Don't be so patient || Acharya Prashant, at Goa University (2022)

Questioner (Q): How do we know what is useful for us if we are in ignorance? How we can decide if maybe that movie, which we don’t like, and we should give up because we think that will actually benefit us? So, maybe there is a point of we are sitting there and finishing the movie, which we don’t know. Maybe to teach patience, for example.

Acharya Prashant (AP): Right, but for how many times? How long and how many times do you want to just keep tolerating in your life in the name of patience? Do you want to keep falling into the same hole 40,000 times in the name of patience?

Q: If we need, yes.

AP: No. What do you mean by ‘need’? What if it is a state of internal hypocrisy? See, it’s totally subjective. You have to decide for yourself, whether you are still experimenting, or whether the hole has become a habit.

Q: But there is a process for that also, maybe there is a need for 40,000 times to repeat the same thing.

AP: The process has to be subjected to the constraints of the lifetime of the individual. Whatsoever your process, your goal is to be liberated as soon as possible within the normal 80 years of your existence. You can not have the process of experimentation that lasts 8000 years. You don’t have that kind of time.

Secondly, we do not really commit new mistakes. The mistakes that we make are usually recycled versions of the ones we have already made a thousand times before.

So, the question is, do we not have the choice to learn better, faster? Must we keep forgiving ourselves in the name of experiments and patience?

Q: Is there a better and faster way, in general, when we are talking about enlightenment?

AP: We are talking of just improvement. If I want to be better, must I wait a thousand years to be better? Or if I love myself, then shouldn’t I want to be better as quickly as possible?

Q: I don’t think that being fast, in the sense of time, and setting a goal and being quick to reach enlightenment will serve proper good.

AP: No, no. You don’t have to set a goal to reach enlightenment. The goal is to not be in the wretched condition one is now. These are two very different things. Because enlightenment is just an imagination, a picture in your mind. What I am talking of is an active disgust towards one’s own bonded condition.

Am I not sensitive towards the way I live? The constant buzz in the head, the feeling of limitation and helplessness. Do I like that? Of course, given the modern constraints, I cannot, at this moment, spontaneously, break free from all of that. But still, do I want to drag this state on for 40 more years?

There has to be an urgency, a warmth. There has to be a feeling of something important that needs to be done but is pending. And while, you know, when you say patience, patience has to have a special definition when it comes to the process of Liberation. What does patience mean? Patience means, even if I fail a thousand times, I will still try. Patience cannot mean that I will stick to one experiment, even if it is constantly failing. These are two very different things. Let’s please appreciate.

One is: ‘I am into an experiment, I am into something, we all are into something, and the thing is not working, but given the usual human habits and tendencies, I do not want to drop it. I don’t want to break out of it,’ because one becomes, you know, attached, habituated, whatever, comfortable.

So, one says, ‘I am being patient.’ No, one is not being patient. Am I being patient? It’s for my honesty to decide. The other thing is: ‘I tried this, it didn’t work out. I tried this with honesty, but it didn’t work out. I tried something else, I was again unfortunate I was to the extent of my honest capability, not cheating myself. I was doing whatever I could, but I still failed, I failed 20 times consecutively.’ Patience is to try again the 21st time and these are two very different kinds of patience. So, one has to decide which patience one want to choose.

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