Why is it difficult to feel and remember eternity?

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.] Man can live on two planes: either in time or in eternity. Time is constantly changing it is movement, it is flux. Heraclitus is right about time when he says you cannot step in the same river twice. No moment in time cones back -- it is gone and gone forever. Everything that lives in time is temporary, everything that is born in time is bound to die. Our body belongs to time; one day it was not there, one day again it will not be there. Our mind also belongs to time. Mind is created by experiences, knowledge and all that is given by the society, the older generation -- the parents, the teachers, the priests. Mind is also going to die.

Bahaudin shah once gave an address on the principles and practices of the sufis. A certain man who thought that he was clever and could benefit from criticizing him, said, "if only this man would say something new! That is my only criticism." bahaudin heard of this, and invited the critic to dinner. "I hope that you will approve of my lamb stew," he said. When he had taken the first mouthful, the guest jumped up, shouting, "you are trying to poison me -- this isn't lamb stew!" "but it is," said bahaudin, "though since you don't like old recipes, I have tried something new. This contains lamb a

It is not a question of saying it, it is not a question of repeating it. Bahaudin is not repeating Mohammed. What he is saying is his own experience. Now what can he do if his experience and Mohammed's experience coincide? What I am saying is not a repetition of Buddha or Mahavira. I am saying it on my own experience, on my own authority. It is my experience; in that sense it is new. But what can I do? -- it has been the experience of all the Buddhas too; so in a Sense it is as old as the mountains and as new as the dewdrop on the grassleaves in the early sun. This is the paradox of truth: that everyone has to know it on his own, then it is new -- but it is the same truth. Buddha went to the sea and tasted it, and…

Meditation is going beyond time. Time is mind. Mind consists of past and future; mind has no experience of the present. It is thought that time has three tenses: past, present and future. I don't agree, my own experience is totally different; time consists only of two tenses, past and future. The present is not part of time, the present is part of eternity. It is a totally different thing. Past and future are horizontal and present is vertical. Mind lives horizontally, meditation is a vertical phenomenon. When you drop out of the past and the future, suddenly you enter into the present, and that is beyond time. And that is the beginning of god, of truth, the beginning of that which is.

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.…

You spoke of balance, the meeting point, the blending of opposites -- but it seems to be an invisible timeless point. Then how can it be known by me who is time?

That's why the word nirvana became most important in Buddhist terminology. It means cessation of a flame, total cessation of a flame. It remains because whatsoever is remains, but you cannot find it. Where will you find a flame which is no more? Individuality is lost, form is lost. Where will you find it? But can you say it is no more? It is, because how can a thing which was be no more? It disappeared, of course; became one with the formless, of course; became one with the whole, of course -- but it is. Now it exists as the whole. You have both the possibilities. You can live in time, then you live as mind. Mind is time because mind divides life into past, present, future. Mind is the dividing factor. It is a great analyst, the great dissector. It dissects everything. You can live life through the…