silence shared in words
presents
The Spiritual Sickness of Fatalism
What is the difference between waiting for the ship to come in,
and being passive and fatalistic?
The difference
between waiting for the ship to come,
and being passive and fatalistic
is immense,
although very delicate.
The fatalistic mind
does not believe
in the individual's own freedom,
does not believe in the individual's own longing and search.
Its belief system is
that everything is predetermined;
the individual is just a puppet
in the hands of existence.
Fatalism destroys your individuality,
your integrity,
your pride,
your self-respect.
It destroys everything that is valuable in man.
The fatalist is bound to be passive,
because what is going to happen is not his desire,
is not his longing
at the most
it is just his acceptance.
Whatever happens, he will accept it;
he is dull,
unintelligent.
But waiting for the ship is a totally different phenomenon;
waiting for the ship does not mean fatalism.
The coming of the ship
is not predetermined
it depends on the intensity of your longing:
it depends
on your love,
on your heart,
on your being afire.
You are arrowed
towards the ship
but still it is not impatience.
You trust your own longing,
not fate.
You trust your own dreams;
you trust yourself.
It brings
more integrity to your individuality,
more centeredness, more rootedness.
And you are patient,
because you know your longing is total,
and existence
is fair.
It cannot defeat you,
it cannot leave you aside in darkness,
because
you have longed,
you have loved,
you have desired,
you have searched
although there is no impatience.
Impatience also shows
that you are not
trusting your dreams,
you are not trusting your totality of longing.
Patience simply means:
I will wait,
whatever time it takes for the spring to come
but I will not wait patiently;
I will wait
with a heart
throbbing,
desiring,
waiting...
each moment, day in, day out.
Waiting for the ship
is a very
total action on your part -- because the action is total,
your trust is total.
But
all the mystics of the world have been teaching
you to wait
patiently,
and the masses of the world have turned
waiting with patience into
a passive and fatalistic attitude.
They are indifferent: there is no longing, there is no desire, no dream, no vision.
If it comes,
it is okay;
if it does not come, it does not matter.
The whole world has fallen
into a deep spiritual sickness
of fatalism.
It has stopped people from growing;
it has stopped people from searching.
It has stopped people...
even when the ship has arrived,
they are fast asleep and unconscious.
Unless you have seen the ship
in your vision
with total clarity,
you will not be able to recognize it when it comes.
How are you going to recognize that your ship has come?
You can recognize it only because a thousand-and-one times in your dreams
it has been there -- slowly, slowly becoming more and more clear.
It is as if you have seen it thousands of times,
so when it comes -- even when it is far away,
surrounded by mist
you recognize it,
you know it.
This is the way it has been coming into your dreams.
And when you see it
coming closer, and the mariners and the captain standing on the deck,
you are absolutely certain:
these people belong to the land from where you come
because you have dreamt about the land,
you have dreamt about these people.
If the ship comes without your active desire and active longing,
you may miss it. It may come and it may go,
and you may not be able to recognize that it is your ship,
that it has come for you,
to take you back to the original source.
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