Infinite patience is needed

On the path nothing more is needed than patience. Man can do everything that he is capable of, but still there is no necessity that the ultimate happens; it may happen, it may not. We can grope in the dark; the door may open, it may not so if one has not infinite patience, one starts getting tired of the search. There is no shortcut to it – and there cannot be because of the very nature of things. The journey is long and many times one starts losing hope. Those are the moments when patience will be needed. Patience is nothing but a fragrance of trust. The night is dark but one trusts that the dawn is coming. Each moment it is coming closer and closer. Maybe the night is actually becoming darker. In fact it becomes darker before the dawn comes, so the actual may not be helpful to the possible. The actual may be saying, ’What are you doing? What are you waiting for? The night is getting darker than ever before. The dawn must be going further away and the distance is growing greater. This is simple logic: the night is getting darker so the dawn cannot be very close. You are losing track! There is no point in waiting any more. ’ The mind will try to frustrate. The mind will bring a feeling of hopelessness, because once a person becomes hopeless all search is lost. Then he simply leads a routine life, a mundane, mediocre life. He simply goes on repeating empty gestures which have no significance. One simply goes on doing things because what else to do? One needs to be occupied, so one goes on repeating the same thing again and again and again. It creates tediousness. Repetition creates boredom. But the base is that once you become hopeless about the dawn, then the night has taken complete possession of you. That is the dark night, and everybody has to pass through it. Patience is of two types – the positive and the negative. Negative patience simply means a sort of lethargy, not doing anything, just waiting for some miracle to happen, waiting for Godot… not doing anything for it to happen; not being in any way creative about it – just sitting, lazing around, and just thinking that some miracle will happen, and knowing well that it never happens. Then a sort of dullness arises, a sort of stupidity, insensitivity, a deadness. I am not talking about that patience. That is not really patience – it is a dead corpse. The real patience is positive, active, creative. The real patience is not just a laziness. It is radiant with hope. It is throbbing with life and zest and enthusiasm.