This is really a beautiful story about Buddha between dialogues with King Prasenjita on the creating a relevant & right question within.
A great king, Prasenjita, had come to see Gautam Buddha. And while they were conversing, just in the middle an old Buddhist monk came to touch the feet of Gautam Buddha. He said, ”Please forgive me. I should not interrupt the dialogue that is going on between you two, but my time… I have to reach the other village before sunset. If I don’t start now I will not be able to reach there. And I could not go without touching your feet because one knows nothing about tomorrow; whether I will be able again to touch your feet or not is uncertain. This may be the last time. So please, you both forgive me. I will not delay your conversation.”
Gautam Buddha said, ”Just one question: How old are you?”
And the old man said, ”I am not very old – just four years.”
King Prasenjita could not believe it. He puzzled that around seventy-five year old man cannot be four years old!
Buddha said to old monk, ”Go with my blessings.”
Prasenjita said, ”You have created a problem for me by asking an unnecessary question. Do you think this man is four years old?”
Buddha said, ”Now I will explain it to you. It was not unnecessary, it was not without a proper context. It was for you that I was asking him – really I was creating a question in you – because you were talking nonsense. You were asking stupid questions. I wanted some relevant question to come out of you. ”Now, this is relevant. Yes, he is four years old because our way of counting the age is from the day a person allows the master, allows his total being to be transformed, not holding back anything.
His seventy-one years were simply a wastage; he has lived only four years. And I think you will understand that your sixty years have been sheer wastage unless you are reborn.”
