The chronological time is fixed, it has to be fixed, because it is a social necessity; but the psychological time is fluid, it is not so solid, because each person has his own psychology, his own mind. Have you watched? When you are happy, time goes fast. Your clock will not go fast; the clock has nothing to do with you. It moves at its own pace – in sixty seconds it moves one minute, in sixty minutes it moves one hour. It will continue; whether you are happy or unhappy doesn’t matter. If you are unhappy your mind will be in a different time; if you are happy your mind will be in a different time. If suddenly your beloved comes, unexpectedly knocks at the door, time will almost stop. Hours will pass – you may not be doing anything, just holding hands and sitting and looking at the moon – hours will pass, and it will look as if only minutes have passed. Time goes very, very fast when you are happy. When you are unhappy – somebody has died, somebody you loved, death has happened – then time goes very, very, very slowly.

Just the other night Meera came. Her husband died a few months before. She had come to see me after the death, and I had told her don’t be worried, the wound will heal. It will take a little time, almost three months. But those three months were just an average because it will depend on the person. Now she came last night again and she said, “Now five months have passed and the pain is still there. Of course it is less, but it is still there, it has not gone; and you had said that within three months it will go.” I know. Sometimes it will take one year, sometimes it will take six months, sometimes it may not even take three months, three days will do. It is not chronological; it is psychological. It depends on you, on the relationship, what type of relationship existed between you and your husband.

And I know the relationship was not good. That’s why the wound will heal and it will take a long time. This will look paradoxical, but this is how it is. If you have loved a man and he dies, you will feel sad, but you will recover – soon. There will be no wound. You loved the man; nothing is incomplete. But between Meera and her husband the relationship was not good; for years they were almost separate. She wanted to love but could not love. She wanted to be with him but could not be. Now the husband is gone, and her whole hope to be with him is gone with him.

She hankered, she desired, she wanted, and it couldn’t happen. Now the man is gone; now there is no possibility. Now her aloneness is sealed, now there is no way to love this man. He was alive, she could not love, there were problems between them; now the man is gone, so there is no possibility. Now this wound is going to heal very slowly – very, very slowly. And even when it is healed there will remain a certain sadness around it forever.

Anything incomplete is very difficult to drop. Complete things ripen and fall on their own accord. When a fruit is ripe it falls. Of course the tree feels for a few seconds something is missing, and then it forgets. Finished, because ripe fruits have to fall. Everybody has to die. You loved while the man was alive – and you loved tremendously and totally. You are almost fulfilled; you cannot ask for more. As it was, it was already too much. You are grateful that existence gave you that much time. It could have taken the man a little earlier, but it gave you enough time, and you loved and you loved. In love even a single moment becomes eternity. You are so happy time stops. A small life becomes very, very infinite. But that has not happened, so I can understand Meera’s misery.