According to Osho, living in the past—whether replaying wounds or savoring old joys—disconnects you from the only reality there is: the present. Past is memory, future imagination; roots and flowers grow only here-now. Re-living pain doesn’t strengthen, and reminiscing doesn’t bring happiness. Real bliss arises by inhabiting each moment totally, squeezing its full juice, so life becomes ever richer, moment by moment.
Don’t dwell on old hurts or glories; pay full attention to what’s happening now, and joy will naturally grow.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, why shouldn't we live in the past? Cannot reliving one's pain make one stronger? Cannot rejoicing one's happy moments bring happiness?
The people who live in the past, who remember the happy moments of the past, are the people who are miserable in the present. If your present is more blissful than all the moments of your past, why should you live in those past moments? They are just memory, they have no reality. Past is past. The real is the present. If you want real bliss, you have to live in the present. Your roots are not in the past. The past is only memory and the future is only imagination -- and roots cannot exist in memories and imagination. Roots are always in the present. Everything real is always in the present. In fact, the very idea of dividing time into three tenses -- past, present and future -- is wrong. Time knows only one tense and that is present. Knowing knows two tenses, past and future. And there…
Osho, you have earlier said, “Live moment to moment, live in the present.” Now you are saying, “Return to the past.” What should we do?
So it is with the mind—there are ruts. The past means endless grooves. However much you understand, your intellect agrees, you make decisions, you resolve—at the moment of resolve you feel something is going to change. But not even an hour passes before your decision breaks. Then only self-condemnation is produced, nothing else. Your saints, your fakirs, your priests and pundits—most of the time they only succeed in producing self-condemnation in you, nothing else. Their words are logically correct. You cannot even say they are wrong; you have to admit they are right. In that admission you take a decision. But against what are you deciding? Inside are grooves carved since who knows when, deep tracks. Walking in them has become a habit. It is easy to walk in them. They will pull you again and again. The meaning of returning into the past is: these grooves must be erased.…
Osho, why can I not forget my past? Even though in my past there is nothing but suffering.
Perhaps for precisely that reason. Man keeps scratching at his sorrows to remember them—because there is a certain pleasure in suffering. You will be surprised. You will say, “Pleasure in suffering? What kind of pleasure?” There is a pleasure in suffering: suffering is the food of the ego. In a state of bliss the ego dissolves; in a state of suffering the ego becomes very dense. People have not chosen suffering for nothing; they have chosen it cleverly, knowingly. People are not miserable by accident; they are miserable because only in suffering does the ego survive. “I am somebody!”—this remains only in pain. The moment a wave of bliss comes, you are swept away; the ego cannot remain. So people talk about bliss, but they do not want to be blissful; they are afraid. If they become blissful, this sense of “I” will not survive. That is why all the…
Osho, I keep turning back to look at the past. It’s futile, yet the habit doesn’t drop. What could be the reason?
Even to a dry tree the vine clings. Support! No other support seems visible. Ahead, only darkness; within, only darkness. The one bright thing seems to be the line of the past along which you have come—this path that is over, that will never be again, that has already happened. You sit arranging these preserved blossoms, these dried flowers. You cling to them. The creeper has twined round a lifeless tree— how much the past coddles the unborn It’s all dead, a corpse. Sometimes it happens: a she-monkey goes on carrying her baby pressed to her chest. Even when the baby dies, she keeps carrying it. It takes days—only when it rots and starts to stink does she drop it in a fright. Otherwise she goes on clutching the corpse—old habit. The past is a corpse—gone, done. Dust. Ash; the ember is out. Don’t keep lying on this ash, don’t…
Osho, what insights allow us to drop the past and not repress it?
And that happens to individuals, that happens to countries, to societies, to nations too. For example, a young country like America thinks of the future; its golden age is yet to come. A country like India, very ancient, old, thinks of the past; its golden age has passed. In the days of Rama it has been; it is already a gone thing. It is simply an indication that the country is very very old and cannot conceive any future. In the future is death. But to be a child is to miss; and to be old is to miss. The meditator is exactly in the middle: he has something of eternal youth in him. You will be surprised to know that in the East we have never depicted any enlightened person old; we have always depicted them young. You have not seen any picture of Buddha as old, or Mahavira,…