HERE n NOW !

The ordinary mind hankers to be extraordinary, that is part of ordinariness; the ordinary mind desires to be somebody in particular, that is part of ordinariness. You may become an Alexander, but you remain ordinary -- then who is the extraordinary one? The extraordinariness starts only when you don't hanker after extraordinariness. Then the journey has started, then a new seed has sprouted.

Once a man asked a miser, a great miser, "How did you succeed in accumulating so much wealth?"

The miser said, "This is my motto: whatsoever is to be done tomorrow should be done today, and whatsoever is to be enjoyed today should be enjoyed tomorrow. This has been my motto." He succeeded in accumulating wealth -- and this is how people succeed in accumulating nonsense also!

That miser was also miserable. On one hand he had succeeded in accumulating wealth, on the other hand he had succeeded in accumulating misery. And the motto is the same for accumulating money as it is for accumulating misery: whatsoever is to be done tomorrow do it today, right now, don't postpone it. And whatsoever can be enjoyed right now, never enjoy it right now, postpone it for tomorrow.

This is the way to enter hell. It always succeeds, it has never been a failure. Try it and you will succeed -- or, you may have already succeeded. You may have been trying it without knowing. Postpone all that which can be enjoyed, just think of the tomorrow.

Jesus was crucified for this reason, not for any other reason. Not that they were against Jesus -- Jesus was a perfect man, a beautiful man, why should the Jews have been against him? Rather, on the contrary, they had been waiting for this man. For centuries they had been hoping and waiting: When will the messiah come?

And then suddenly this Jesus declared, "I am the messiah for whom you have been waiting, and I have come now. Now look at me."

They were disturbed -- because the mind can wait, it always enjoys waiting, but the mind cannot face the fact, the mind cannot encounter this moment. It can always postpone, it was easy to postpone: The messiah is to come, soon he will be coming.... For centuries the Jews had been thinking and postponing and then suddenly this man destroyed all hope, because he said, "I am here." The mind was disturbed. They had to kill this man, otherwise they would not have been able to live with the hope of the tomorrow.

And not only Jesus, many others have declared since then, "I am here, I am the messiah!" And Jews always deny, because if they don't deny, then how will they be able to hope and how will they be able to postpone? They have lived with this hope with such fervor, with such deep intensity, you can hardly believe it. There have been Jews who would go to bed at night hoping that this would be the last night, that in the morning the messiah would be there....

They have been waiting and waiting, dreaming. The whole Jewish mind has been obsessed with the coming messiah. But whenever the messiah comes, they immediately deny him. This has to be understood. This is how the mind functions: you wait for the bliss, for the ecstasy, and whenever it comes you deny it, you just turn your back towards it.

Mind can live in the future, but cannot live in the present. In the present you can simply hope and desire. And that's how you create misery. If you start living this very moment, here and now, misery disappears.

They have been waiting and waiting, dreaming. The whole Jewish mind has been obsessed with the coming messiah. But whenever the messiah comes, they immediately deny him. This has to be understood. This is how the mind functions: you wait for the bliss, for the ecstasy, and whenever it comes you deny it, you just turn your back towards it.

Mind can live in the future, but cannot live in the present. In the present you can simply hope and desire. And that's how you create misery. If you start living this very moment, here and now, misery disappears.

They have been waiting and waiting, dreaming. The whole Jewish mind has been obsessed with the coming messiah. But whenever the messiah comes, they immediately deny him. This has to be understood. This is how the mind functions: you wait for the bliss, for the ecstasy, and whenever it comes you deny it, you just turn your back towards it.

Mind can live in the future, but cannot live in the present. In the present you can simply hope and desire. And that's how you create misery. If you start living this very moment, here and now, misery disappears.

They have been waiting and waiting, dreaming. The whole Jewish mind has been obsessed with the coming messiah. But whenever the messiah comes, they immediately deny him. This has to be understood. This is how the mind functions: you wait for the bliss, for the ecstasy, and whenever it comes you deny it, you just turn your back towards it.

Mind can live in the future, but cannot live in the present. In the present you can simply hope and desire. And that's how you create misery. If you start living this very moment, here and now, misery disappears.

They have been waiting and waiting, dreaming. The whole Jewish mind has been obsessed with the coming messiah. But whenever the messiah comes, they immediately deny him. This has to be understood. This is how the mind functions: you wait for the bliss, for the ecstasy, and whenever it comes you deny it, you just turn your back towards it.

Mind can live in the future, but cannot live in the present. In the present you can simply hope and desire. And that's how you create misery. If you start living this very moment, here and now, misery disappears.

But how is it related to the ego? Ego is the past accumulated. Whatsoever you have known, experienced, read, whatsoever has happened to you in the past, the whole is accumulated there. That whole past is the ego, it is you.

The past can project into the future -- the future is nothing but the past extended -- but the past cannot face the present. The present is totally different, it has a quality of being here and now. The past is always dead, the present is life, the very source of all aliveness. The past cannot face the present so it moves into the future -- but both are dead, both are nonexistential. The present is life; the future cannot encounter the present, nor can the past encounter the present. And your ego, your somebodiness, is your past. Unless you are empty you cannot be here, and unless you are here you cannot be alive.

----------------- extracted from The Empty Boat....... by  OSHO .