According to Osho, the Here and Now is the no-mind presence beyond thought, which can never be in the present. It cannot be defined, only experienced as silent, immediate awareness of what is here: sounds, sights, breath, you and me, when thoughts cease and the inner screen is empty. Use the mind as a tool, but live rooted in embodied presence.
It means being so present that you simply feel and see what is happening right now without thinking about past or future.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: WHAT IS HERENOW? DOES 'THOUGHT' FORM PART OF IT? IF SO, THEN ALL-TIME AND ALL-THINGS ARE NOW. OR... IS HERENOW ONLY IN NO-MIND? DIVYA, THOUGHT IS THE CAPACITY OF NOT BEING HERE -- so thought cannot exist in the herenow, it cannot be part of it. That is impossible. Thought can only be either of the past or of the future. Thought can never be of the present. In the VERY process of thinking, that is implied; it is intrinsic to it. The moment you think, either you think of the past or you think of the future. It may be the immediate past, but it is still past -- it is never the present, it cannot be the present. Thought needs space. And the present moment has no space in it. Thought creates the past and the future to live in.
Beloved Osho, is there any difference between the state of no-mind and being present?
Just leave the mind aside ... But we are against the body, we are very condemnatory of the body, not knowing at all that this condemnation of the body is breaking the bridge to your being. A man of authentic spirituality is deeply in love with his body, because he knows body shares many things with being. Mind shares nothing, either with body or with being. It is an absolute stranger that has been forcibly put into you by the culture, the religion, the society. They are using the mind to enslave you. And because you are in the mind you continuously go on asking about things of which you have no experience. You don't know what no-mind is, except a word. You don't know what presence of being is, except that you have heard about it. Just words won't do. Move away from the mind ... And when I…
Now, a blind man can become a philosopher about light. He can think much about light. He can go on making great systems of thought about light. He can imagine, and he has much more freedom to imagine than the person who has eyes, because the person who has eyes knows what light is; he cannot imagine something contrary to reality. The blind man can imagine in every direction, in every possible way. He can be very imaginative and he can be very logical; he can make a systematic, logical philosophy about light out of his blindness, but it will be about light. And beware of the word 'about'. Unless somebody sees light, all that he is saying is nonsense. The mystics have always said that philosophy is nonsense because it is thinking. It is like a thirsty man thinking about water.
Today you said that the way to enlightenment is long and arduous, and also that it is here and now, now or never. As it is herenow, how can it be long and arduous?
That's why it is long and arduous -- because you are not here-now. You are far away from here now. You will have to come, you will have to journey. When I say truth is not far away, I mean TRUTH is here-now -- I don't mean you are not far away from truth. You ARE far away from truth. Truth is not far away from you, God cannot be far away from you. God exists in you as you. God exists as eternity, not as past or future. God simply is. How can God be far away? There is not place for him to be far away. He is all over the place. He is everywhere... in your breathing, in your heartbeat. But you are not here. God has not gone away: you have gone away from him. You have to understand this. For example, in the night you…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHERE IS THIS MOMENT? I KEEP LOSING IT. Here! You ask me, "Where is this moment?" Your question implies it must be somewhere else. You have already lost it. It is always here! Don't try to find where it is, because while you are finding where it is, you are losing it. You are missing the train continuously. Time knows no tenses: past, present, future, no -- absolutely no! Time knows only one tense, and that is now. It is always now. But your mind can carry the past and destroy the beauty of the now. Your mind can project the future, and can lose the precious moment. Please, start relaxing here and now. This is the taste of it.