Bliss is Always Now

 

Photo Credit: Spiritual Journey of Foal

Bliss is Always Now

Bliss is never then; it is always now. Bliss is never there; it is always here. Bliss knows only one space: the space that is created around the here, and knows only one time: that is created around now. If you think in terms of then and there you will remain miserable; that is the way of misery. And people are miserable because they go on living somewhere else. The present is the only time to live and to be. So, start being more and more in the present.

That’s what meditation is. Because thoughts take us astray, meditation techniques say drop thinking. The moment we drop thinking we cannot go anywhere. To go anywhere we have to ride on a thought. If we want to go into the past, we will need a horse to ride - the horse of memory. If we want to go into the future, we will need another horse; the horse called imagination. But they are all thought-horses. Once we drop thinking we cannot move even an inch; there is no way to move. In that unmoving movement is the point called now. Now is eternity; it is not part of time.

Time is thought to consist of three things - past, present and future. In fact, it consists only of two; past and future. Present is not part of time; it is timelessness. It never comes, never goes - it is always there. Only we go on moving, shunting between past and future, and the present is always here. But we cannot stop, we are like a pendulum: it goes from one extreme to the other extreme and then gathers momentum to go to the other extreme; it never stops in the middle.

To stop in the middle is meditation, neither going this way nor that, not going at all. When one is not going anywhere, not even going into meditation, not going at all, one is in meditation. That stillness, that utter silence, that immenseness, that eternity, is called ida according to Osho.

Sometimes when we watch a sunrise or a sunset, or when we are watching the waves of the ocean wash ashore, sitting in a forest listening to the sounds of nature, or just watching the night sky – that’s when it happens, time stands still as we go into a different timeless world where there is no movement, all is still and quiet. And sometimes when one is deeply in love one reaches there. That’s why love has such appeal, because it gives one a few moments of now.

Cherish those moments, nourish those moments, and create occasions for them to occur. They cannot be brought directly but we can create occasions. All religions are nothing but occasions to create those moments. For example, if it happens always in the early morning when the sun is rising, the air is pure, the world is still, silent, the birds are singing and the earth is awakening — if it happens in that moment, then make it a point not to lose that moment.

Just watch and see when it happens naturally. Then those are occasions which can be created. We cannot directly bring that moment but indirectly we can persuade the moment to happen.