You don't know the way we count life

A great king, Bimbisara, had come to see Buddha. He was sitting at Buddha's side talking to him and an old man came, bowed down, touched Buddha's feet, an old sannyasin. And as it was the habit of Buddha to ask, he asked the old man, "How old are you?".

And the old man said, "Just four years old, sir."

Bimbisara could not believe his eyes, could not believe his ears: "This old man who looks almost eighty, if not more, is saying he is four years old?" He said, "Pardon me, sir, can you repeat it again, how old you are?"

The old man again said, "Four years old."

Buddha laughed and said, "You don't know the way we count life: it is four years ago that he became a sannyasin, that he was initiated into the eternal, that he was taken into the timeless. It is only four years ago that he crossed from this shore and reached to the other shore. He has lived for eighty years, but those years are not worth counting; it was a sheer wastage."

 OSHO