oshobob  The Living Workshop                                
Osho Books—Darshan Diaries
Nirvana: Now or Never
Darshan Diary
by Osho
individual talks with seekers   Feb. 1981
Pune, India
this volume has yet to be
published in book form.

    Swami Anand Peter. Anand means bliss. Peter literally
    means a rock, but symbolically it means eternity. The
    rock represents the unchanging element.

    Ordinarily everything is changing, constantly -- even
    rocks are changing. So it is only a metaphor, but it has
    great significance. Man can live either in time or in
    eternity. Both alternatives are open because there is
    nothing like destiny, nothing like fate. Man is freedom:
    he comes without a fate.

    The future is open, always open; it is not determined
    when you are born -- each act determines it. In each act
    is your choice, and each step you can change the very
    direction of your life. Millions of people live in time, for
    the simple reason that they are born in a crowd which
    knows nothing of eternity. Their parents have lived in
    time, their teachers have lived in time, their leaders
    have lived in time, the whole society around them lives
    in time, between birth and death; hence every child
    starts imitating. That's the way the child learns, but
    that's also how he becomes conditioned.

    It is a rare phenomenon to get out of the rut of time,
    only a few people have managed up to now. Not even
    all the names which are thought to have escaped, not
    all the so-called saints and mahatmas and sages, not
    more than one per cent of your so-called saints, have
    been able to escape from the prison of time.

    Although it creates much misery its walls are very
    invisible; hence there is a desire and longing to get rid
    of the misery, but you need great intelligence to see
    that the misery is bound to be there if you choose time
    as your lifestyle. Time means change -- and when
    everything is changing you cannot cling to anything,
    you don't have any support, no security...

                                                                  – Osho
                                             Nirvana: Now or Never, ch. 1