Osho – Patience has been exploited by people. There has been poverty for centuries and people have been told just to be patient, “It is a test of your trust in God.” They have been told just to be patient, “It is only a question of a few years and then you will be entering into paradise.”
Patience has been used as part of an exploitation of people in every field, but patience itself is a beautiful quality. You should not allow your patience to be exploited.
But to be patient, to me means trust — trust in nature, trust in existence, trust in yourself. Things are going to be better every day; whatever happens, your patience finds in it something better for you. It is a very great alchemy; it changes suffering into blessing. It is a great instrument in your hands, you just have to understand that the instrument has to be used by you, not by others on you. There are continuous changes in life — life is a flux.
Heraclitus says, “You cannot step twice in the same river.”
I say to you, “You cannot even step once in the same river.”
The river is continuously moving… There are ups, there are downs, there are days and there are nights.
Patience consists of seeing things in a way that everything becomes a joy to you. For example, you can see that every day has been sandwiched between two dark nights. That will give you good misery and sadness — what a life it is… just a small day and two big, dark nights.
A man of understanding will see that every night is so small between two beautiful sunny days. Life is the same — your outlook changes. There are people who will not look at the roseflower, they will look at the thorns. They will be in deep despair that existence cannot even produce roses without thorns, but they are paying more attention to thorns than to roses.
A man of understanding will love the rose, and will take the thorn as a protection for the rose. It is a protection; the same rosebush is supplying juice to both — to the rose and to the thorn. The thorn must have some natural function. Its function is to protect the rose — it is a soldier, a guard.
Once you see life just from a different angle, your heart starts throbbing in a different way. Everything can be looked at with negative eyes, and there are people who will think about everything with negative eyes; they may become good critics, but they will be utter failures in life. There is a way to see life with positive eyes.
I was visiting a palace in Jaipur in India. Jaipur is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The man who was creating it, Maharaja Jai Singh, wanted to defeat Paris, but he died before he could complete the project. So Jaipur has remained incomplete, but it has tremendous beauty. No city in India has that quality.
I was visiting his palace. His grandson, who is now in the place of the grandfather, said to me, “Please, don’t take note if you see something incomplete in the palace.”
I said, “What is the matter?”
He said, “My grandfather had a certain idea that nothing should be made complete, that then it has a certain kind of deadness; something should remain incomplete… possibilities for growth. And by coincidence he could not complete Jaipur. He died. And this was his whole life’s philosophy; he never made anything complete. Something will be missing in it, and the people who come with negative eyes immediately see the missing thing. The whole palace is so beautiful, but their whole concern becomes concentrated on a small stone that is missing, and they become frustrated.” Perhaps Maharaja Jai Singh had some understanding of life.
In life nothing is perfect, everything has some imperfection. Imperfection means life is still growing, evolution is still happening. The day everything is complete will be the worst day in existence, because that day everything will become dead. There will be no growth, no need for evolution; everything will be stuck. Don’t look to the imperfections; look at so much beauty that surrounds small imperfections.
It is a change of perspective that brings patience to you. Then you know that everything is good, and everything is going to be better because it has been going on for centuries becoming better and better. There is no need to be worried about tomorrow; tomorrow is going to be better.
The whole existence is involved in bettering itself. You have to be just a little patient, you should not be in a hurry. You should not ask that everything should be given to you right now.
Everything comes in its own time.
Everything comes when you are ripe.
Everything comes when you deserve it — this is my experience.
In the last thirty years I have not felt, even for a single moment, any impatience, and I have seen that everything goes on becoming better. Existence itself is involved; we are part of it — there is no need to worry. Even something that looks dark today may prove just the beginning of a new dawn. Before the dawn the night is the darkest.
Just watch life.
Try to understand life and patience will come to you on its own accord.
Source – Osho Book “Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries”