Magic Of Waiting – In Gita Verse 10.10 To those who are constantly devoted to serving Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.
Krishna says spiritual growth is twofold: we have to call, invoke, search and move, and at the same time we have to prepare ourselves for the event so that when light reaches our door we are not blinded by it. Preparation means we need to learn to wait for the light to reach our door, so that the Universe, Krishna, can give us understanding, knowing. This is the magic of waiting.
There is certainly a deep magic – almost a miracle – when you are in silence, in trust, in love, just waiting.
The moments of waiting are moments of meditation. Because you are waiting, expectant, your mind stops functioning. You are so concentrated in your waiting that there is no energy left for the mind that is the secret, the magic.
And waiting is only just a taste of the ultimate waiting for truth.
The reality is that you are not going anywhere, you are just going to remain here-and-now. Truth and consciousness and bliss are going to come to you. They are going to be your guests.
You are the host. All that you need is an open door, waiting, just like one waits for one’s friend, or for one’s beloved, looking far away, as far as the eyes can see, looking towards the faraway horizon, waiting.
I am reminded of a Sufi story … It is not just a story, it is a historical fact. Another great emperor of India was Akbar. Mohammedans pray five times a day and Akbar was very particular. One day he had gone hunting in the forest with all his friends, and they all got lost.
Evening was descending, the sun was setting and it was the time to pray. So Akbar stopped under a huge tree, tied his horse to the tree and sat on the ground to do his last prayer of the day. And as he was praying, a woman, a young woman, ran just by his side, giving him such a shock – it seemed as if she was mad or blind – that Akbar fell down. Still, she did not look back.
Akbar naturally was very angry. Mohammedans in prayer are very particular; nobody should disturb them. It can become a very dangerous thing, and for the emperor … An ordinary village girl, not caring at all, running like mad and hitting the emperor … The emperor fell down – because Mohammedans pray sitting on their knees, so it is very easy just to push them a little and they will fall down.
It is very difficult to push a Buddhist or a Hindu when he is praying, because he is sitting in a lotus posture. It is a very locked posture – you cannot just push him. He is very strong in his posture. But to push the Mohammedan is very easy, howsoever strong he may be – his posture is such, sitting on his knees.
Akbar finished his prayer quickly because he wanted to catch hold of the girl. She could not be allowed to do such things. If she could behave with the emperor in such a way, what to say – about other people? But he could not figure out – it was getting dark – where she had gone. But he waited, thinking she must come back to the village. He was just outside the village.
And finally she came. Akbar stopped her and said, “Do you remember what you have done?”
She said, “I don’t remember anything. Do you?”
Akbar said, “You seem to be very strange. You don’t understand. You are talking with the emperor of the country.”
She said, “I understand, but I don’t remember anything of what you are talking about.”
He said, “What am I talking about? I have been praying here and you ran in such a way that you pushed me, and I fell down. You disturbed my prayer!”
She said, “Perhaps if you say so, it must have been so, but you have to forgive me. I was going to wait for my lover just on the road which runs through the forest. I wanted to greet him – he is coming after many years – just outside the village. I could not remain sitting in the house and waiting. It is just one mile distant, but he will be waiting, thinking that I must be standing just by the side of a tree where we used to meet when we were young. That’s why I was so concentrated; that I did not know I had committed any mistake. Please forgive me, it must have been committed without my knowing at all.”
She was so innocent and tears came to her eyes because she had hurt her own emperor. ”You can give me any punishment, otherwise it will remain heavy on my heart. But just one question before you punish me: you were in prayer – still you were not so much in concentration as I was, because I don’t remember at all. It cannot be that I hit you … it cannot be one-sided. Your body also must have touched my body, but I don’t remember having seen anybody on the way – praying or falling or anything. I don’t remember anybody touching my body. So I am puzzled, and I would like to be clear about it. Is your prayer not as strong as my love?”
Akbar remembers it in his autobiography, AKBAR NAMA. He says, “I had to ask forgiveness from that village girl. I have never forgotten her face, and I have never forgotten that my prayer is just formal. If I am lost in my prayer and my love, in my gratitude towards the ultimate, then how can I be aware that somebody has touched me, pushed me, or that my body has fallen? I would not have been aware of anything. But I was aware and that makes it certain that my prayer is just superficial.
That girl’s love was far deeper. She was closer to God than I was, although she was not concerned with God at all.” A tremendous statement of understanding …
Krishna says – If you can learn waiting; and if waiting can become your moment-to-moment experience, whenever you are not involved in ordinary things, and you can find time … Anytime, day or night, just in your bed, sit silently and wait. Wait for the guest.
And I promise you, the guest has always come. The waiting has never failed. It has always been an absolute success, but not the success of your ego – it is the success of your humbleness.
It is the victory of your being, not the victory of your mind. It is the victory of your silence, of your love. Learn waiting and you have learned all about meditation.
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