"Do you have two rupees for me?" Shirdi Sai Baba, the great, wild, miracle healing saint of the 19th/20th century would always ask the local people of Shirdi, in India, as he was begging on his daily rounds. 

Two rupees: faith and patience, those all-important two requirements in spirituality, is what he was asking for, indirectly. WHY? Because the reality of spirituality, of healing, of knowing how to operate in this creation, is NOT easy, and not for the faint of heart.  

We come to the divine characters carrying our armloads of blocks, of emotions, of projections, like entitled teenagers -- feeling that because we have found a divine master like Shirdi Baba, Jesus, Buddha, Yogananda, or Sri Kaleshwar, that now they OWE us immediate results. "I did this mantra, I expected this result, I didn't get it..." This could not be more of an illusion and egoic trap!

Over many years of dealing with the avadhuta energy, and doing intense sadhanas in the Sai spiritual tradition, I've learned that it is humility, not demanding, that gets results.  It is required to develop faith, a simple, unshakeable belief and trust in the divine -- especially in the absence of results! -- no matter what.

And patience -- the most difficult of all to learn, practice, and develop -- really wins the day with the divine.

If we come in a big hurry, expecting a red carpet treatment and immediate results, and are foolish enough to demand all that from the avadhuta characters, their first response to us is: "No. Wait."  

WAIT.

If we persist in our impatience, we will soon find ourselves at the END of the line..... until we learn, internally and practically, what patience really is.

It is a confused arrogance to assume that we command/demand the timeline of the divinity, or that we have the right to assert our sense of entitlement for immediate gratification.

In the mirror reflected back to us from the guru energy, we will see our own blocks thrown back at us in an amplified way -- until we drop our own nonsense and start to approach the divine from an angle more infused with understanding, discipline, delicacy, and an open humility, a real humbleness.

By putting our restless, impatient, mind-driven, demanding nature on the waiting list, the avadhuta energy is doing us a real favor -- teaching us how to be skillful, how to be delicate, how to be a powerful healer.

As you all know, this is not an overnight transformation. As my beloved Swami Kaleshwar would frequently say to an impatient, anxious student, "Hurry, worry, currry." We don't want bad fast food from the divine -- we want a full delicious banquet. (And the divine wants to give that to us.) It takes time to prepare the full meal, complete with many courses.

Our job, as spiritual students, is to do the work, from our side, the meditations, the sadhanas, the processes, and to go deep in our inner research on our own blocks, being honest about them, and working to dissolve them.... and leave the results, all the rest of it, to god.

Shirdi Baba - aka the divine energy - is asking for two rupees, faith and patience. 

How are you giving that to the divine, today?