According to Osho, impatience is the shadow of desire: when practice is driven by wanting results—peace, silence, enlightenment—the very desiring agitates the mind. The cure is not a new spiritual aim, but seeing that desiring itself is the problem. Drop goal-seeking, wait without hurry, and let meditation happen in desirelessness; then patience and stillness arise naturally.
Stop wanting something from meditation; just sit without trying, and patience comes by itself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
You have spoken about so many methods and techniques. The yearning to succeed in them is very great. How can we overcome our great impatience?
Two things to be remembered. One: spirituality cannot be an outcome of desire, because desire is the root cause of all our anxiety and anguish. And you cannot direct your desires to the spiritual realm. But it happens, it is natural, because we know only one movement -- that is desire. We desire the things of the world. Someone desires riches, someone desires fame, someone desires prestige and power, or something else. We desire things of the world, and through this desiring we are frustrated. And we are bound to be frustrated -- it is irrelevant whether a desire is fulfilled or not. If it is not fulfilled, obviously we will be frustrated. If it is fulfilled, then too we will be frustrated, because whenever a desire is fulfilled, the desire is fulfilled, but the hope, the promise, is not fulfilled. You can get as much wealth as you desire,…
Osho, what is the relationship between meditation and patience?
If you sit to meditate to remove mental restlessness, you will keep looking back again and again: “Has it gone yet?” And the irony is that when you begin to meditate, restlessness will increase. Because what has been repressed will start surfacing; catharsis will begin. The rubbish you have kept hidden within and never allowed to express—meditation will break open those doors too. It will clean the house. Dust piled up for years, for births, will rise again; there will be gusts and storms. For a while even the little peace you had will be lost. Then you will panic: “I came for peace, and even what I had is gone.” Without patience, you could even become unhinged, because meditation brings such a great storm. The disease is not from a day or two; it’s from lifetimes. Meditation will break through all the layers to reach your innermost core. In…
Osho, in your presence there is a taste of the depth of meditation, but that state does not remain permanent. Please guide us toward making it permanent!
If delay is your way, no harm; we will cultivate the habit of patience—what else! If you tarry, fine. However long you can delay, we will learn to wait longer still. We too will cultivate the habit of acceptance— Your aloofness may be your habit; so be it. Do not fall into haste. Haste breeds tension. It is haste that makes the mind restless. Walk with patience. Infinite time is available. There is no hurry anywhere. Time’s stream is endless—no near shore, no far shore; no beginning, no end. In this eternal, you are worrying needlessly. Why all this running about? Your running will not make anything come sooner. There is no need to hurry. Look at the trees—how languid they are. Look at the moon and stars—how silently they move. Do you see any hurry in existence to reach somewhere? Existence is so calm, as if it has already…
Osho, I want samadhi, and quickly. This hurry is becoming a terrible tension. What should I do?
First, samadhi or sambodhi cannot be desired. What can be desired is the world. What cannot be desired—that alone is the divine, that is samadhi. Desire and samadhi have no relationship; they never meet. Desire means: what you are not. Samadhi means: what you are. What you are—how will you desire it? How could you? A woman may want to be a man, but how can a woman want to be a woman? She already is. What you are—how will you want it? What is the point of wanting? Wanting is always for what you are not. And what you are not, you can never be. Therefore desire leads into sorrow, into failure, into melancholy. Every desire breaks, gets shattered. After every desire you fall flat on your face, your mouth full of dust. Every desire brings failure; every desire brings frustration. Nothing is ever attained through desire; it cannot…
Osho, from listening to you, this disease of devotion seems to have infected me as well. Now I cannot keep patience. The yearning is that everything should happen right now.
You say: “From listening to you, this disease of devotion has caught me; now I cannot keep patience. The longing is that everything should happen right now.” I understand—that is how it happens. But refine your understanding a little more. This is natural, but this very naturalness will become a hindrance. Then what happens when a person becomes very impatient? Two things. Either he reaches a limit where it becomes hard to bear the impatience, and he thinks: “Forget it. None of this happens; there is no God, no prayer. What mess have I got into!”—this happens. Or the impatience becomes so much that the person breaks, falls apart, goes deranged. In both cases, the thing is missed. Put your energy into prayer, and leave the “when to come” to him. This is what I called utkranti (evolution) yesterday. You pray—that much is your effort—and then leave it to the…