The fragrance of flowers cannot travel far. It is momentary, it is finite; it can go only so far and then it disappears. But the fragrance of buddhahood can travel to the very ends of the world because it is infinite, and it is something beyond time, beyond space. In fact, even when the body of a buddha is gone, the fragrance continues to travel.

Those who are really perceptive, sensitive, can catch hold of it even when a buddha has been gone for centuries. It is possible to be a contemporary of Buddha even now, to have a communion with Jesus even now. The flower is no more, but the fragrance has become part of the universe; the trees have it, the winds have it, the clouds have it. Now Jesus is not in the physical body, but Jesus has become universal. If you know how to drink out of the universal, if you know how to contact the universal, you will be surprised: all the buddhas become alive because they are all contemporary, time makes no difference.

That’s my whole effort here: to make you contemporaries of Jesus, of Buddha, of Zarathustra, of Lao Tzu. If you can be contemporaries of these awakened souls, what is the point of remaining contemporaries to your ordinary world and its ordinary citizens, the so-called human beings, who have nothing of humanity in them, who have not yet become beings, who are just hollow, empty, meaningless? What is the point of living in the neighborhood of empty cells when you can be a neighbor of Gautama the Buddha?

Yes, that is possible. It is possible by transcending time and space. And in meditation you transcend both. In meditation you don’t know where you are, you don’t know the time, you don’t know the space. In meditation, time and space both disappear; you simply are.

That moment, when you simply are, Buddha is just by your side; you are surrounded by buddhas of all the ages. You will be living for the first time a life worth living, a life of significance: when you can hold hands with buddhas and krishnas, when you can dance with Krishna and sing with Meera and sit with Kabir. It is possible because only the flowers have disappeared. The fragrance is eternal, it cannot disappear. And then all the scriptures become alive for you.