Look at it this way: because the western mind particularly — and now no other mind exists, only the western mind more or less everywhere, even in the East — is in a hurry, that’s why it has become interested in Zen. Zen gives the promise of sudden enlightenment. Zen looks like instant coffee, and it has an appeal. But I know Zen won’t help because the appeal is not because of Zen, the appeal is because of hurry. And then you don’t understand Zen.

In the West, whatsoever is rumored about Zen is almost false; it fulfills a need of the mind who 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 is just as when you boil water: you heat the water; at a certain temperature, one hundred degrees, the water evaporates suddenly. Right, evaporation is sudden, but by heating, you have to bring the water up to hundred degrees. The heating will take time, and heating depends on your intensity.

If you are in a hurry you don’t have any heat, because in a hurry you would have to have Zen satori, or enlightenment, just by the way, if it can be attained, if it can be purchased. Running, you would like to snatch it from somebody’s hands.

It cannot be done that way. There are flowers, seasonal flowers: you sow the seeds and within three weeks the plants are getting ready, but within three months the plants have blossomed, gone, disappeared. If you are in a hurry, then it will be better to be interested in drugs than into meditation, Yoga or Zen, because drugs can give you dreams, instant dreams, sometimes of hell, sometimes of heaven. Then marijuana is better than 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 won’t help.

There is a Zen saying: If you are in a hurry, you will never arrive. You can even arrive just by sitting, but in a hurry you can never arrive. 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 is also 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. He is just like a postman; he goes up and down continuously, bringing messages from above, bringing messages from below; he continues his work.

He was going to heaven and just he 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 I have to wait” — even in the very question, the impatience is there — “and remind him also,” said the old monk, “that for three lives I have been doing meditation and austerities, and everything that can be done I have done, there is a limit to everything.” A demand, expectation, impatience....

Narada said, “I am going and I will ask.”

Just by the side of the old monk, under another tree there was a young man dancing and singing the name of God. As a joke Narada asked the young man, “Would you also like that I should ask about you, how much time it will take?” But the young man was in so much ecstasy that he didn’t bother, he didn’t answer.

Then after a few days, Narada came back. He told the old man, “I asked God. He laughed and he said, ‘At least three lives more.’”

The old man threw his mala and said, “This is injustice! Whosoever says God is just is wrong!” He was very angry.

Then Narada went to the young man who was still dancing and said, “Even thought you did not ask, I asked, but I am afraid to tell you now, because that old man has got into such an anger he would have even hit me.”

But the young man was still dancing, not interested. Narada told him that “I asked him, and God said, ‘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. He laughed and jumped and celebrated. He said, “So soon? Because the earth is full of trees, millions and millions, and just these leaves, the same amount? So soon? God is infinite compassion, and I am not worthy of it!”

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 so long he will be a shock to you. And if you allow him to enter you, your hurry will disappear.

That’s 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 the reality. He will bring you to your senses.