Today we are all suffering from various painful cognitive and negative emotional response mechanisms like fear, distress, anxiety, stress, anger. When circumstances are not favourable to our inner set of desires and when they do not align with our preconceived notions we are overcome by irritability at the drop of a hat. Most of the times in a bid to establish our supremacy over others we resort to negative habits such as verbal abuse, rage and in extreme cases even physical violence. The root cause of such undesirable behaviour is the inability of the conditioned soul to accept situations due to a lack of power of forbearance.
This stems from having high expectations from people around us, from our own selves and when these expectations are not met, we plunge deep into the valley of darkness, we lose hope, we lose our self confidence, we lose our sense of rationality and we lose or ability to judge what is right and what is wrong. We try to look for ways and means to put the blame on others, engage in fault-finding, criticizing and end up hurting others.
Often the people whom we hurt by such incoherent behaviour are our loved ones, the most precious people whom the Lord has sent in our lives for a higher purpose.
The Founder Acharya of International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Srila Prabhupada, in one of his books speaks a dynamic line that I consider to be so very important to be understood by all classes of human beings. This one line goes beyond all sectarianism; it is a universal principle. Who is a great person? People love to adore great people or envy great people, and people like to become great in their own way somehow or other.
But what actually is greatness? A mahatma means great soul. So what are the actual qualities of a great soul? Is greatness is to have a lot of money? Some of the most degraded people are millionaires and billionaires. Is greatness fame? Being a good singer, or a good dancer or having a beautiful body, being strong or athletic, or being heroic. Srila Prabhupada, according to the universal principles of all spiritual paths, describes what is greatness: “One’s greatness has to be estimated by ones ability to tolerate provoking situations.” It is easy to make a show of being great, but when you are challenged, when provoking situations face you that is actually the test of the substance of your character. And this the great scriptures give us as a constant theme. There are six enemies that exist within our heart, and they are provoked by circumstances both within and without. What are those six enemies: lust, envy, pride, anger, greed and illusion. A great personality is one who is able to tolerate these urges.
We all keep a garbage can in our homes so that we can put all garbage in the can. Now imagine that there should be no corner for the garbage can at home, do you know what will happen? There will be garbage everywhere, in the whole house! So, this is why we must leave some space for imperfections. If someone is imperfect, just accommodate them, look at them with compassion. In due course of time, when they see your level of purity, your merciful nature, they’ll gradually transform. This will increase your own tolerance level. You know, today, this is what we lack very seriously. People are becoming less and less tolerant. Look at the older generation, how calm and tolerant they are. And look at the other generation - how intolerant they are becoming! This is the case all over the world.
Therefore the foundation of keeping our calm, maintaining our sanctity and in the process harbouring healthy relationships is inculcating the habit of learning to accept situations and people the way they are, without being abruptly judgemental. Most importantly, we need to develop firm faith on the Supreme Lord's arrangement for each and every one of us and sincerely pray to Him to give us the strength to become humbler, become more tolerant and help us to perfect the art of acceptance.
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