According to Osho, patience has a limit: never submit to unnecessary torture or compromise your self-respect. If you’ve suffered enough, revolt—stop cooperating with exploiters and withdraw the inner consent that sustains your pain. See how you unconsciously support suffering through rationalizations, drop them, and act decisively. Life is for celebration; choose awareness, assert boundaries, and change now.
If something keeps hurting you, stop agreeing to it—notice how you’re helping it continue, say no, and choose what brings you alive.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Isn't there a limit to patience? I have suffered enough in my life: should I revolt against it or not?
But something drastic will be needed. You have suffered so long, you have become so accustomed to it, that unless you do something drastic, a quantum leap, you will not be able to get out of it. Become a sannyasin: that will be something drastic. Take a jump into something new, try something new that you have never done before. And remember, the ego is always attached to suffering. why is the ego always attached to suffering? Because the ego feeds on suffering; you feel like a great martyr. The ego disappears when you are happy, really happy. Enjoy, and the ego is not found. That's why if you have chosen an egoistic life-style you will never be able to get out of suffering. You may change your sufferings, but you will create new sufferings again. You may divorce one woman, and you will get married very soon to the…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF PATIENCE? Patience has been exploited by people. There has been poverty for centuries and people have been told just to be patient, "It is a test of your trust in God." They have been told just to be patient, "It is only a question of a few years and then you will be entering into paradise." Patience has been used as part of an exploitation of people in every field, but patience itself is a beautiful quality. You should not allow your patience to be exploited. But to be patient, to me means trust -- trust in nature, trust in existence, trust in yourself. Things are going to be better every day; whatever happens, your patience finds in it something better for you. It is a very great alchemy; it changes suffering into blessing.
Question: Third question: How long to wait? Osho! How long to wait? The very question “how long” tells me you do not know the art of waiting. “How long” is already impatience—where is waiting in that? “How long” is haste—where is waiting in that? True waiting is infinite. Anything less than the infinite is not waiting; it is a counterfeit. And the one whose waiting is infinite will find it this very moment. The more impatience you have, the longer it will take. Let this arithmetic settle within you: the more the haste, the longer the delay. The more the impatience, the longer the delay. For a mind full of impatience is agitated, trembling; it cannot be still. An impatient mind keeps peering into the future; it is not present in the present.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, AND A WOMAN SPOKE, SAYING, TELL US OF PAIN. AND HE SAID: YOUR PAIN IS THE BREAKING OF THE SHELL THAT ENCLOSES YOUR UNDERSTANDING. EVEN AS THE STONE OF THE FRUIT MUST BREAK, THAT ITS HEART MAY STAND IN THE SUN, SO MUST YOU KNOW PAIN. AND COULD YOU KEEP YOUR HEART IN WONDER AT THE DAILY MIRACLES OF YOUR LIFE, YOUR PAIN WOULD NOT SEEM LESS WONDROUS THAN YOUR JOY; AND YOU WOULD ACCEPT THE SEASONS OF YOUR HEART, EVEN AS YOU HAVE ALWAYS ACCEPTED THE SEASONS THAT PASS OVER YOUR FIELDS. AND YOU WOULD WATCH WITH SERENITY THROUGH THE WINTERS OF YOUR GRIEF. MUCH OF YOUR PAIN IS SELF-CHOSEN. IT IS THE BITTER POTION BY WHICH THE PHYSICIAN WITHIN YOU HEALS YOUR SICK SELF.
How much patience is needed? Is there really nothing we can do?
The moment you ask how much, you miss the point. You cannot ask how much patience is needed. The very question says that the patience is not there, you are impatient. Patience never asks how much, patience always knows that whatsoever you do it is always less than needed. That's why those who have attained always say: When we attained it was not because of our efforts, it was because of his grace. Don't ask how much patience. The very question comes out of impatience. And IS THERE REALLY NOTHING WE CAN DO? Yes, there is really nothing that YOU can do. The doer is the barrier. You are the hindrance. Drop this you and the doer. Life is a happening, it is not an act, and all that is great and beautiful is a happening. You cannot do it, you can only allow it to happen, please allow it;…