What happens when we remain aware in the present moment?

Osho, if we remain aware within the present—if we don’t think of the next moment and attend only to this one—could it not happen that, after a moment, the next contact that comes will again pass us by?

But where is it now? It isn’t here yet, is it? The moment this moment passes, that moment will become the present. Then you can make full contact. You can only make contact when it... Whenever it comes, it will come as the present; there is no way for it to sneak past. It has to pass right in front of your house; there is no back alley from which a future moment can slip by. Every future moment has to become the present. And if you are aware in the present, you need not worry. Now no moment of time can pass you by without asking. Yes, the reverse can happen: if you are anxious about the future, the present moment can pass by. You won’t even notice. It will have to come into your hands—and you be aware. Hence someone once asked... There was a Sufi fakir, Bayazid.…

And sometimes unawares it happens. Seeing a beautiful sunset and you are not your past. Just the present is so much, the intensity of the present is such, that without your knowing you have slipped out of the past. You have not a single problem in that moment because you don't have any mind in that moment. Mind means the past because mind means the memory. Seeing a beautiful sunset you become so absorbed in the reality of the moment, in the truth of the moment, that there is no observer and no observed. The observer becomes the observed. It is not that you are seeing the sunset, you are the sunset. That merging, that melting, that dissolution into the moment, and you are healed.

So whatsoever happens.... Sometimes you forget -- what can you do? There is no point in crying for the spilled milk. That which is gone is gone. If one moment has passed and you were not aware, and later you became alert that this moment has gone and you were not aware, don't waste any moment for it now, because this other moment is passing by. Just be aware of it. And why ask for permanence? One person never gets two mo-ments together. You always get one moment. When that one is gone, another is supplied. So if you can remain alert in one single moment -- enough! Whatsoever time will be coming in front of you, your torch of awareness will be there.

Osho, does living moment-to-moment begin the awareness of interdependence?

You have heard of Baital Pachisi (the Vetala tales). You would never suppose it could be a teaching for the wise—yet this land has made unique experiments. It has produced books that can be read on many levels, with layer upon layer of meaning—two, three, four, five meanings running parallel like five roads side by side. Thus whoever you are, there is a way. A small child enjoys it; the supreme knower enjoys it. The seeker finds the path; the arrived recognizes the destination. For one who is neither, it is a diversion—that too is something, a little entertainment. The first story goes like this. Emperor Vikramaditya was in court when a fakir arrived. As custom had it, people came in the morning to offer gifts. The fakir offered a wild-looking fruit. The emperor smiled—why come so far to offer a jungle fruit? But a fakir has nothing else, so…

To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

Akbar, the great Moghul emperor, drew a line on the wall, and he told his wise men not to touch it and yet make it smaller. They were puzzled and they thought, "It is impossible!" Then one of his wise men, Birbal, drew another line near it, a bigger one, without touching the first line. When the bigger line was drawn the first line became smaller. If you draw a small line then the first line will become bigger. So there are two ways. Either you make your being bigger -- then the world becomes smaller, smaller, smaller smaller... a moment comes when your being becomes the total, the BRAHMA, the world disappears. then there is no more world. Then there is another way, and the other is just a trick. You go on saying the world is illusory, MAYA, it is not there. You go on denying the reality…