I sincerely offer my gratitude to all of the assembled personalities who have come today. I hope you can demonstrate the art of tolerance by tolerating me and my condition. This subject is infact of utmost importance because really one can measure a person’s character by their capacity to tolerate difficulties. Bhagavath Geetha describes in second canto who is actually a person of high character .
‘Matra sparshasthu kaunteya seethotsna sukha dukha dha
Agaman tham suthiskva bharata’
The non permanent appearance and disappearance of happiness- distress, honored - dishonored, pleasure- pain, victory-defeat, success- failure, and health-disease. They appear like the winter and summer season. One must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed. We are living in a world of dualities. One cannot escape dualities, one must learn to adjust one’s consciousness and maintain integrity to despite dualities. Example is given of a coin, there is a head side and the tail side. If you want one side you automatically have to accept the other, they are inseparable .Distress is in separable to happiness. Pleasure and pain are inseparable attraction and aversion, honor –dishonor, Success-failure and these dualities will come upon anyone at any time.
One of the greatest problems that 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 . They are our higher powers dictating circumstances upon every one. We have control over our future destiny by our activities today that is the laws of karma but what is coming upon us is something that is always not under our control ultimately we are all controlled by time. No one wants to become old, you loose your beauty, you loose your memory, and you loose your physical capacities .Does anyone wants to be old? But can any one stop the process. It is a humbling experience to live in this world because we are not the controllers, everyone wants to succeed but so many people fail. Every ones wants nice weather but we cannot control intense heat and intense cold. We are all subordinate, dependant to higher powers and those higher powers work on the basis of dualities. To tolerate dishonor is very difficult but it’s more difficult to tolerate honor, when you become dishonored you become angry or you may become depressed depending on the person and circumstances. We have seen some people if dishonored will pull out a sword and declare war against those offenders.
yes, other people just remove themselves from society , go to a lonely place and cry in depression . How to tolerate dishonor? It is very very difficult infact ‘Bhagavad-Gita’ explains that for one who is honored, dishonor is worst than death. But more difficult than that is to tolerate honor without becoming proud. According to Christian Bible St Paul had said Pride commit before fall. The very integrity of one’s humanness is destroyed when there is egotism, false pride. How to tolerate being honored without becoming proud without considering oneself superior to others and naturally offending others ,it is very difficult . Thus Krishna explains in this verse “The nonpermanent appearance of happiness, distress and dualities and their disappearance in due course are like the appearance and disappearance of a summer season, one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed really this is what Bhagavad-Gita teaches. One of the greatest themes to out the Gita is to how to learn to be tolerant. In the second chapter, 70th verse the key to success is given by Lord Sri Krishna himself in Gita . I would like share with you and then give some reflections on this particular subject.
‘Apuryamanam acala-pratistham samudram apah pravisanti yadvat
Tadvat kama yam pravisanti sarve sa santim apnoti na kama kami’
A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desire enters like the rivers and the oceans which I ever being filled but is always still can alone achieve peace and not the man , who strives to satisfy such desires. Bhagavad-
Человек, которого не беспокоит непрерывный поток желаний, входит, как реки и океаны, которые я когда-либо наполняю, но всегда все еще может достичь мира в одиночку, а не человек, который стремится удовлетворить такие желания. Бхагавад-
