So, sisters and brothers, a few concluding words. What I should say - because it's like when we eat after being hungry for a long time. The stomach is full, and the only thing we can possibly do is to relax in an easy chair and go to sleep. (laughter) I mean, that's the right answer to a good meal. It is said that silence is the best compliment. Not in the Western fashion where you praise everything, and you say, "Thank you, for the wonderful salad!" I mean the fuss they make about salads in the U.S., I'm always amazed. Nature grows the salad, you just cut them up and serve. As if it's a great piece of cuisine - French cuisine! Anyway, that is very clear. You know I can't get out of this habit of criticising the Americans. (he chuckles) (laughter) (he laughs) But I do it because I like them very much….
So, that is why I criticise the Americans so much - perhaps I shouldn't say it myself - but it's an indication of how much I like them. Obviously! Otherwise I wouldn't be here. I love the Americans. I only want that they should be more loveable in a real spiritual sense, and our groups, the small groups that we have, they are to my mind, nuclei, small nuclei cells, and they must grow. So with that idea in mind we come, we have these meetings, we sit and we talk, we meditate, and as somebody said this morning in his speech, we wait!
Now normally in this world of ours, waiting is considered to be something futile, something senseless, and something only the Orientals do, you see. They sit and wait. They have nothing else to do. In the Western cultures, waiting is synonymous with not having anything to do. It's a tragic misunderstanding of the word, because waiting really means allowing a process to complete itself. You initiate a process, and then wait. Like you sow a seed, and then you wait. You water the plant, and you wait. You put the potatoes in the cooker, put it on the fire, and then wait. You send your husband to work, and wait. (laughter) Now life, if you analyse it that way, is nothing but waiting interspersed with moments, or bursts, of activity. It is waiting that takes up a large part of our existence, not working, not doing anything. Even those of you who think you are driving, you know, "Oh, I am driving all the time - four hours, you see." Well, you are waiting to reach your destination. What is driving, but waiting to reach your destination? Isn't it? You fly, you are doing the same thing. Every few minutes you look at your watch, "When am I going to get there?"
So you see, philosophically speaking, and if you are intelligent enough to understand it, it is waiting that is the art. Doing, any fool can do, you see. As they say, slow driving is an art. Any crazy guy can drive like the devil at ninety miles, and crash his car. We don't want stuntmen in spirituality. We want people who can be consistent, who can do what is necessary when it is to be done, and then wait. And so what's so hot about waiting, you may ask. Kali for instance, she always wants to know what's so hot about waiting? It reveals an understanding of many things. One: that inevitably between the beginning and the end of a process, there is an interval of time which we have to wait through. Two: a man who can wait is the man who has faith, and therefore has the patience to wait. Three: he has the faith because he knows that what has been begun must end. It cannot possibly stop, barring a disaster, barring an accident. Therefore the faith element comes in.
For us in the East, every time you get into a plane it's an act of faith. I mean it, literally. Who knows what's going to happen, especially on these long flights - ten hours, eleven hours? In the old days, we took a thirty-minute flight, held on tight to the hand-rest, and prayed. Now how long can we pray? Eight hours can we pray? Eleven hours can we pray? So we pray in the beginning, and then try to enjoy the flight. Every time there's a bump, every time there's a course change... most people do it. Only, those who are ashamed to tell the truth, tell lies. So waiting can become a torture if you have no faith - that my Master has begun something, he will surely end it to my benefit, to my ultimate benefit. Therefore one who can wait, is really a man who has faith in the process, in the guru, and therefore that faith yields us the ability to wait, which is nothing but what you call patience. So if there is something which is, shall we say the symbol of a spiritual person - what symbolizes a spiritual person, what characterizes a spiritual person - it is his ability to wait.
A perfect example of that was my Master. He could wait eternally. And that's another thing. You cannot say, "Oh, I have waited five minutes, how long do you expect me to wait?" Waiting cannot have a limit. It's like when you train a dog, "Wait," it has to stay there till you come and release it. What goes for the dog goes for the trainer too. Because when you ask it to wait, and you go and sit down, and surreptitiously look at it, you are also waiting for him to make a move, as a sign of obedience, or disobedience. So waiting cannot have a limit. "Oh I have waited twenty minutes. I have waited forty minutes. I have waited three days." We have a limit. Waiting has no limit. Therefore waiting takes on, or partakes of, the character of Infinity. Whereas doing consumes moments of time in small bits, discrete bits, which we call seconds, minutes, hours. So one who waits is able to be in Infinity to that extent. Therefore, the Master is one who can eternally wait.
I once asked Babuji, "Several people come to you, take a sitting or two, and walk away. What will happen?" He said, "Oh, I can wait. They have to come back." I said, "When?" He said, "Maybe not in this life, but in their next life they have to come to me. Maybe after four lives, but they have still to come to me." You see, that is the sort of faith that we deal with here.
I think I told you the episode, when once he was doing some work on a plane, and he was very preoccupied. I asked Master, "What are you doing?" He said, "You read what I was doing and tell me." I tried a little. He was working in the future. Then he explained to me that he was working to lay the foundation for the Personality who will appear at the time of Mahapralaya - that is the dissolution of the universe which, according to calculations in the Indian philosophy, is four million, three hundred and twenty thousand years in the future. And that man you know, had the patience to start the work today! I said, "How do you know it will succeed?" He said, "Only a fool can ask such a question." (laughter) I said, "Well, maybe I am a fool, but please explain how you know that this will happen?" He said, "When I will it, it cannot but happen. Nothing on earth, nothing in heaven can stop that."
So that is faith. In himself, born out of faith in his Master. He taught him. In Him he has total faith. Therefore, he could have faith in himself. So the ability to wait shows patience and faith. Ability to wait for long periods shows greater and greater faith. Ability to wait infinitely shows infinite faith. So this is the capacity we must develop.
Very often people come to us for one sitting, two sittings, three sittings, and then say, "Well, you know nothing has happened, Chari. I gave it a fair trial, you know. It takes me two and a half hours to come to you, and two and half hours to go back, and an hour with you. That's five hours off my twenty-four day, and I can't afford more time." Only one who is facing death talks of time. One who faces, or aspires for, immortality talks of infinity, and therefore patience, and therefore faith, and therefore the capacity to wait. This is a short term existence, you see, buzzing around like butterflies, bees, lumbering around like bears, (laughter) "honey pot, honey pot," and pretending that we are achieving something, "Oh, my time is valuable, I can spare you five minutes Chari. Give me a synopsis of Sahaj Marg in three minutes. Maybe we can do something." I mean, it's not selling potatoes or cauliflower. This is Sahaj Marg, where you have a Master with infinite capacity, therefore with an ability to wait with infinite patience, through infinite time - knowing that you, and I, and all of us here, cannot escape Him! How can you escape someone who is there eternity after eternity? It's like a fish in a pond. If you go to fish once in three years, well, the fish can say, "That guy comes once in three years, let's hide under the rocks." But if you are fishing every day, twenty-four hours of the day, every fish is going to be caught. Today, tomorrow, the day after, the longer they avoid getting caught, the bigger they become for the fisherman. (laughter) And therefore the easier to catch. (laughter) So, wisdom says, "Go to Him quickly. Avoid being caught. Go to Him yourself."
…So this is the secret of spirituality. He can wait infinitely. Why should I wait? It's like a man who says, "Oh, there's a bus every ten minutes, you know. I'll take the next one, the next one, the next one," and he's sitting here smoking or drinking, and bus after bus is going by. And ultimately he catches a bus at midnight, gets into Seattle at two o'clock in the morning, gets mugged on the street, and ends up in hospital. So while we should have the capacity to wait for a result, in the faith that it cannot elude us or evade us or escape us, we can hardly afford to wait to begin that process. It's like cooking. Unless you start to cook at a moment in time, you are not going to finish it…
So that was a very important point which somebody made. I don't know whether he recognized how important. That faith is what is behind the ability to wait. Faith is that which, according to the proverb, or according to the saying in the English language, moves mountains. I have often felt that the Guru really does nothing in the sense of doing something. And this conviction is growing in me more and more, that He really does nothing. I mean, I don't imply any discourtesy towards my Master. Then what is it that moves His work, His power, to be activated in my favour? My faith. When I have faith in Him, His power has to flow. It is as if there is a vacuum, and His power is pulled towards me….
I would like to say we have always to wait, like we wait between two meetings, we have to wait between two seminars, we have to wait between the morning satsangh and the evening satsangh, we have to wait between night and day, we have to wait for the potatoes to cook, for the hot water to heat, and for the food to be digested.
Please remember, and please understand, and please digest this bit of very vital truth, that life is waiting, interspersed with moments of, brief moments, of bursts of activity. If we mistake the activity to be life, we are more stupid than the animals. That is why animals can go and hibernate in peace. No human being has that capacity. The bear goes into the mountains, six months in a year he's asleep in his cave. When spring comes, the old fellow ambles down looking for honey, or whatever have you. He is at peace with himself. He doesn't say "Oh, I have lost six months time, how am I going to make it up?" That is the law of Nature, you see. Waiting is the law. Achieving is not yours. When we wait - He gives.
-Excerpted from "Waiting", Heart to Heart, Vol. 1, pp. 130-136
