Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
23 September 2019
Patience (1)
“Understanding”
All that is required is patience, which man does not always have. Patience slips our grasp because we diligently cling to the mind’s concepts of life. That is the basic reason why patience evades us.
Patience is of tremendous importance. It is the door to meet your real self. Man came into existence, which was sophisticating itself, so that man might knock on the door of patience.
Patience comes to man and woman the moment they understand how superficial the mind is. Patience comes to man and woman the moment they understand the mind deeply.
Man and woman with superficial understanding of the moment in the mind take the moment in life for granted. Man and woman, with deep understanding of the moment in the mind, understand that the moment in life renews itself.
Man and woman, with superficial understanding of the moment in the mind, believe that they make what is within any moment in life. Man and woman, with deep understanding of the moment in life, understand that the intelligence in life manifests what is within any moment in life.
Patience is not what man thinks it to be. So what could patience be? We talk about –‘have patience; everybody should have patience’ - not really knowing an iota about what patience could be.
Understand the deceptive nature of the mind for it rules and is conducted by somebody called the ego. The ego does not drive you to be patient. The ego drives you to be successful, be prestigious, be ambitious: that is the bottom line for the ego.
The enlightened are patient in every moment of daily life as it is. The man with knowledge makes an effort to be patient and not live life as it is. Why does it happen?
It happens because man is not taught that life will evolve as it is meant to evolve. When understanding happens that man cannot control evolution, that what is meant to be in any moment in life will be and that man cannot make the moment as it should be, then man will be patient in life.
The enlightened have patience in every moment of daily life, no matter what the moment contains within it. This is because they understand that man neither makes any moment nor what is within any moment in life.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2019
Editor’s Note:
In knowledge, man may fret when what lies in front of him does not conform to his ideas or proclivities. Yet, his disposition or training may compel him to accept it with patience. However, patience, as per the word’s Latin derivation, implies a degree of enduring or even suffering at not having control. The deep understanding of the wise reveals, in this article, that what lies in front of man within every moment and is contained within every moment cannot be other than what it is. The wise understand that man is not the doer in any sense of the word: he has neither control nor choice. Such understanding endows patience.
Julian Capper, UK
German Translator‘s Note:
For the conditioned human being, patience is always associated with waiting for something specific that awaits in a future that still seems far too distant. But the patience proclaimed by the Wise as in this article does not refer to certain expectations. It is, unimaginable for the ego, expectation-free patience that lives the Here and Now as it is. What a revelation if understanding happens!
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.