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	I'm Always Late! Robert Rabbin I am not interested in peoples’ various explanations of what is inexplicable. I am not interested in peoples’ opinions masquerading as Ultimate Truth. I am not interested in verbal gymnastics as proof of enlightenment. I am not interested in what people say, but in what they do and how they do it. I am interested in how we act, in how we demonstrate whatever enlightenment we may have. Carlos Castaneda reported that his shaman mentor, don Juan, once said, “The flaw with words is that they always make us feel enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without enlightenment. For this reason, a warrior seeks to act rather than to talk, and to this effect he gets a new description of the world — a new description where talking is not that important, and where new acts have new reflections, and a new world is born.” Every great master throughout history gave their most inspiring and truthful sermon at the point of action, and in teaching their students at the point of their action. That’s where the true wake-up occurs. It never occurs in words and ideas; that’s just more delusion, or spiritual ego — another fixed point of view without any bite or bark. Pathetic. That’s why people who sit in big halls and listen to teachers prattle on never grow, never learn anything and remain lost, confused, and frightened, clinging desperately to the words they just heard, but then turning unchanged to face the waiting world without any new strength. We do not often hear amidst the din of spiritual talk-storms such themes as personal responsibility, integrity, and impeccability. I think we ought to put our attention on our actions, on how we meet the world at the point of contact, on how capable we are in the doing. We would learn much. We would come into an enlightenment of doing. I remember a conversation I had with an audience member in one of my talks, just before I moved here from the U.S. He started by confessing that he was always late … and I congratulated him on his great planning! Here is a transcript of that conversation: I‘m always late, and I can't figure out why that is. No matter what I do, I am always late. My wife will testify to this! You must be a good planner. No, I'm not, that's why I'm always late. Yes, you are, that's why you're always late. What do you mean? You aren't late by accident. To be late all the time is a form of impeccability; it takes intention, planning, and management. I am equally impeccable, except that I am never late. How do you manage that? In the same way that you manage to always be late. Are you saying I want to be late? Yes. Well, I’m not sure I agree with you. It doesn’t matter if you agree with me or not; it’s the only way it can be. Look deeper and be honest; you’ll find some way in which you get gratification from being late, which is why you are always late. You get off on it. You plan for it. You make it happen. But I don’t like to make other people wait for me. Of course you do; that’s why you do it. No, I feel bad when I’m late. You feel good behind feeling bad. You like the feeling; it is a kind of gratification for you, which is why you are always late. Well, assuming I really want to change, assuming I am ready to start being on time, what do you suggest I do? I can suggest several things. At one level, you have become habituated to lateness. It’s just a habit, which you have the power to change. In spite of what you say, you have programmed your internal guidance system to be late, and so you are late — all the time. Understand that you are not a victim of some tendency beyond your ability to control or change. Whenever we want to change something we are used to doing, we have to decide what is at stake, we have to make the new behaviour more important than the old behaviour. So, figure this out for yourself, and be honest. How important is it for you to be on time, to show people the respect and courtesy of meeting them when you say you will? At a slightly different level, I suggest you begin to be more mindful, moment to moment. Chronic lateness is partly due to the simple fact that you are unaware, you are not alert to time and place. You are lost in thought, or you have too narrow a focus. Years ago, I studied Aikido for a short while. I remember one of my teachers telling me to keep one degree of focus while maintaining 360 degrees of awareness. This was really good advice. It means that we pay total attention to what is right in front of us, without losing awareness of all that is around us. Practice that, and I’m sure you’ll see that you will have more clarity in the moment, and you’ll notice more easily when it is time to stop one thing and move on to the next. You might also look more carefully at the place within you from where you make commitments. I make commitments carefully, which is to say I allow the commitment to come from Silence, not from my mind. Just because someone invites me to go somewhere is not enough for me to make a commitment; nor is it enough just because my own mind wants to go somewhere or meet someone! I have to feel the commitment come from Silence. When it does, I can count on a kind of magic, which I call “inevitability,” to be sure I am never late. In other words, making commitments from Silence is aligning with a flow of events that is not determined by the calculating mind. Events will tend to favor you in this way. Let me give you an example. I was scheduled to fly from the Oakland Airport somewhere to do a program. I don’t remember in this moment where I was going. Usually, I would leave about an hour to get from my home in San Anselmo to the airport. This was on a Saturday morning, so traffic would have been very light, and an hour would have been more than enough time. As I was having my breakfast, I suddenly got the urge to leave immediately, which made no sense because it was about three hours before I needed to get to the airport. The feeling persisted, and I finally relented. I left, shaking my head. As I approached the onramp to the freeway, I found detour signs all over the place. I think a truck had turned over on the freeway and I had to go all over hell to get to the airport. It took me over two hours! If I had left when I planned to, I would have missed my plane. I suppose you could call this intuition, but I prefer to think of it as the magic of inevitability. My commitment to travel had been made from a deep place within me, and the intelligence of that place helped me out. My mind could not have anticipated those events. When we talk about Silence and the consciousness it represents, we should remember that it is truly unlimited. It knows things beyond the scope of our mind. It is the same consciousness, the same force, that has created this incredibly intricate, mind-boggling universe. It seems to me that that consciousness is certainly capable of being on time, if it wants to be. Understand that truly conscious people, aware people, are naturally and effortlessly impeccable; they are not inept, ineffectual, and incompetent. It is not natural to be inept and inefficient. It is not natural to do things poorly. We have to have a lot of ideas in our mind to thwart consciousness, which is impeccable. This is why I say that if we live from our mind, we will be subject to all of the ideas and beliefs we have about ourselves and the world. Why do we need all of that clutter? If we live from Silence, we will be effective in what we do, naturally, because we will be acting in alignment with the creative power of the universe. You’re never late? Never.     Back to Media-Room - Print page