Existence Is In The Present
Osho,
This is my fifth visit to Rajneeshpuram. I came to see members of my family who live here. I can see how happy my former wife is, living so close to you. I feel very happy and am doing groups at the university. But I have a big fear: what is going to happen here when you decide to leave your body? I’m afraid the community could become fanatic and dangerous. Is it possible that something like this could happen?
I never think of the future – not even of tomorrow, not even of the next moment that is just going to come. This way of thinking of the future keeps man tense, worried, never allows him to be relaxed and enjoy the moment that is available.
You feel good here, you feel your former wife is immensely happy. Why is she happy and why are you not? She is living in the moment. That is my fundamental approach to life: if you want to live, live here and now; if you want to worry, then tomorrow is the time. Then you can have a thousand and one things..
I cannot say what is going to happen when I am not here. One thing I know: the people who have learned the art of living moment to moment will continue to live the same way of life wherever they are, because no other way can give them so much joy, so much juice.
And who cares what is going to happen when I leave my body? How many millions of people have left their body? The place you are sitting must have been the grave of at least ten persons – that many people have died on the earth. Life goes on, people come and go.
I am not important, but what I am imparting to you is important; that should not leave your body. And that is up to you. If you want to fall back into misery, anguish, suffering, then it is your choice, you are free.
You say you have been coming here again and again. Why do you go away? Five times in four years you have been here – and you must have seen the difference: when you are away you are in a darkness; when you are here you are surrounded with light, with love, with immense life around you.
You cannot find this laughter anywhere in the whole world. The world is too serious, and seriousness is the cancer of the soul. The world is too much concerned about the future, and goes on losing the real present, unlived. You are losing something which is in your hand for something which is not in your hand. This is simply stupid, but this is how the whole world has been living for millions of years – a stupid way of life.
Existence knows only one tense – the present. It neither knows the past, because it is no more, nor does it know the future, because it is not yet. But the mind is always concerned either with the past or with the future, never with the present. Do you see?
Existence is only in the present. Mind is never in the present. In fact, the moment you are in the present, there is no mind in you, there is great silence. The whole sky of your inner being is without thoughts, without clouds. I call this the state of no-mind.
Excerpted From From Bondage To Freedom CH: 35
