one who can understand you and the millions who cannot understand you and are bound to misunderstand you. Between these two do you think,” they said to Buddha, “there is not a possibility of a few people, one or two or three – yes, they will be very few, they can be counted on the fingers – who may be just in the middle, neither so confused that they cannot be helped at all nor so clear that they can find their path on their own? Speak for them; they will be helped by you.”