by Osho: The mind is always either in the past or in the future. It cannot be in the present, it is absolutely impossible for the mind to be in the present. When you are in the present, the mind is there no more because mind means thinking. How can you think in the present? You can think about the past; it has already become part of the memory, the mind can work it out. You can think about the future; it is not yet there, the mind can dream about it.

Mind can do two things: either it can move into the past; there is space enough to move, the vast space of the past — you can go on and on and on. Or the mind can move into the future; again vast space, no end to it — you can imagine and imagine and dream. But how can mind function in the present? It has no space for the mind to make any movement.

The present is just a dividing line, that’s all. It has no space. It divides the past and the future; just a dividing line. You can be in the present but you cannot think; for thinking, space is needed. Thoughts need space, they are just like things — remember it. Thoughts are subtle things, they are material; thoughts are not spiritual, because the dimension of the spiritual starts only when there are no thoughts. Thoughts are material things, very subtle, and every material thing needs space. You cannot be thinking in the present; the moment you start thinking it is already the past.

You see the sun is rising; you see and you say, “What a beautiful sunrise!” — it is already the past. When the sun is rising there is not even space enough to say, “How beautiful!”

because when you say these two words “How beautiful!” the experience has already become past, the mind already knows it in the memory. But exactly when the sun is rising, exactly when the sun is on the rise, how can you think? What can you think? You can be with the rising sun, but you cannot think. For you there is enough space, but not for thoughts.

A beautiful flower in the garden and you say, “A beautiful rose”; now you are not with this rose this moment; it is already a memory. When the flower is there and you are there, both present to each other, how can you think? What can you think? How is thinking possible? There is no space for it. The space is so narrow — in fact there is no space at all — that you and the flower cannot even exist as two because there is not enough space for two, only one can exist.

That’s why in a deep presence you are the flower and the flower has become you. You are also a thought — the flower is also a thought in the mind. When there is no thinking, who is the flower and who is the one who is observing? The observer becomes the observed. Suddenly boundaries are lost. Suddenly you have penetrated, penetrated into the flower and the flower has penetrated into you. Suddenly you are not two — one exists.

If you start thinking, you have become two again. If you don’t think, where is the duality? When you exist with the flower, not thinking, it is a dialogue, not a duologue but a dialogue. When you exist with your lover it is a dialogue, not a duologue, because the two are not there. Sitting by the side of your lover, holding the hand of your beloved, you simply exist. You don’t think of the days past, gone; you don’t think of the future reaching, coming — you are here, now. And it is so beautiful to be here and now, and so intense; no thought can penetrate this intensity. And narrow is the gate, narrow is the gate of the present. Not even two can enter into it together, only one. In the present, thinking is not possible, dreaming is not possible, because dreaming is nothing but thinking in pictures. Both are things, both are material.

When you are in the present without thinking, you are for the first time spiritual. A new dimension opens — that dimension is awareness. Because you have not known that dimension Heraclitus will say you are asleep, you are not aware. Awareness means to be in the moment so totally that there is no movement toward the past, no movement toward the future — all movement stops. That doesn’t mean that you become static. A new movement starts, a movement in depth.

There are two types of movement. And that is the meaning of Jesus’ cross: it shows two movements, a crossroads. One movement is linear: you move in a line, from one thing to another, from one thought to another, from one dream to another dream; from A you move to B, from B you move to C, from C you move to D. This way you move — in a line, horizontal.

This is the movement of time; this is the movement of one who is fast asleep. You can go like a shuttle, back and forth — the line is there. You can come from B to A, or you can go from A to B — the line is there. There is another movement which is in a totally different dimension. That movement is not horizontal, it is vertical. You don’t go from A to B, from B to C; you go from A to a deeper A: from A1 to A2, A3, 4, in depth — or in height.

When thinking stops, the new movement starts. Now you fall into depth, in an abyss-like phenomenon. People who are meditating deeply, they come to that point sooner or later; then they become afraid because they feel as if an abyss has opened — bottomless, you feel dizzy, you become afraid. You would like to cling to the old movement because it was known; this feels like death. That is the meaning of Jesus’ cross: it is a death. Going from the horizontal to the vertical is death — that is the real death.

But it is death only from one side; on the other side it is resurrection. It is dying, to be born; it is dying from one dimension to be born in another dimension. Horizontal you are Jesus, vertical you become Christ. If you move from one thought to another you remain in the world of time. If you move into the moment, not into thought, you move into eternity; you are not static — nothing is static in this world, nothing can be static — but a new movement, a movement without motivation.

Remember these words. On the horizontal line you move because of motivation. You have to achieve something — money, prestige, power, or God, but you have to achieve something; a motivation is there. A motivated movement means sleep.

An unmotivated movement means awareness — you move because to move is sheer joy, you move because movement is life, you move because life is energy and energy is movement. You move because energy is delight — not for anything else. There is no goal to it, you are not after some achievement. In fact you are not going anywhere, you are not going at all — you are simply delighting in the energy. There is no goal outside the movement; movement has its own intrinsic value, no extrinsic value. A Buddha also lives, a Heraclitus lives, I am here living, breathing — but a different type of movement… unmotivated.

Somebody was asking me a few days ago, “Why do you help people in meditation?”

I told him, “This is my delight. There is no why to it — I simply enjoy.” Just like a person enjoys planting seeds in the garden, waiting for the flowers, when you flower I enjoy. It is a gardening. When somebody flowers it is a sheer delight. And I share. There is no goal to it. If you fail, I am not going to be frustrated. If you don’t flower, that too is okay, because flowering cannot be forced. You cannot open a bud forcibly — you can, but then you kill it. It may look like a flowering; it is not a flowering.

The whole world moves, existence moves, into eternity; mind moves in time. Existence is moving into the depth and the height, and mind moves backwards and forwards. Mind moves horizontally: that is sleep. If you can move vertically, that is awareness.

Be in the moment. Bring your total being in the moment. Don’t allow the past to interfere, and don’t allow the future to come in. The past is no more, it is dead. And as Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their dead.” The past is no more! Why are you worried about it? Why do you go on chewing it again and again and again? Are you mad? It is no more; it is just in your mind, it is just a memory. The future is not yet. What are you doing thinking about the future? That which is not yet, how can you think about it? What can you plan about it? Whatsoever you do about it is not going to happen, and then you will be frustrated, because the whole has its own plan. Why do you try to have your own plans against it?

Source – Osho Book “The Hidden Harmony”