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Present is not part of time; it is timelessness. It never comes, never goes – it is always there.

When Osho speaks of the present, he is talking about a dimension that is vastly different from the past and the future. The human mind is accustomed to slicing the continuum of existence into pieces – past, present, future – but this is a mere convenience, not a truth.

The past is a memory, a footprint of where you once stood. The future is an imagination, a dance of shadows that have not yet materialised. Both are illusions, created and perpetuated by the mind, which is in itself, a master of time.

But the present – ah, the present is the essence of life’s eternal now. It is the space in which time does not intrude. In the present, there is no ticking of the clock, no turning of calendar pages; there is only the pure awareness of being. It is not a moment sandwiched between what was and what will be; it is rather the stage upon which the dance of existence unfolds ceaselessly.

To say the present is timelessness is to acknowledge that it is beyond the reach of time’s arrows. It is where the watcher sits, where the consciousness resides undisturbed by the ripples of what we call time. Time is a concept, a measurement, whereas the present is a state of being. In meditation, one touches this timelessness; you become the present.

The present never comes because timelessness cannot enter time; it cannot arrive or depart like a train at a station. It is always here, a perennial, unchanging now. You are always in the present, but you are not always aware of it because the mind flutters, like a butterfly, between what was and what could be.

Remember this, and you will find that life becomes an unending meditation, a serene river flowing without concern for the rocks and branches of yesterday and tomorrow. As you cultivate awareness and remain centred in the enduring now, the boundaries erected by time begin to dissolve, and you taste the freedom that is your true nature. Therein lies the path to enlightenment.