Patience is the way of existence

Question 1:

Uttama, it is one of the significant things to understand that unless you attain the ultimate, the feeling of something missing is going to remain with you. And this feeling is not against you; this feeling is a kind of reminding you that you have not reached yet, that you have to go on and on.

Don't take the feeling of missing as negative; it is healthy and positive. It shows that you are aware of where you are and you are also sensitive to where you should be, and between the two, the gap is the feeling of missing.

I would like to read your question: "I keep going where you are and can't move away."

I have been aware of it. For the whole year I have been moving from one place to another place and you have remained constantly moving with me. It is not just attachment with me -- it is something more. It is not a question of being with me: it is a question of being in the same state of being as I am.

You don't want to miss any opportunity, any single moment. And one never knows -- your time may come and you may be far away from me.

Still something is missing. It will go on missing for a little time more. You are growing, but to reach to the flowers, to reach to the fruits, it takes a long time to grow. And spiritual growth is not like seasonal flowers; they come within weeks and they are gone.

The spiritual growth is of the eternal: once it comes, it remains -- remains forever.

Naturally, compared to eternity our time scale is very small. A few days pass or, a few months or a few years; we start feeling, is there something wrong? Am I doing right?

And these are natural feelings. But I have been watching you. Nothing is wrong, everything is as it should be. You are silently growing. All growth is silent, it makes no noise. And suddenly one day... the flowers appear.

Just by the side of Chuang Tzu hall there were no flowers three days ago. Then one day the storm came and the rains came, and in the morning suddenly there were beautiful sunflowers -- just in one night. I had seen the place; in the evening there were no flowers, in the morning there were flowers.

It takes time for the growth, but when the right moment comes it is an explosion.

Suddenly, all over, is the spring. And it is good that until it happens you go on feeling that something is missing. You should not forget for a single moment that something is missing. That will be dangerous.

Millions of people have forgotten it completely. They are absolutely content and feeling that all that they need they have -- nothing is missing. They are the poorest people in the world. They don't have a longing for higher reaches, they don't want to climb mountains, they don't want to go to the stars -- in their dark caves they are perfectly comfortable.

One should have compassion for them. Their contentment is their spiritual death.

You need a spiritual discontentment which constantly moves you, like an arrow, towards faraway goals.

"At the junction of two paths, the inner one and the outer one, with tears in his eyes, the stubborn donkey is starving. The outer path does not attract him much anymore, and when it does the hope is quickly smashed. Seeing your finger pointing to the moon, still he is not going very much on the inner path."

The inner growth is very still and very silent.

You cannot hear your own footsteps.

You only become aware when you reach a certain stage. And it is a surprise because all the time you were thinking nothing is happening... suddenly, the flowers have come. This is what I mean by patience.

To grow cedars of Lebanon one needs great patience. They are not seasonal flowers and you cannot see the growth. It is happening every moment, all these trees are growing every moment. But existence functions very silently.

You are growing, and even you cannot be aware of it unless something totally new happens and makes you aware that you have reached some space that was unknown to you. And that can happen any moment.

On your part great patience is needed, and a trust that the whole existence is in support of all those who are trying to grow spiritually. It is not you who are trying to grow spiritually; it is existence who, through you, is trying to reach to its utmost heights.

"I do not quite know how to speak to him. Disgusted with tunafish sandwiches, he became accustomed to starvation. Is this just fear, laziness, impatience? Does he just need a juicy joke?"

It is a combination of many things. Fear is always there, and will remain until you come to know that there is no death. Fear is the shadow of death. When death disappears the shadow disappears.

There is impatience, but you have to use your impatience not against your growth, but in favor of it. Be impatiently very patient. Your impatience should only show your longing.

It should not be against your patience; it should be simply a tremendous desire of your being to crystallize, to reach somewhere where life becomes meaningful, blissful, where fear disappears, death disappears, where one becomes acquainted with one's own immortality.

And it is not laziness. It appears so, because you don't see every day new spaces; it almost seems as if you are standing, not moving. In the inner journey this has been felt by many many people, by almost everybody. And the reason is the nature of movement.

You are sitting in a train and the train is moving; how do you know that the train is moving? Because you cannot see the wheels; the only idea that the train is moving is given to you by the trees and the houses and the stations that are passing by on both sides.

They are going in the opposite direction; the faster they are going, the faster you feel your train is moving.

Just for a moment imagine that your train is moving in a place where there is nothing on either side, you cannot see anything that is moving backwards. Will you feel that your train is moving? For example if the train is moving in the sky -- no trees, no houses, no stations -- you will not be able to feel the movement of the train. This is the reason why we cannot feel the movement of the earth. It is moving faster than any train, but there is nothing against which you can feel its movement.

In the inner journey this is the problem. You are alone. There are no trees, no stations, no houses; it is just like the sky. How can you feel if there is any movement happening or not? One becomes aware of the movement only when one comes to certain definite spaces which are different from those with which he is acquainted. Then suddenly one realizes that one has moved very fast. In fact, even if in many lives you can achieve enlightenment, it is too early. But I am saying you can achieve it now; all that is needed is that you don't look at things negatively.

Our mind is a very negative phenomenon. Relaxation it will call laziness, deep longing it will call impatience. Always remember mind is negative. It does not know how to say yes. And that is the meaning of trust: saying yes.

You are in a perfectly good situation, Uttama. Say yes to it, and say yes as deeply and as totally as possible. And any negative thing that mind brings, change it into the positive. It says it is laziness. Tell it, it is not; it is relaxation, it is restfulness. It says it is impatience.

Tell it, it is not; it is a great longing, a great passion to realize oneself, to realize one's treasures -- not to die without realizing oneself.

And you are asking, "Does he just need a juicy joke?"

That I can do! Whenever it needs any juicy joke, you bring your donkey to me.

Patrick's wife lived way out in the country and was taken ill one day, shortly before her child was due. It was quite dark when the doctor arrived and he asked, "Where is the little lady?"

Patrick: "She is over there in the barn where she collapsed." With Patrick holding the lamp the doctor set about his job.

"Patrick, you are the proud father of a little boy."

Patrick said, "Doctor, we will have a drink."

"Just a minute, hold the light a little closer. You are the father of two!"

"We will open a bottle," said Patrick.

"Wait!" said the doctor. "Hold the light a little closer. You are the father of three."

"And sure it is going to be a celebration and all," said Patrick.

"Just a minute," said the doctor, "hold the light a little closer."

"I don't want to be difficult, doctor," said Patrick, "but do you think this bloody light is attracting them?"

Children go on coming as the light is coming closer....

Uttama, remain joyous, wait with great love. Everything takes its own time, impatience makes no sense. Patience is the way of existence. Remain relaxed, because the more excited you become the farther away is the goal. The experience is going to happen only when you are utterly silent, just a pool of silence... your whole energy so relaxed, as if it is absent.

When you have become just a zero you become a womb. And out of this nothingness is born your original, your authentic reality.

Question 2:

Prem Veena, it is something intrinsic to love that it always feels it is not enough. Only a small love feels enough. The greater the love, the more you are aware of the feeling that "I don't love enough." That is one of the signs of a great love.

If somebody comes and says to me, "I love you very much -- I love you totally," then his love is certainly going to be very small. Otherwise to love totally is a tremendous phenomenon; it will change you entirely.

So there is no need to be worried that your love is not enough. You want to love more, and if your love is great it will never be enough; it will always be something less than you wanted it to be.

And the same is true about appreciation. You say, "I don't appreciate you enough, am not open enough." Just a little appreciation and just a little opening is enough for my purposes. I can sneak in from any small opening! One thing is certain -- you are not a China wall.

I can understand. You have been long enough with me and it is natural to expect.... But you don't know how much you have changed. I remember exactly, photographically, the day you came to me. You had not come for yourself, you had come for a totally different reason. You had brought a young man; you had come for him.

He was a complete crackpot; he wanted to live only on water. And because in one of my lectures I had mentioned that I know a man who has lived for many years only on water, you brought that young man -- because he was moving from place to place, enquiring for somebody who can teach him the art of how to live on water.

You had not said a single word about yourself. You were only concerned that somehow either he drops this idea or he finds some way -- it had become a torture. There are ways people can live... but they need years of training, and they lead nowhere. What is the point? Even if you can live only on water that does not make you spiritual; that does not bring liberation to your being. And it takes fifteen to twenty years' long training to come to the point where you can drop all food, and just air and water are enough for you.

So I told the man, "It is possible and I can give you the address. But if you want my advice I would say don't go there because that man is cracked. You are only half cracked right now; there is still time to come back. What are you going to gain? Why are you obsessed with the idea?" The obsession was that if you live only on pure water and air, you become physically immortal.

I said, "That is nonsense! Many people have lived on water and air and none of them are alive; not a single one has become immortal. If you really want to become immortal, I can show you the way; because it is not a question of becoming immortal, it is a question of discovering. You are immortal already -- you are just not aware. Awareness has to be brought..." and just as I was talking to the man about awareness and meditation -- he was not interested; he disappeared, he never came again.

But Veena was caught. That was accidental! Since then she has been doing meditation, sometimes successfully, and whenever you succeed in meditation there are moments of failure; there are days and there are nights.

Naturally, after so many years, fifteen or sixteen years, she feels like "I'm trundling along in a creaky old bullock cart, while you are flying by in all your beauty and grace and vastness."

You should be happy, at least you have a creaky old bullock cart! There are millions who don't have even that. And if it is too creaky just ask some Italian sannyasin to make it a little greasy. Sarjano can do it. And to make a flying bullock cart will be a great joy and a miracle -- just take a little care with the bullock cart. Anyway it is moving. Or perhaps you would like it to go on being creaky because that gives you the idea that you are moving. But there is no hurry. You need not fly. Sometimes it is dangerous.

Just the other day I received a letter from Canada. A young woman wants to come here, but the problem is she is very much afraid of flying. Now from Canada to here, coming in a creaky old cart will really take so long. So she has asked me, "First help me to get rid of this paranoia. I cannot enter an airplane."

I have all kinds of crackpots all over the world! But they are very nice people. Just a day before another woman from Germany asked -- her problem is even more difficult -- her problem is that she is afraid to leave her house. "Help me, I want to come to Poona!"

Now this woman who is afraid of flying can have other means suggested to her: trains, cars, buses, a horse; but the woman who is afraid to leave the house.... But I have to suggest something to them -- and just because the suggestion is coming from me, it works. It has nothing in it; I just have to invent suggestions: "Just keep an onion in your mouth, and leave the house and no danger will ever happen to you! And when I am suggesting there must be some great secret in onions... soon the woman will be here, because these fears are all just mind-made, mind-manufactured.

There is no fear in flying, there is no fear of coming out of the house; millions of people are coming out of the house every day, and thousands are flying. And the rate of accidents is not much more than the rate of death which naturally happens, so whether you are sleeping on your bed or flying in an airplane does not make any difference. The rate of death is the same.

In fact, on the bed it is more, because 99% of people die on the bed. If somebody wants to be really afraid of any place, it is your bed. Avoid it! Keep it for show but never sleep on it! In the night close the doors and sleep on the floor, because I have never heard of anybody dying on the floor. And there are people who are trying....

My legal secretary Anando sleeps in her bath, just to avoid death! -- because nobody has ever died in the bath. She keeps her bed ready; that is just for show. Whenever I ask Shunyo to find her I have to tell her, "Look in her bathroom." And she is sleeping with her blanket and with her clothes in the bathtub. A great device to avoid death!

Veena, don't be exasperated by your state. You are growing. Everybody has his own pace of growth. Some people grow fast, some people grow slowly -- whatever is natural to them -- and there is no question of superiority or inferiority. But if you ask me I will say you are going perfectly right. You are responding to me as deeply as your nature allows in this moment.

Forcing anything is going against nature. Accepting, relaxing, contented, allowing the flow of nature to take you, is what Lao Tzu used to call `the watercourse way.'

Sometimes the river flows fast. Sometimes it flows very slowly. Sometimes it falls with great speed in waterfalls from the mountains to the plains. But one thing is certain:

whether slow, fast or very fast, every river reaches to the ocean.

And it does not matter that somebody reaches a little earlier and somebody reaches a little later. What matters is that one reaches.

Just think of the moment -- your joy, your peace, your centeredness. The more you enjoy them, the more they grow, and faster. But don't think in terms of becoming rich very fast.

Even if the richness is of the inner world, to become rich fast one has to use wrong means -- and in the inner world you cannot use wrong means. That will not be profitable; that will be a loss. In the outside world, if you want to become rich faster then you have to use wrong means.

But to be with me, at least one thing has always to be remembered: we are not looking for any profit, we are not looking for any reward. Our reward is in this moment. Our profit is our joy in this moment.

Farelli came from Italy, opened a restaurant and became very successful. He still practiced the simplest form of bookkeeping. He kept the accounts payable in a cigar box, accounts due on a spindle, and cash in the register. One day his youngest son, who had just graduated as an economics major, said to him, "Pa, I don't see how you run your business this way. How do you know what your profits are?"

"Well, sonny boy," replied Farelli, "when I got off-a the boat I no have nothing but-a the pants I was-a wearing. Just-a the pants. Today your brother is a doctor, your sister is-a the teacher and you just-a graduate."

"I know, papa, but...."

"Your mama and me have a nice-a car, a nice-a house, a good-a business and everything is-a paid for. So you add all-a that together, you subtract-a the pants and that's-a the profit."

Why get into so much unnecessary detail? That poor Italian was doing very well! Now to count all these things and then to subtract the pants-a... and the remaining is all the profit.

On the path there is no need to keep any accounts. Each moment live totally, joyously, and move on. Don't carry even the memory of that moment: that too becomes a burden, that too prevents you from responding to reality spontaneously. If you want to be spontaneous and responsive then you need a very clean, mirror-like mind. No dust should gather on it.

And Veena, as far as I see you are doing perfectly well. But these are human desires that again and again arise in people -- perhaps things can be done better; perhaps rather than going by a bullock cart I can go by an airplane. These ideas simply create anxiety in you and disturb your natural growth.

Live each moment and don't let it gather in your memory. Keep your memory clean.

And everything that you have never imagined, never dreamt of, is going to happen to you.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future