my arm or break a bone, the healing process proceeds precisely at its own pace independent of any opinion I may have about it. That is the natural world at work. My desire to have it fixed quickly is of absolutely no consequence. If I apply that impatience to my personal world, I will prevent it from healing thoroughly, as Confucius advised over twenty-five centuries ago. Shakespeare matched the wisdom of this ancient Chinese predecessor when he wrote, “How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degree?”
When I was a child, I remember planting some radish seeds in springtime. When early summer arrived I noticed green leafy shoots protruding above the ground. I watched them grow a bit taller each day and finally I could stand it no longer and I began to tug at those radish shoots, trying to get them to grow faster. I had not yet learned that nature reveals its secrets on its own time schedule. As I pulled at the little leaves, they emerged from the ground sans radishes, and my childish impatience to have this thing done quickly prevented it from happening at all.
Now, when I am asked if I am disappointed because one of my books did not appear on a best-seller list as my earlier books did, I think of this observation of the wise Chinese sage, “Great things have no fear of time.” What a compliment it is to the genius of Confucius that his words are still being quoted and his knowledge still being applied twenty-five hundred years after his departure. I too write for those souls who have yet to materialize, and if that means sacrificing the small advantage of a position of prestige on a list somewhere today, my impatient ego may be puzzled, but I am content!
There is a line in A Course in Miracles that perplexes anyone who is imprisoned by ego because it appears to be a contradiction. The line reads, “Infinite patience produces immediate results,” and it echoes the twenty-five-hundred-year-old advice that you are reading about here. Infinite patience describes the condition of faith or absolute knowing. If you know with a complete absence of doubt that what you are doing is consistent with your own purpose and that you are involved in accomplishing a great affair, then you are at peace with yourself and in harmony with your own heroic mission. The sense of peace is your immediate result and is a state of enlightened bliss. Thus infinite patience takes you to a level of faith where doing things quickly is of no interest. You shift out of the need to see the results right now, just as when you know that your cuts, scrapes, and injuries will heal as your nature dictates, rather, than as your impatient self dictates.
This kind of knowing has aided me immensely in my writing and in all of my life work. With my children, I am not always overly concerned with a test score or a subpar performance as it registers in this moment because I can see the bigger picture in their lives. As the Oriental proverb, perhaps inspired by the words of Confucius, says, “With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown,” so do I think of my children as silk gowns in the making. Certainly we savor the small advantages in the here and now. However, I also know that any current setbacks will enhance rather than tarnish their greatness.
Impatience breeds fear, stress, and discouragement. Patience manifests in confidence, decisiveness, and a feeling of peaceful satisfaction. As you look at your own life, examine how frequently you demand an immediate indicator of success for yourself and others and attempt instead to see the larger picture. When you are on purpose and see the larger picture, you are able to let go of an inclination to seek validation in the form of merit badges and immediate applause.
My experience with addictions and overcoming them may parallel some of your life situations. While still being addicted I would think about quitting the addictive substance, such as caffeine or alcohol. Then I would look for a small advantage, such as no drinking for one day, and when that was accomplished, I would let up on my vigilance and go back to a cola or a beer to celebrate. By looking at my small victories I was preventing the job from being done thoroughly. When I developed infinite patience with myself I turned the whole thing over to God and remembered how perfect God had always been with me, even in my lowest moments. By being infinitely patient I could see that toxic substances interfered with my highest purpose and life mission, and I left those addictive ways behind me.
Make no mistake about it, all my thoughts about quitting, all my trials and failures—those “small advantages” as Confucius calls them—were part of the process of purification. By being patient with myself I could stay patient even with those small victories, and thus they did not deter me from my greater accomplishment. I allowed the process to move at its own pace, and today I can see clearly how getting rid of impatience gave me the ability to move to a level that I never imagined when I kept congratulating myself for my little victories and then retreating back to defeat. If you are appreciating the paradox in this situation, you will enjoy these two paradoxical sayings: “Infinite patience produces immediate results” and “One day at a time produces eternal results.”
To see the absurdity of impatience in your life, set your watch ahead several hours and tear off several months on your wall calendar. Then see if you have advanced time! The failures and frustrations, along with the immediate successes, are a part and parcel of the perfection of it all. By observing nature—your nature and the natural world around you—you will see that you must allow a wound to progress at its own pace; to eat a fig you must first let it flower, put forth fruit, and ripen. Trust in your nature and let go of your desire to have things done quickly.
To accomplish this:
Abandon your conditioned means of evaluating yourself as successful or not on the basis of immediate indicators. If you have a knowing within that you are on a much higher mission than what might show up today, you will free yourself from the folly of those current results. To be ahead in the beginning of the game can be a big disadvantage if it obscures your vision for the entire game.
Think about what you are doing in increments of five centuries rather than five minutes. Produce for those of us who will be here five hundred years from now and your emphasis will shift off of your immediate results to much greater affairs.
Be as patient with yourself, through all of your successes and disappointments, as you feel God has always been with you. When you can turn a problem over to a higher authority to which you are connected, you immediately shift to that knowing state of infinite patience, and you stop looking for little indicators of success for today only.
When you are inspired by some great
purpose, some extraordinary project,
all your thoughts break their bonds;
Your mind transcends limitations,
your consciousness expands in every direction,
and you find yourself in a new, great
and wonderful world.
Dormant forces, faculties and talents
become alive, and you discover yourself
to be a greater person by far
than you ever dreamed
yourself to be.
PATANJALI
(C. FIRST TO THIRD CENTURY B.C.)
The author of Yoga Sutras, Patanjali lived in India probably one to three centuries before Christ and is considered the person who established the tradition of meditation. He has been described as a mathematician of mysticism and an Einstein in the world of the Buddhas.
In approximately
