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About Time: (Part 1)
For me, being in the moment is meditation, the ultimate state of being in the moment. And then everything is so beautiful, so fragrant, so fresh. Nothing ages. Nothing goes anywhere. It is we who come and go; existence remains as it is. It is not time that passes; it is we who come and go. But here is the illusion: instead of seeing that it is we who pass, we have created a great invention, the clock—and now time passes. Time is an invention of the mind; at its core, time exists only when there is yesterday and tomorrow; the present moment is not part of time. When you are simply here, simply now, there is no time. You breathe, you live, you feel, you are open to everything that is happening around you. Everything is silent. Then you can see the present, and you can see that only the present exists, and nothing else. And the present is eternal; essentially, the present is not part of time at all... Today is all there is; now is the only time you are in, the only time you will ever be in. If you want to live, it is now or never. Osho (“Children of the Universe”)
Deep inside me, there is a sharp longing for constant love. Is this foolish?
Love can exist in two dimensions—either horizontally or vertically. We are familiar with the love that exists in the horizontal dimension; it is the same dimension in which time flows. The vertical dimension is the dimension of eternity. This sharp longing in the heart is not for constancy. Here, you have misunderstood, but this misunderstanding is almost universal, because we are only familiar with one plane—the horizontal, the dimension of time. In this dimension, there are only two possibilities: something is either transient, momentary, or constant. But this constancy is nothing more than a multitude of moments; it also begins and ends. Constancy is not eternal; it cannot be eternal. Nothing can be eternal in time. What is born at one time must inevitably die at some time. If there is a beginning, there must also be an end. And your love begins—it begins at a certain point in time—and then it must inevitably end. Yes, it may end sooner or later. If it ends quickly, you call it transient. If it takes a little longer to end, you call it constant. But constancy will not satisfy the heart either, because the heart passionately desires something that does not end at all, something that is eternal. This is a longing for the divine.
The divine is another name for eternal love. Jesus says, “God is love”—and this is one of the greatest statements ever made. Love becomes synonymous with God. If you have been able to know eternal love, you have known God. Nothing remains; everything is realized. But the mind knows nothing about eternity. The heart longs for the eternal, but the heart is constantly interpreted by the mind, and the mind knows either very short-lived love or love that lasts a little longer. But even if the love lasts a little longer, there is always the fear that it will end, and this fear of yours is justified—it will end. In fact, it will last longer if you are unreasonable. If you are very, very foolish and very, very unreasonable, it will take you a long time to understand the futility of it all. If you are very wise, love may end quickly, because you will see that there is nothing special about it. The more intelligent a person is, the less durable their love will be—the love that you know. That is why, as humanity becomes more intelligent, love becomes an increasingly transient phenomenon. In the past, it was almost constant; there was no such thing as divorce. In uneducated countries, there is still no such thing as divorce. The more educated, cultured, and sophisticated a country becomes, the greater, in the same proportion, the percentage of divorces—the reason is simple: people see that they are tired of each other. Then there is no point in dragging on this burden; then it is better to end this story. But the mind can end one illusion and immediately replace it with another, and so on. The mind learns nothing. Even an intelligent person learns nothing, and the mind becomes so powerful that everything that comes from the heart never reaches you, your being, without being interpreted by the mind. The heart says “eternity,” and the mind interprets it as “constancy.” This is where you miss the point.
The heart longs for the vertical dimension, that is, the dimension of meditation. The mind lives in the horizontal plane, and mystics of all ages have realized that the mind and time are not two different things; the mind is time. The mind cannot live in the vertical dimension; the mind lives in the past, in the future. There is no present for the mind. The mind is constantly moving from the past to the future. The present seems to be only a transition from the past to the future: A hunter was going to hunt in the jungle. His comrade, who also dreamed of becoming a hunter, but was very clumsy and inexperienced, wanted to go with him. “Okay,” said the hunter. And he led his comrade to a pond where tigers and lions usually came to drink. So, the friends hid in the bushes. The hunter gave his comrade instructions: “When you see something, don’t hesitate and shoot immediately.” A tiger passed by. The hunter was surprised because his comrade remained as if frozen; he didn’t even move, he didn’t do anything to shoot the tiger. The hunter asked: “What happened?” The comrade replied: “It passed so quickly that I only saw it when it was already out of sight.” This is exactly what the present is: you only see it when it is already out of sight. You see it only when it is already gone. You never see it as the present—the mind is not that fast. The mind is not vigilant; it is not aware. The mind is asleep. It is always surrounded by the past and the future, and this small, brief moment of the present passes quickly. It must move faster than light itself, because we can never grasp it. By the time we are aware of it, it is already gone. We spend the whole moment becoming alert, and that is why it escapes. You always become aware of it when it is already out of sight. Therefore, all you know is the past, which is no more, and the future, which is not yet. You live between these two non-existent things.......
For me, being in the moment is meditation, the ultimate state of being in the moment. And then everything is so beautiful, so fragrant, so fresh. Nothing ages. Nothing goes anywhere. It is we who come and go; existence remains as it is. It is not time that passes; it is we who come and go. But here is the illusion: instead of seeing that it is we who pass, we have created a great invention, the clock—and now time passes. Time is an invention of the mind; at its core, time exists only when there is yesterday and tomorrow; the present moment is not part of time. When you are simply here, simply now, there is no time. You breathe, you live, you feel, you are open to everything that is happening around you. Everything is silent. Then you can see the present, and you can see that only the present exists, and nothing else. And the present is eternal; essentially, the present is not part of time at all... Today is all there is; now is the only time you are in, the only time you will ever be in. If you want to live, it is now or never. Osho (“Children of the Universe”)
Deep inside me, there is a sharp longing for constant love. Is this foolish?
Love can exist in two dimensions—either horizontally or vertically. We are familiar with the love that exists in the horizontal dimension; it is the same dimension in which time flows. The vertical dimension is the dimension of eternity. This sharp longing in the heart is not for constancy. Here, you have misunderstood, but this misunderstanding is almost universal, because we are only familiar with one plane—the horizontal, the dimension of time. In this dimension, there are only two possibilities: something is either transient, momentary, or constant. But this constancy is nothing more than a multitude of moments; it also begins and ends. Constancy is not eternal; it cannot be eternal. Nothing can be eternal in time. What is born at one time must inevitably die at some time. If there is a beginning, there must also be an end. And your love begins—it begins at a certain point in time—and then it must inevitably end. Yes, it may end sooner or later. If it ends quickly, you call it transient. If it takes a little longer to end, you call it constant. But constancy will not satisfy the heart either, because the heart passionately desires something that does not end at all, something that is eternal. This is a longing for the divine.
The divine is another name for eternal love. Jesus says, “God is love”—and this is one of the greatest statements ever made. Love becomes synonymous with God. If you have been able to know eternal love, you have known God. Nothing remains; everything is realized. But the mind knows nothing about eternity. The heart longs for the eternal, but the heart is constantly interpreted by the mind, and the mind knows either very short-lived love or love that lasts a little longer. But even if the love lasts a little longer, there is always the fear that it will end, and this fear of yours is justified—it will end. In fact, it will last longer if you are unreasonable. If you are very, very foolish and very, very unreasonable, it will take you a long time to understand the futility of it all. If you are very wise, love may end quickly, because you will see that there is nothing special about it. The more intelligent a person is, the less durable their love will be—the love that you know. That is why, as humanity becomes more intelligent, love becomes an increasingly transient phenomenon. In the past, it was almost constant; there was no such thing as divorce. In uneducated countries, there is still no such thing as divorce. The more educated, cultured, and sophisticated a country becomes, the greater, in the same proportion, the percentage of divorces—the reason is simple: people see that they are tired of each other. Then there is no point in dragging on this burden; then it is better to end this story. But the mind can end one illusion and immediately replace it with another, and so on. The mind learns nothing. Even an intelligent person learns nothing, and the mind becomes so powerful that everything that comes from the heart never reaches you, your being, without being interpreted by the mind. The heart says “eternity,” and the mind interprets it as “constancy.” This is where you miss the point.
The heart longs for the vertical dimension, that is, the dimension of meditation. The mind lives in the horizontal plane, and mystics of all ages have realized that the mind and time are not two different things; the mind is time. The mind cannot live in the vertical dimension; the mind lives in the past, in the future. There is no present for the mind. The mind is constantly moving from the past to the future. The present seems to be only a transition from the past to the future: A hunter was going to hunt in the jungle. His comrade, who also dreamed of becoming a hunter, but was very clumsy and inexperienced, wanted to go with him. “Okay,” said the hunter. And he led his comrade to a pond where tigers and lions usually came to drink. So, the friends hid in the bushes. The hunter gave his comrade instructions: “When you see something, don’t hesitate and shoot immediately.” A tiger passed by. The hunter was surprised because his comrade remained as if frozen; he didn’t even move, he didn’t do anything to shoot the tiger. The hunter asked: “What happened?” The comrade replied: “It passed so quickly that I only saw it when it was already out of sight.” This is exactly what the present is: you only see it when it is already out of sight. You see it only when it is already gone. You never see it as the present—the mind is not that fast. The mind is not vigilant; it is not aware. The mind is asleep. It is always surrounded by the past and the future, and this small, brief moment of the present passes quickly. It must move faster than light itself, because we can never grasp it. By the time we are aware of it, it is already gone. We spend the whole moment becoming alert, and that is why it escapes. You always become aware of it when it is already out of sight. Therefore, all you know is the past, which is no more, and the future, which is not yet. You live between these two non-existent things.......