Osho – Ananda means bliss, ida means 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 falling more and more into the present.
That’s what meditation is. Because thoughts take you astray, meditation techniques say to drop thinking. The moment you drop thinking you cannot go anywhere. To go anywhere you have to ride on a thought. If you want to go into the past, you will need a horse to ride: the horse of memory. If you want to go into the future, you will need another horse; the horse called imagination. But they are all thought-horses. Once you drop thinking you 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 is called ida; it is one of the most beautiful words. That utter silence is called ida; that immenseness, that eternity, is called ida.
Sometimes it happens unawares: seeing a sunset you are in it. Deep in love, sometimes it happens that you are in it. Lovers tend to forget time. They tend to enter a different kind of world where there is no movement, all is still and quiet, not even a stir, not even a wave. And sometimes in deep love you are there. That is the reason why love has such appeal, because it gives you a few moments of now; that is the only natural way. That’s why beauty has appeal, because when you are fascinated by beauty — a flower, a woman, a man, a child, a star — suddenly time stops. You are so fascinated by it that you forget thinking; for a moment you stop in the middle and the clock of time stops.
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. You cannot directly bring that moment but indirectly you can persuade the moment to happen.
For example, when you sit in a closed room with incense burning and it happens, then that is just an occasion. That’s how religions discovered prayers, techniques for meditation. Those were all discovered just as occasions. There is no guarantee that when you bum incense before a buddha it is going to happen. There is no guarantee, but there is slightly more possibility, that’s all, just slightly more possibility. When you bow down to Jesus, slightly more possibility. When you are in a church or in a temple or in a mosque, slightly more possibility — because the church and the mosque and the temple are no ordinary things like the shop, the restaurant, the cinema hall and the house, where there are so many associations.
When you move in a temple you move out of your ordinary mundane relationships, associations, and there is more of a possibility of seeing the cross and the crucified Jesus or a Buddha statue sitting silently, of feeling the silence of the temple, the purity, the cleanliness and the incense. They all help just as occasions.
I am also just an occasion. Sannyas is an occasion. There is no guarantee that by becoming a sannyasin you will attain, but it is slightly more possible. Just looking into my eyes there is some possibility; it is an occasion. Just feeling me, being here with me, being in this commune of orange people, things lean a little more towards that happening, that’s all. But that is much, it is not small. That will make all the difference.
Source – Osho Book “The Sun behind the Sun behind the Sun”