Question: Is there some way to feel that patience is very dynamic and that it is not just waiting?

Sri Chinmoy: Patience can be dynamic only in a hopeful sense. Patience hopes that it will be dynamic. At times dynamism may not be constructive. Many times we see that dynamism is very good, but behind dynamism or in front of dynamism there can be a kind of determination that has anger in it. So if you are saying that inside patience you want to see dynamism, I wish to say that inside dynamism, you have to feel that if you are not fully successful in your efforts, then you are not going to destroy your own hard work. You can say that patience has dynamism, but that dynamism may not act in a positive way. Patience may tolerate something for years and years, an indefinite time. Then, inside that patience, if dynamism comes, at that time it may be almost like a destructive power. Patience by nature does not carry dynamism because if dynamism comes, then strictness will come.

If someone in your family is misbehaving and you are patient, you will forgive him again and again. Then if you want to become dynamic, you will take immediate action. But that action may be totally destructive. You may make a serious mistake. Patience goes on continuously, like a boat that is sailing smoothly. Patience is alive, it is active, but if you want to make it dynamic, then you will say that by such and such a date the person has to become perfect. If he does not do so, you will take immediate action. Then you will suffer more. All the things that you worked for may be broken or damaged. Afterwards you will say, “Perhaps I made a mistake. If I had waited only two months more, then perhaps that person would have turned over a new leaf and become what I wanted.”