Eternal Waiting

IS IT ESSENTIAL FOR A SEEKER TO PASS THROUGH ALL THE STAGES OF SAMADHI? CAN BEING WITH A MASTER HELP TO SHOOT THROUGH A FEW?

No, it is not essential. All the stages are described by Patanjali because all the stages are possible, but not essential. You can bypass many. You can even go from the first step to the last; the whole path in between simply can be bypassed. It depends on you, your intensity, your passionate search, your total involvement. The speed depends on you.

That’s why it is possible to attain a sudden enlightenment also. The whole gradual process can be dropped. Right this very moment, you can become enlightened. That’s possible, but it will depend on how intense your search is, how much you are in it. If only a part of you is in it, then you will attain to a fragment, a step. If half of you is in it, then you will reach half the journey immediately, and there you will be stuck. But if your total being is in it and you are not withholding anything, you are simply allowing the whole thing to happen right now, immediately it can happen. Time is not needed.

Time is needed because your effort is part, fragmental; you do it half-heartedly. You do it, and you don’t also do it. You move one step forward and one step backward simultaneously. By the right hand you do, by the left hand you undo. Then there will be many, many stages, more than Patanjali can describe. He has described all the possible stages. Many can be dropped, all can be dropped – the whole path can be dropped. Bring your total being to your effort.

And being near with a Master can be a tremendous help, but that too depends on you. You can live physically near a Master and you may not be near him at all, because to be with a Master is not a question of physical closeness; it is a question how much you are open towards him, how much you trust, how much is your love for him, how much you can give of your being to him. If you are really close, that means if you trust and love, then there is no other closeness. It is not a question of space, it is a question of love. If you are really close to a Master, all the paths, all the methods can be dropped because being close to a Master is the ultimate method. Nothing like it exists. Nothing is comparable to it. Then you can simply forget about all the methods, all the Patanjalis; you can simply forget about them. Just being close to a Master and allowing the Master to enter your being, you become just a receptivity, no choice on your part, just an opening, then this very moment the phenomenon is possible.

And I would like to remind you that by all the methods that exist in the world, many people have not reached. Greater number of people have reached through being near a Master – that is the greatest technique. But finally, everything depends on you.

That is the problem, that is the very crux of the problem: it doesn’t depend on me. Otherwise I would have given you already; then there would have been no problem. One Buddha would have been enough, and he would have given to all because he has infinity in his hands; you cannot exhaust it. He can go on giving and giving and giving, and he is always ready to give because the more he gives, the more he gets. The more he shares, the more unknown sources open, unknown streams start flowing towards him. One Buddha would have given enlightenment to all the beings if it was dependent on a Master. It is not. In your ignorance, in your egoistic state of mind, in your closed imprisoned being, you will reject even if a Buddha wants to give it to you. Unless you want it you will reject; it cannot be given to you against you. You have to receive it, and you have to receive it very consciously, alert and aware. Only in deep awareness and deep receptivity it can be received.

Being near, with a Master, close in love and trust, and allowing the Master to do whatsoever he would like to do, with no choice of your own, then there is no need to do anything. But then, don’t expect; then don’t even in a deeper part of your mind demand, because the very expectation and demand will become the barrier. Then you simply wait. Even if it is going to happen after many, many lives, even if you have to wait unto eternity, wait. And this waiting should not be a sad, depressed waiting. It should be a celebration, waiting; it should be festive; it should be full of joy.

So these are the things: then you can become closer and closer and closer, and suddenly one day comes – the flame of the Master and the flame of your being become one. Suddenly there is a jump: you are no more there, and no more is the Master; you have become one. In that oneness, all that the Master can give to you, he has given it to you. He has poured himself into you.

So it is not essential for a seeker to pass through all the stages of samadhi. It becomes essential only because you are not enough of a seeker… Then many stages. If you are really intense, sincere, authentic, if you are ready to die this very moment, it can happen.

AS THE MODERN MAN IS IN SUCH A HURRY, AND PATANJALI’S METHODS SEEM TO TAKE SO LONG, THEN HOW HIS METHOD WILL BE HELPFUL TO US?

Yes, the modern man is in a hurry, and just the opposite will be helpful. If you are in a hurry, then Patanjali will be helpful because he is not in a hurry. He is the antidote. Your mind needs an antidote. Look at it this way: because the western mind particularly – and now no other mind exists, only the western mind less or more everywhere, even in the East – is in a hurry. That’s why it has become interested in Zen, because Zen gives the promise of sudden enlightenment. Zen looks like instant coffee, and it has an appeal. But I know Zen won’t help because the appeal is not because of Zen, the appeal is because of hurry. And then you don’t understand Zen.

In the West, whatsoever is rumored about Zen is almost false; it fulfills a need of the mind who is in a hurry, but it is not true to Zen. If you go to Japan and ask Zen people, they wait for thirty years, forty years for the first satori to happen. Even for sudden enlightenment one has to work hard. The enlightenment is sudden, but the preparation is very long. It is just like you boil water: you heat the water; at a certain degree, hundred degrees, the water evaporates suddenly. Right – evaporation is sudden, but heating you have to bring it up to hundred degrees. The heating will take time, and heating depends on your intensity.

And if you are in a hurry you don’t have any heat, because in a hurry you would have to have Zen satori, or enlightenment, just by the way, if it can be attained, if it can be purchased. Running, you would like to snatch it from somebody’s hands. It cannot be done that way. There are flowers, seasonal flowers: you sow the seeds and within three weeks the plants are getting ready, but within three months the plants have blossomed, gone, disappeared. If you are in a hurry, then it will be better to be interested in drugs than into meditation, yoga, Zen, because drugs can give you dreams – instant dreams – sometimes of hell, sometimes of heaven. Then marijuana is better than meditation. If you are in a hurry, then nothing eternal can happen to you because the eternal needs eternal waiting. If you are asking for eternity to happen to you, you have to be ready for it. Hurry won’t help.

There is a Zen saying: If you are in a hurry, you will never reach. You can even reach just by sitting, but in a hurry you can never reach. The very impatience is a barrier.

If you are in a hurry then Patanjali is the antidote. If you are not in any hurry then Zen is also possible. This statement will look contradictory, but this is so. This is how reality is, contradictory. If you are in a hurry, then you will have to wait for many lives before the enlightenment happens to you. If you are not in a hurry, then right now it can happen.

I will tell you one story that I like very much. It is one of the old Indian stories. Narada, a messenger between earth and heaven, a mythological figure, was going to heaven. He is just like a postman; he goes up and down continuously, bringing messages from above, bringing messages from down. He continues his work. He was going to heaven and just passed one very, very old monk sitting under a tree with his mala, his beads, chanting the name of Rama. He looked at Narada and said, “Where are you going? Are you going to heaven? Then do me a favor. Ask God how much more I have to wait?” – Even in the very question, the impatience is there – “and remind him also,” said the old monk, “that for three lives I have been doing meditation and austerities, and everything that can be done I have done, there is a limit to everything.” A demand, expectation, impatience… Narada said, “I am going and I will ask.”

And just by the side of the old monk, under another tree there is a young man dancing and singing the name of God. Just as a joke Narada asked the young man, “Would you also like that I should ask; about you, how much time it will take?” But the young man was so much in his ecstasy that he didn’t bother, he didn’t answer.

Then after a few days, Narada came back. He told the old man that “I asked God, and he laughed and he said, ‘At least three lives more.’” The old man threw his mala and said, “This is injustice! And whosoever says God is just is wrong!” He was very angry. Then Narada went to the young man who was still dancing and said, “Even if you have not asked, I asked, but I am afraid to tell you now, because that old man has got into such an anger he would have even hit me.” But the young man was still dancing, not interested. Narada told him that “I asked him, and God said that tell that young man that he should count the leaves of the tree under which he is dancing; the same number he will have to be born again before he attains.” The young man listened, went into such ecstasy, laughed and jumped and celebrated. He said, “So soon? Because the earth is full of trees, millions and millions. And just these leaves, and the same number? So soon? God is infinite compassion, and I am not worthy of it!” – And it is said immediately he attained. That very moment the body fell. That very moment he became enlightened.

If you are in a hurry, it will take time. If you are not in a hurry, it is possible right this moment.

Patanjali is the antidote for those who are in a hurry, and Zen is for those who are not in a hurry. And just the opposite happens: people who are in a hurry, they become interested in Zen, and people who are not in any hurry, they become interested in Patanjali. This is wrong. If you are in a hurry, then Patanjali… because he will pull you down and bring you to your senses, and he will talk of a path so long he will be a shock to you. And if you allow him to enter you, your hurry will disappear.