One can measure a person’s character by their capacity to tolerate difficulties. We are living in a world of dualities. One cannot escape dualities. One must learn to adjust one’s consciousness and maintain integrity despite dualities. An apt example of this is a coin which has two sides: a head side and a tail side. If we want one side, we automatically must accept the other. They are inseparable. Distress is inseparable to happiness, pleasure and pain are inseparable, attraction-aversion, honor-dishonour, success and failure, and these dualities will come upon anyone at any time.
One of the greatest problems we face in life is we all want to be in control of our destiny, today and tomorrow, but the problem is no one is in control. There are higher powers dictating circumstances upon everyone. We have control over our future destiny by our activities today, that is the law of karma. But what is coming upon is something that is not always under our control.
Ultimately, we are all being controlled by time. No one wants to become old, you lose your beauty, you lose your money, and you lose your physical capacities. Does anyone want to be old? But, can anyone stop the process? It is a humbling experience to live in this world, because we are not the controller. Everyone wants to succeed, but so many people fail. Everyone wants it to be nice weather, but we cannot control intense heat and intense cold. We are all subordinate, dependent to higher powers, and those higher powers works on the basis of dualities.
Thus Lord Krishna explains, “The non-permanent appearance of happiness and distress and other dualities and their disappearance are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer season, one must learn to tolerate without being disturbed.” This is what Bhagavad Gita As Is teaches.
Tolerance is the appreciation of diversity and the ability to live and let others live. It is the ability to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards those whose opinions, practices, religion, nationality and so on differ from one's own. Tolerance is not just agreeing with one another or remaining indifferent in the face of injustice, but rather showing respect for the essential humanity in every person
What are the needs of the soul? To live in harmony with the needs of the soul is human life, to forget that principle is the life of two legged animals. What is the nature of the soul? To love, to have equal vision of compassion to all living beings: whether one is in business, engineer, housewife, teacher, student, monk, architect, farmer, whatever our particular occupation may be, to express our values, to express or love, our devotion to God and all living beings through our work. That is the highest life; that is natural life. In that life there is happiness and in that happiness we have the power to tolerate all provoking situations.
Article by:
H.G. Mathura Vasi Devi Dasi
(Meghna Choudhury)
E-Counselor
ISKCON Desire Tree
www.iskcondesiretree.com/e-counseling
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