Impermanence

Osho, does the awareness of impermanence itself become the art of living moment to moment?

Certainly! As you awaken and see that, except for this one moment, you have no other in your hand—no one has two moments together. One moment comes and goes; then another comes—only one moment is in your hand. The whole art of life is how to live this one moment. How this single moment can become your whole life. How to descend so deeply into this one moment that it feels eternal and timeless. Moving from one moment to the next is the ordinary way of living. Diving into the depth of a moment is the extraordinary way. The worldly way means: sacrifice this moment for the next, and then sacrifice that for yet another. Offer today to tomorrow, and tomorrow again to the day after. Worldly life is a continual postponement. The life of sannyas is: live this moment totally, with a sense of supreme grace. The Divine has…

Osho, does living moment-to-moment begin the awareness of interdependence?

You have heard of Baital Pachisi (the Vetala tales). You would never suppose it could be a teaching for the wise—yet this land has made unique experiments. It has produced books that can be read on many levels, with layer upon layer of meaning—two, three, four, five meanings running parallel like five roads side by side. Thus whoever you are, there is a way. A small child enjoys it; the supreme knower enjoys it. The seeker finds the path; the arrived recognizes the destination. For one who is neither, it is a diversion—that too is something, a little entertainment. The first story goes like this. Emperor Vikramaditya was in court when a fakir arrived. As custom had it, people came in the morning to offer gifts. The fakir offered a wild-looking fruit. The emperor smiled—why come so far to offer a jungle fruit? But a fakir has nothing else, so…

So whatsoever happens.... Sometimes you forget -- what can you do? There is no point in crying for the spilled milk. That which is gone is gone. If one moment has passed and you were not aware, and later you became alert that this moment has gone and you were not aware, don't waste any moment for it now, because this other moment is passing by. Just be aware of it. And why ask for permanence? One person never gets two mo-ments together. You always get one moment. When that one is gone, another is supplied. So if you can remain alert in one single moment -- enough! Whatsoever time will be coming in front of you, your torch of awareness will be there.

Osho, you often say we should be aware only of the present. But along with that, would you also say that while remaining aware we should not worry about the future? Do you want to exclude it altogether—are you advocating its total banishment?

In truth, my emphasis is on living, not on thinking. And one can live only in the present; you cannot live in the future. My emphasis is on living—just as my emphasis is on eating food. Now if someone says to me, “Shall we eat tomorrow’s bread—do you object?” I would say, first of all, you cannot eat the bread of the future; you can only dream about it. And the great danger in dreaming is that today’s bread may be missed. The real danger of dreaming is this: if you are busy eating the bread of the future, who will eat the bread of the present? And the present does not stop for you even for a moment. Whether you are present or not, it keeps rushing on. You are there or you are not—still the present does not wait. It does not stop for you; it goes on.…