According to Osho, the feeling of drifting away despite physical closeness arises from the mind’s habit of forgetting what is present and craving what is distant or not-yet. Nearness breeds oblivion; the mind runs ahead toward imagined lacks. Break this ‘law’ through meditation—waking to what is—so remembrance and intimacy return; sometimes temporary distance can refresh your love.
Your mind gets used to what’s near and chases what’s far, so stay present—and a little distance can sometimes help you remember.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, it is my great good fortune to have had the chance to live near you, and I feel blessed. But it is surprising that, living in your proximity, I sometimes feel I am drifting away from you; why is it so?
The mind has certain laws, certain tricks; one of them is that whatever becomes available, the mind begins to forget it. What is attained starts slipping into oblivion. The nearer something is, the greater the likelihood of forgetting it. The mind remembers what is far away; it cries for what has not been attained. What is attained it slowly begins to forget. The mind’s habit is to be in the future, not in the present. So if you are close to me—you have come with thousands of desires, with so many dreams, with such feeling—but if you stay here near me for long, slowly you will begin to forget me. You will be quite surprised: when you were far away, at home, thousands of miles away, there you remembered so much, you pined so much; now you are close, and a distance starts growing. It is necessary to understand and…
Osho, why do I feel so close and so distant from you at the same time?
VIDYA, IT IS SO, YOU ARE CLOSE AND YOU ARE DISTANT, and at the same time. Your being is close, but your dreaming is not close and cannot be close. You ARE close, but your mind -- which is not really you -- cannot be close. The more mind you have, the more distant you are. Right now you are two: one is your authentic being, your essential being, your unchanging, eternal being. You are close. Not only close but you are one with me, because the eternal being is only one. It is a flight, as Plotinus says, of the alone to the alone. But you are a duality. Your being is hidden behind many layers of becoming. You are like an onion: layers and layers of becoming. You want to be this, you want to be that.... Those layers keep you far away -- not only far away…
Beloved Osho, when I am far away from you, I often feel very close. And when I see you again, I am sometimes startled to find us almost strangers. How can this be?
"Has the other passenger disturbed you? Or has he done anything to you, touched your body or anything?" He said, "He has not done anything, but just to be here feels very strange." People meeting each other try to make some bridges; otherwise it is difficult. Once it happened in Bombay, I entered the compartment -- one man was there already and he saw that hundreds of people had come to see me off, so I must be a Hindu saint, because those people outside all look like Hindus. So he simply fell at my feet. I helped him to stand up and I said, "You have done something wrong. I am a Mohammedan." He said, "Mohammedan? And I have touched your feet!" I said, "You didn't give me any chance -- you immediately jumped and touched my feet!" "No," he said. "No, you are not a Mohammedan, you must…
Osho, I want to go very, very far away from you. It feels that if I stay close, you will erase me.
People are afraid of love, have always been afraid. That is why the earth has become loveless. That is why master and disciple have been lost; only the names remain, only the words remain. In place of masters there are teachers; in place of disciples there are students. Between student and teacher there is no dying, no love—it is a matter of transaction. The student buys something from the teacher, gives something in return—the matter is finished. There is no exchange of life-breath. O heart, do not revive the tale of worn-out love; do not entangle the people of the gathering in this thorn-thicket. People have begun to fear. They think love is a thorn, a thicket in which, if you get caught, you won’t be able to free yourself. People walk around it. Ordinary love entangles so much—what then to say of extraordinary love! When the thought arises in…
Beloved Osho, I feel warm love in your presence and now I realize that when I am not close to you it does not happen in the same way. Is it still true that time and space do not make any difference in the great affair between master and disciple?
People's understanding was absolutely wrong that Ananda, who had burst into tears, must have loved the master more. Asked, he said, "I am crying because he was alive, and for forty-two years I have been his most intimate disciple -- intimate in the sense that I was always with him. In these forty-two years not even for a single day was I separate; even in the night I used to sleep in his room, just to be present in case he needed something. I am not crying because I was the most intimate, I am crying because even with such a long physical intimacy I have remained separate from him. Something has remained like a barrier." Gautam Buddha was not dead yet. He had closed his eyes, and he was relaxing into the eternal. He came back, opened his eyes, and said to Ananda, "Don't be worried. It was my…