Time is irrelevant for love

"A buddha lives in the now; you live in time. Time means thinking of the past, thinking of the future. And while you are thinking of the past and of the future, the present is lost."

A single moment is not part of time. A single moment is not a process; a single moment is just now. Once you know how to enter a single moment with love, you have entered eternity: time is no more.

You are engaged with the future and the past, and the present is being lost - and the present is the only existence. The past is no more and the future has yet to be: they both are not, they are non-existential. This very moment, this single atomic moment, is the only existence - here and now.

A single moment is always - and it is always in the shape of now. Remember, there are not really two types of "nows." This single moment is the same; it doesn’t differ in any way from the moment that has gone before it, and it doesn’t differ in any way from the moment that is going to follow it.

This atomic now is always the same. Pure time remains the same; we go on passing.

Thinking needs time; living doesn’t need time. You cannot think in this very moment. In this very moment, if you want to be you will have to cease thinking, because thinking is basically concerned with either the past or the future. Of what can you think in the present? The moment you think, it has become the past.

A flower is there - you say this is a beautiful flower. This saying is now no more in the present; it has become the past. When you come to grasp something in thinking, it has become the past. In the present you can be, but you cannot think. You can be with the flower, but you cannot think about it. Thinking needs time.

So in another way, thinking is time. If you do not think, there is no time. That is why in meditation you feel a timelessness. That is why in love you feel a timelessness. Love is not thinking, it is a cessation of thought. You are! When you are with your beloved, you are not thinking about love, you are not thinking about the beloved. You are not thinking at all. And if you are thinking, then you are not with your beloved, you are somewhere else. Thinking means absence from the now... you are not there.

That is why those who are too much obsessed with thinking cannot love, because even when they are there, even if they reach to the original divine source, even if they meet God, they will go on thinking about him and they will miss him completely. You can go on thinking about and about and about, but it is never the fact.

The basic thing to be understood is not time, but now - how to be here and now in a state of love.

When do you feel hatred?
When you feel that your existence, your life, is in danger, when you feel that your existence can be annihilated, suddenly hate surges in you.When you feel that you can be destroyed, you start destroying others. That is a safety measure. It is just a part of you that is struggling for survival. Whenever you feel that your existence is in danger, you are filled with hatred.

So unless you come to feel that your existence cannot be in danger, that it is impossible to annihilate you, you cannot be filled with love. A Jesus can be in love because he knows something which is deathless. You cannot be in love because you know only that which belongs to death. And every moment death is there; every moment you are afraid. How can you love when you are afraid? Love cannot exist with fear. And fear is there, so you can only create a make-believe that you love.

And again, your love is really nothing but a safety measure. You love so that you will not fear. Whenever you believe that you are in love, you are less afraid. For the moment you can forget death. An illusion is created in which you can feel that you are accepted by the existence; you are not denied, rejected. That is why there is so much need of love and of being loved.

Whenever you are being loved by someone, you create around you an illusion that you are needed by the existence - at least by someone. You are needed by someone, so you are not just futile. You are not just accidental - you are needed somewhere. Without you the existence will miss something. That gives you a feeling of well-being. You feel a purpose, a destiny, a meaning, a worthiness.

When you are not loved by anyone you feel rejected, you feel denied, you feel meaningless. Then you feel there is no purpose, no destiny. If no one loves you and you die, there will be no feeling of your absence, it will not be felt that you are no more. No one will feel that you were, and now you are no more.

Love gives you the feeling of being needed. That is why in love one becomes or feels less afraid. Whenever love is not there you become more fearful, and in fear, as a protection, you become hateful. Hate is a protection. You are afraid of being destroyed; you become destructive.

In love, you feel that you are accepted, welcome – not an uninvited guest, but rather that you are invited, welcome, waited for, received, that the existence is happy that you are. The one who loves you becomes the representative of the whole existence. But this love is basically fear-based. You are protecting against fear, against death, against the inhuman indifference of existence.

Really, existence is indifferent - at least on the surface. The sun, the sea, the stars, the earth, they are totally indifferent to you; no one is worried about you. And it is apparently clear that you are not needed. Without you everything will be as good as it is with you; nothing will be lost. Look at the existence superficially: no one, nothing, cares about you. They may not even be aware of you. The stars are not aware of you; even the earth which you call Mother is not aware of you. And when you die, the earth will not be sad. Nothing will have changed; things will be as they are and as they always have been. With you or without you, there is no difference.

You feel you are just an accident. You were not needed; uninvited you have come... just a chance product. This creates fear. This is what Kierkegaard calls ”anguish.” There is a subtle continuous fear - you are not needed.

When someone loves you, you feel that a different dimension has come into existence. Now at least one person will be there who will weep, who will feel sorry, who will be sad. There will be tears; you will be needed. At least there will be one person who will always feel your absence if you are not. At least for one you have gained a destiny, a purpose.

That is why there is so much need of love. And if you are not loved, you are uprooted. But this love is not the love I am talking about. This is a relationship and a mutual creation of illusion - a mutual illusion: "I need you, you need me. I give you this illusion that without you my purpose, my meaning, my life will be lost; you give me this illusion that without me everything will be lost. So we both are helping each other to be in an illusion. We are creating one separate, private existence in which we become meaningful, in which the whole indifference of this vast space is forgotten."

I am not talking about this love. This is really illusory. It is a cultivated illusion, and man is so weak that he cannot live without this illusion. Those who can, they live without this illusion. A buddha can live without this illusion, and then he will not create it.

When it becomes possible to live illusion-lessly - to live without illusion – a second, a different dimension of love comes into being. It is not that one person needs you. It is coming to understand, to realize that you are not different from this existence which looks so indifferent. You are part of it, organically one with it. And if a tree is flowering, it is not separate from you. You have flowered in the tree and the tree has become conscious in you.

The sea and the sand and the stars, they are one with you. You are not an island, you are organically one with this universe. The whole universe is within you and the whole of you is in this universe. Unless you come to know it and feel it and realize it, you will not get that love which is a state of mind.

If you come to realize this, you will not need to create a private illusion that someone loves you. Then there is meaning, and if no one loves you, no meaning is lost. Then you are not afraid at all because even death will not annihilate you. It may annihilate the form, it may annihilate the body, but it cannot annihilate you because you are the existence.

This is what happens in meditation. This is for what meditation is meant. You come to feel, "Existence and I are one." Then you are welcomed, and there is no fear and there is no death. Then love flows from you. Then love is not an effort - you cannot do anything except love. Then it is like breathing. Deep inside you breathe love; in and out you breathe love.

This love grows into devotion. Then ultimately you will even forget, it just as you forget your breathing. When do you remember your breathing? Have you observed? You remember only when something is wrong. When you feel any difficulty, then you know that you have been breathing; otherwise there is no need even to be aware of it. And if you are aware of your breathing, that shows that something is wrong with your breathing process. There is no need of being aware of the breathing process. Silently it goes on.

So when you are aware of your love, the love that is a state of mind, it means that something is still wrong. By and by even that awareness is lost. You simply breathe love in and out. You have forgotten everything, even that you love. Then it has become devotion. That is the ultimate peak, the ultimate possibility - you may call it anything.

Unless you move into meditation. Unless you come to know the deathless within, unless you come to know a deep unity between the inner and the outer, unless you feel that you are existence, it will be difficult to go beyond relationship,

Do not think of time at all, time is irrelevant for love.

[Osho]