Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands
24 November 2019
Anxiety (1)
“Impatience”
Life is entirely different from what you think life is. What you think life is, it is not life. What you think life is, it is just the mind. To live life is a beautiful phenomenon. You cannot put it into words.
This is because the mind is conditioned to believe when it thinks, that it is life. Life has conditioned you to believe that, when the mind thinks, what it thinks is life. What the mind thinks is not life.
Thinking is merely thinking. Thinking is hearing an echo in the head. The echo is either pleasing or disturbing to the mind.
So what is life? We do not know life. The conditioned mind cannot know life. Life is not what the mind thinks it is. The mind will say let us get to know life. Understand the mind can never know life.
The mind has not met life. Therefore, the mind can never know what life is. The moment you understand that, the moment that understanding cements in you and gets grounded, you will not believe the mind.
Then spontaneously, uncontrollably and unpredictably you will begin living the life which you can never know. Similarly, it is an impossibility to know what enlightenment is. You will spontaneously, uncontrollably and unpredictably be enlightened, which you can never know.
It is important to understand this wisdom. When you look around, it is very obvious in any family. That is why a family unit is there, so that minds are at a proximate distance.
A close distance under a roof. And one glaring observation for anyone of us is that you are very impatient in life. Is it not so? You see everyone is impatient and that looks normal.
You say to those who are impatient, don’t be impatient. Be patient. It is a dilemma because the one who says, be patient, he himself will be impatient sometimes in a day too.
So what is the validity in you to say, be patient, when you yourself is not patient. The validity will be in you if you are patient in every moment of life; otherwise not.
When somebody’s impatience is of a greater degree than yours, you find that you are patient. When that highly impatient one in front of you goes away, you find that your impatience is glaringly evident to you.
Similarly, when somebody, who is less impatient than you, walks into the room, he will tell you, be patient, which you just said, to another guy. This is the illusion the mind creates.
A wise man and woman understand that every moment happens and contains what the moment has evolved and sophisticated to contain. The wise understand that every moment cannot contain anything besides what the moment contains.
The wise understand that every man is only impatient to live life that they want and not patient to live life that happens, whether they like it or not. The wise understand that if you are patient with life, anxiety will be absent in life.
The enlightened are patient in every moment of their life, which is devoid of anxiety.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V.S. Shankar 2019
Editor’s Note:
The author of this article recognises the debilitating condition of anxiety that is prevalent in every community. There exists no man-made tonic or psychological therapy to remove it entirely. The gift of understanding this condition that is presented here is a life-jacket thrown to a drowning man. The wise reveal that no man can either meet or know life. Impatience and intolerance with what he does meet is common. As the reliance on mind’s authority is gradually dissolved, patience with life and living will evolve and anxiety lose its grip.
Julian Capper. UK
German Translator‘s Note:
The interlocking of title and subtitle at the beginning of this article is worth thinking about. There are plenty of food for thought in this article. One could ask oneself, for example, how anxiety and impatience are connected. Is impatience a form of anxiety? Or does anxiety make you impatient? As Dr. Shankar shows, a person who is patient will not feel anxiety. He who is anxious is not satisfied with what is and hopes for a better future, hence impatience. The insight of this article lets man live in the timeless Here and thoughtless Now, where there can be no impatience and no anxiety.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany