WAITING

In this country, lawyers are waiters. Why? Because in court they wait most of the time. Waiting for their cases to be called up which could take hours. How much of our lives do we spend waiting? We wait for the bus, we wait in traffic jams, at the train station, at the airport, at McDonald's, at the toll booths, at the cinemas, at the hospitals etc. etc. We wait for people to arrive, we wait for our next favourite TV show, the next news segment or for the European championships to begin. Lovers wait anxiously for the next sms or call from each other. Children wait eagerly for the next school holiday. Adults too wait for the next holiday and the next pay. We wait for the next 'big break', the next vacation, the next exciting thing to happen in our lives. Even when i click the intenet icon, at the bottom of my computer screen, i read the words "Waiting for https://www.google.com"

Waiting is a state of mind. We want the future, we don't want the present (except when it is pleasurable). We don't want what we've got and we want what we haven't got. We want our food fast, drinks fast, reach our destinations fast, we want to be rich fast. We want to know what the future will be - we see fortune tellers. With every kind of waiting we are unconsciously creating inner conflict between our here and now, where we don't want to be, and the projected future where we want to be. This greatly reduces the quality of our life which make us lose the present.

The Masters say give up waiting as a state of mind. Snap out of it. Come to the present moment. Just be and enjoy being. If you are in the present there is never any need for you to wait for anything.

Jesus says in the parable of the Ten Virgins:-

"At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

"At midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!'
"Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.' " 'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'
"But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
"Later the others also came. 'Sir! Sir!' they said. 'Open the door for us!' "But he replied, 'I tell you the truth, I don't know you.'
"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour (Matt. 25:1-13)

Now i always thought that the parable meant we have to be vigilant at all times and to be good people because we do not know when the 2nd coming would be, when Jesus would come to judge the world.

Now, Echart Tolle, in his best selling book, 'The Power of Now" has a different intepretation to the above parable and an esoteric meaning to "waiting". Tolle writes:-

"In a sense, the state of presence could be compared to waiting...This is not the usual bored or restless kind of waiting that is a denial of the present..It is not a waiting in which your attention is focused on some point in the future and the present is perceived as an undesirable obstacle that prevents you from having what you want. There is a qualitatively different kind of waiting, one that requires your total alertness. Something could happen at any moment, and if you are not absolutely awake, absolutely still, you will miss it. This is the kind of waiting Jesus talks about. In that state, all your attention is in the Now. There is none left for daydreaming, thinking, remembering, anticipating. There is no tension in it, no fear, just alert presence. You are present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. In that state, -the "you" that has a past and a future - the personality if you like - is hardly there anymore. And yet nothing of value is lost. You are essentially yourself. In fact, you are more fully yourself then you ever were before, or rather it is only NOW that you are truly yourself.

Jesus speaks of the five careless (unconscious) virgins who do not have enough oil (consciousness) to keep their lamps burning (stay present) and so miss the bridegroom (the NOW) and don't get to the wedding feast (enlightenment). These five stand in contrast to the five wise virgins who had enough oil (stay conscious).

The Ten Virgin parable is not about the end of the world but about the end of psychological time. They point to the transcendence of the egoic mind and the possibility of living in an entirely new state of consciousness".

The Masters say that the average person think in patterns and cannot accomodate himself to a different point of view, a new dimension of consciousness. They are right. I did not have Tolle's insight on waiting, which is most interesting. There is no waiting in the NOW.