In the west, whatsoever is rumored about zen is almost false; it fulfills a need of the mind which is in a hurry, but it is not true to zen. If you go to japan and ask zen people, they wait for thirty years, forty years for the first satori to happen. Even for sudden enlightenment one has to work hard. The enlightenment is sudden, but the preparation is very long. It just like you boil water: you heat the water; at a certain degree, a hundred degrees , the water evaporates suddenly. Right-evaporation is sudden but by heating you have to bring it up to a hundred degrees, the heating will take time, and heating depends on your intensity.

And if you are in a hurry you dont have any heat, because in a hurry you would have to have zen satori, or enlightenment, just by the way as if it can be attained, as if it can be purchased. Running, you would like to snatch it from somebodys hands. It cannot be done that way. There are flowers, seasonal flowers: you sow the seeds and within three months the plants have blossomed and gone, disappeared. If you are in a hurry then it will be better to be interested in drugs than into meditation, yoga, zen, because drugs can give you dreams, instant dreams, sometimes of hell, sometimes of hell, sometimes of heaven. Then marijuana is better then meditation. If you are in a hurry then nothing eternal can happen to you because the eternal needs eternal waiting. If you are asking for eternity to happen to you, you have to be ready for it. Hurry wont help.

There is a zen saying: if you are in a hurry you will never reach. You can even reach just by sitting, but in a hurry you can never reach. The very impatience is a barrier.

If you are in a hurry then patanjali is the antidote. If you are not in any hurry then zen also is possible. This statement will look contradictory, but this is so. This is how reality is, contradictory.? If you are in a hurry then you will have to wait for many lives before the enlightenment happens to you. If you are not in a hurry, then right now it can happen.

I will tell you one story that I like very much. It is one of the old Indian stories. Narada, a messenger between earth and heaven, a mythological figure, was going to heaven, a mythological figure, was going to heaven. He is just like a postman: he goes up and down continuously, bringing messages from below&. He continues his work. He was going to heaven and he just passed one very, very old monk sitting under a tree with his mala, his beads, chanting the name of Rama.

He looked at narada and said, where are you going. Are you going to heaven? Then do me a favor. Ask god how much more do I have to wait  even in remind him also, said old monk, that for three lives I have been doing meditation and austerities. Everything. A demand, expectation, impatience. Narada, I am going and I will ask.

And just by the side of the old monk, under another tree. There was a young man dancing and singing the name of God. Just as a joke Narada asked the young man, would you also like that I should ask for you how much time it will take? but the young man was so much in his ecstasy that he didnt bother, he didnt answer.

Then after a few days Narada came bask. He told the old man. I asked God, and he laughed and he said, At least three lives more. The old man threw down his mala and said, this is injustice! And whosoever says that god is just is wrong!

He was very angry. Then Narada went to the young man who was still dancing and said,  even if you have not asked, but I am afraid to tell you now because that old man has got into such an anger he would even have hit me.

But the young man was still dancing, not interested. Narada told him. I asked him, and god said to tell that young man that he should count the leaves of the tree under which he is dancing; the same number of times he will have to be born again before he attains.

The young man listened and went into such ecstasy  laughed and jumped and celebrated. He said,  so soon? Because the earth is full of trees, millions and millions. And just these leaves, and the same number? So soon? God is infinite compassion and I am not worthy of it!

And it is said that immediately, he attained. That very moment, the body fell, that very moment he became enlightened.

If you are in a hurry, it will take time. If you are not in a hurry, it is possible right this moment.

Patanjali is the antidote for those who are in a hurry. And zen is for those who are not in a hurry and just the opposite happens: people who are in hurry, they become interested in zen, and people who are not in any hurry, they become interested in patanjali.

This is wrong, if you are in a hurry then patanjali& because he will pull you down and bring you to your senses, and he will talk of a path that is so long that he will be a shock to you. And if you allow him to enter you, your hurry will disappear.

Thats why I am talking; I am talking on patanjali because of you: you are in a hurry and I hope patanjali will bring down your impatience. He will pull you down, back to reality, he will bring you to your senses.

Chitra Bhardwaj