A curve is a small piece of a huge circle, and just like that, our thoughts and words loop around until we step into silence.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, the stream of the timeless is what Lord Buddha called a muhurta for a fleeting instant, and you call the same thing the present. This too makes sense to me, and yet it remains beyond my understanding. But even from this little understanding the joy that arises fills me with gratitude. Osho, I come to your refuge.
All those who have known, all who have awakened, have said one thing with certainty: truth is outside the stream of time—timeless, beyond time. The world is within time—or say, whatever is within time is the world; whatever is outside time is liberation. You can gather a few glimpses of this in your own life now and then. Consider: when you are unhappy, time seems long. When pain becomes intense and your very life writhes in suffering, time grows lengthy. The clock’s pace remains the same; the clock does not see your pleasure and pain, it knows nothing of them. It moves at its own rhythm, yet an hour passes as if centuries are passing. Whoever has known sorrow has known the long stretch of time; time becomes longer and longer. A loved one is dying, and you sit by their cot through the night; the night becomes so long…
दूसरा प्रश्न: ओशो, समयातीत की धारा को भगवान बुद्ध ने मुहूर्त भर कहा है और आपने उसी को वर्तमान कहा। यह मेरी समझ में भी आता है, फिर भी समझ के बाहर रह जाता है। लेकिन इस अल्प समझ से ही जो आनंद आता है, उससे मैं कृतज्ञता के भाव से भर जाता हूं। ओशो, मैं आपकी शरण आता हूं।
जिन्होंने भी जाना, जो भी जागे, उन सभी ने एक बात तो सुनिश्चित रूप से कही है कि सत्य समय की धारा के बाहर है, समयातीत है, कालातीत है। संसार है समय के भीतर--या यूं कहो कि जो समय के भीतर है वही संसार है; जो समय के बाहर है वही मोक्ष है। इसकी तुम अपने जीवन में थोड़ी-थोड़ी झलकें कभी-कभी जुटा सकते हो। सोचो: जब दुखी होते हो तो समय लंबा मालूम होता है। जब कोई पीड़ा सघन हो जाती है और प्राण किसी दुख में तड़पते हैं, समय लंबा हो जाता है। घड़ी की चाल तो वही होती है। घड़ी कोई तुम्हारे दुख-सुख को नहीं देखती। घड़ी को तुम्हारे दुख-सुख का कोई पता नहीं है। …
I am a very curious person. That's why I have come to you. Osho, what do you say about curiosity?
Curiosity is good, curiosity is beautiful, but don't stop at it. It is a good beginning, but not the end, because curiosity always remains lukewarm. It is an intellectual gymnastics. It is good to be curious because that is how one starts the journey of inquiry into existence; but if one simply remains curious, then there will be no intensity in it. One can move from one curiosity to another -- one will become a driftwood -- from one wave to another wave, never getting anchored anywhere. Curiosity is good as a beginning, but then one has to become more passionate. One has to make life a quest, not only a curiosity. And what do I mean when I say one has to make one's life a quest? Curiosity creates questions, but your life never becomes a quest. Questions are many, a quest is one. When some question becomes so…
Question: First question: Osho, The city grows deserted as awareness turns back upon itself; the highway becomes a footpath; the flame trembles, then steadies; unknown, and yet some humming seems familiar. Words-thoughts fall like leaves; the net of logic—once the mind’s glory—is fraying, torn moment by moment. Honey fills the hour, the day, the night, the month; childhood hides and reappears; the earth is cooled by the cascade of the inner stream. Upon the lofty peak of consciousness, adorned with a hundred-thousand sun-rays—O resplendent white radiance! O Great Life-Breath, source of energy for hundreds upon hundreds of lotuses! Accept at your feet all my righted and inverted beats and notes; O ocean that pours out heaps upon heaps of gems! I bow my head, O divine gateway of the whole cosmos—salutations, Lord, salutations!
‘हे, धवलपुंज! शत, शत कमलों के ऊर्जास्रोत हे महाप्राण! ले अर्पित तेरे चरणों में उलटे-सीधे सब ताल, स्वर; हे, राशि-राशि भर रत्न उलीचते
These are three concentric circles around the center. Of course the heart is closer to being, so it is better to be in the heart than to be in the mind. The mind is closer than the body; it is better to be in the mind than in the body. But the ultimate goal is to be just your being -- no action, no thought, no feeling, just pure witnessing. And then the satori happens and one becomes full of light, full of truth. Then to live is a blessing. Before it, it is just a drag; after it, it is a dance. (Really, meditation is a journey, Osho told Bhavan, from your head to your heart to your being.) Meditation is not-knowing, it is not like knowledge, It is far closer to feeling. It is not like logic, it is far more like love.
Osho, life is suffering, yet man does not wake up. Despite the hell of life, how does man keep on going?
You asked, “Life is suffering...” You have not yet seen this for yourself. You have heard the buddhas say that life is suffering. It is not your own realization, not your own seeing. That won’t do. Borrowed words will prick your chest like thorns; they will not turn into flowers. Borrowed words become thorns—pricking, wounding—but from them the rain of joy does not fall. Have you known that life is suffering? Or have you merely heard the buddhas? Or have you agreed that since the buddhas say so, it must be true? Why would they be wrong? If they knew, they must be right. That is like someone believing that fire burns because others say so. Can you see the difference between others saying “fire burns” and your own knowing that fire burns? One’s own knowing creates a revolution. Then, as they say, once burned by milk, you blow even…
दूसरा प्रश्न: ओशो, जीवन दुख है, फिर भी आदमी जागता नहीं। जीवन के नरक के बावजूद भी आदमी जीए किस तरह चला जाता है?
पूछा तुमने: ‘जीवन दुख है...’ तुम्हें नहीं दिखाई पड़ा है ऐसा अभी। ऐसा तुमने सुना बुद्धों को कहते कि जीवन दुख है। यह तुम्हारी अपनी प्रतीति नहीं, अपना साक्षात्कार नहीं। यह काम नहीं आएगा। यह उधार वचन तुम्हारी छाती में कांटा सा चुभेगा, फूल नहीं बनेगा। उधार वचन कांटे बन जाते हैं, छाती में चुभते हैं, चुभाते हैं, घाव बनाते हैं, लेकिन उनसे जीवन में आनंद की वर्षा नहीं होती। तुमने जाना जीवन दुख है? कि तुमने सुना बुद्धों को कहते? कि तुमने मान लिया कि बुद्ध कहते तो ठीक ही कहते होंगे? क्यों कहेंगे गलत? जान कर कहा है तो ठीक ही कहते होंगे। यह ऐसे ही है जैसे किसी ने मान लिया कि आग जलाती है, क्योंकि और लोग कहते हैं कि आग जलाती है।