Category: Tolerate

Categories
Tolerate

The Shoemaker’s Son

The Shoemaker’s SonTo remain inspired, positive, faithful, and optimistic even in the most trying situations is the substance of our sincerity. The Lord puts the greatest souls through tough situations and even failures just to show us how they remain positive and inspired to carry on. – Radhanath Swami.

 

As President Abraham Lincoln entered to give his inaugural address, one rich aristocrat stood up and condescendingly said, “Mr. Lincoln, you should not forget that your father used to make shoes for my family.” The whole Senate laughed thinking that they had made a fool of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln reacted in the most unexpected way. He replied, “Sir, I know that my father used to make shoes in your house for your family, and there will be many others here for whom he made shoes. Because nobody else could make shoes the way he could. He was a creator. His shoes were not just shoes; he poured his whole soul into them. I have learnt from my father how to make shoes. If you have any complaint, I can make another pair of shoes for you. But as far as I know, nobody has ever complained about shoes my father made. He was a genius, a great creator, and I am proud of my father”. The whole Senate was dumbstruck. Instead of feeling insulted by the nasty remark, Lincoln felt proud about his genius father.

 

“One’s greatness has to be estimated by how one is able to be tolerate provoking situations,” Radhanath Swami emphasizes. Provoking situations are an inevitable part of life, whoever we are. Depending on how we respond to them is really what determines how close we become to God. While being crucified, Lord Jesus was praying to the Lord to forgive those who were torturing him. It’s not what happens to us that hurts us; it’s our response that hurts. Contemplating on such examples of great devotees of God, we can find inspiration to tolerate the relatively minor inconveniences that inevitably arise when spouses stay together. Everyone is unique; disagreements and difference of opinions are bound to arise. Instead of responding rashly, one must learn to tolerate such inconveniences and remain united based on the higher principle of coming together and serving God.

 

Remember. No one can hurt you without your consent.

Categories
Tolerate

Toys are poison

Fighting for Petty Things“My mother witnessed her three little sons as they fought amongst themselves over toys. She used to say “toys are poison” because they cause so much trouble” — Radhanath Swami

Adults look at children and say, “Such stupid children, fighting over such stupid things. After all, what is a toy? Just a cheap piece of plastic. And these children are fighting over it!” But adults have their ‘toys’ too, both animate and inanimate, over which they fight—who belongs to whom, what belongs to whom. And sometimes that fight ends in a divorce. If we simply understand the second chapter of Bhagavata Gita, all problems of this world will be solved. This chapter tells us who we really are. We are not this body, for whose needs we childishly fight. We are spirit souls. Our original nature is that we are eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss.

As a spirit soul passes from boyhood to youth to old age, at the time of death, the spirit soul will simply enter another body (BG 2.13). Why then should we make such a big deal out of superficial temporary situations? As for the temporary happiness derived from temporary ‘toys’ of this world, Prahlad, a King of Vedic times, said something interesting. “Nobody tries for miseries, but they come anyways. Similarly, even happiness will come anyways. So, why endeavor for happiness?” He goes one step further, “If anybody wants to be happy, it is very easy. Just stop endeavoring to be happy in this material world. Because as soon as we endeavor to be happy, we become implicated by all the causes of suffering. Whatever happiness and distress is going to come, will come anyways, whether you try for it or not. So why not spend our valuable time to cultivate spiritual happiness by turning to God?”

Categories
Tolerate

See the Whole Picture

Lessons from life of Monk

See the Whole PictureA lesson from his life as a monk….

If you see the whole picture little parts can be adjusted, but if you don’t see the whole picture one little part can create chaos.—Radhanath Swami

According to all the scriptures of the world, at the very centre of the whole picture of marital relationship is a higher principle:  to help each other in loving God, in serving God, and in serving humanity. Keeping in view this higher principle, both the husband and wife can easily adjust and go on with their marital relationship.

In the 1970’s Radhanath Swami lived in an austere Ashram (monastery) on a mountain top in West Virginia.   At that time, how this relationship tip of ‘seeing the whole picture’ helped him maintain friendship with another monk, Radhanath Swami explains, “When I first came to live in an Ashram there was a person, he joined after me but became my authority. There was nothing about him that I liked, and even more important, there was nothing about me that he liked. I was thinking that if weren’t in that Ashram I would never want to do anything with that kind of a person, and I knew that he felt exactly the same way about me. But somehow, we were milking cows together; we milked the same cow, one on each side of the cow. Despite our differences we both accepted in our hearts that the higher principle of our relationship is to help each other to love God, to serve God, to serve humanity, and to follow the path that would purify our hearts. That was the higher principle and everything else we somehow just tolerated. Because we focused on that principle within a year we became best friends for the rest of our lives. We were so absolutely loyal, faithful and helpful to each other. I saw no faults in him anymore and he saw no faults in me. We were serving together practically all day, every day.”

 

Categories
Tolerate

Look at the Himalayan Mountains

Himalyas

HimalyasThe nature of the mind that’s not finding inner fulfillment is that it makes insignificant things seem so important — Radhanath Swami. 

Things that are practically meaningless we sometimes interpret as so meaningful. Fights, arguments and even divorces are often based on these trifling things. Radhanath Swami explains in this connection. “If there is a little hill in front of your house and that’s all you have ever seen, it seems gigantic.” As long as we don’t focus our consciousness on higher principles, unimportant things are important, at least they seem that way. Radhanath Swami, continuing his analogy of being overwhelmed by a little hill, says, “But if you look at the Himalayan Mountains, then that little hill is insignificant because you have seen something greater.” We have to see something higher in life. “Krishna is great, devotion is great, and the satisfaction of Bhakti is great. When we have some connection to that, some experience with that, then all of these little things we see it for what it is worth. Otherwise, things that really has nothing to do with us, nothing to do with reality, obsess us, possess us, rule over us and cause us to fight, to battle, to become envious and angry. We can only overcome these things when we experience something higher. That’s the real solution.”

The stage of perfection is called trance, or samadhi, when one’s mind is completely restrained from material mental activities by practice of yoga. This is characterized by one’s ability to see the self by the pure mind and to relish and rejoice in the self. In that joyous state, one is situated in boundless transcendental happiness and enjoys himself through transcendental senses. Established thus, one never departs from the truth and upon gaining this he thinks there is no greater gain. Being situated in such a position, one is never shaken, even in the midst of greatest difficulty. This indeed is actual freedom from all miseries arising from material contact.’ (Bhagavad Gita 6.20-23)

 

Categories
Tolerate

Learn From the Tortoise

Learning from Tortoise

Learning from Tortoise“There may be unlimited reasons for us to argue and not co-operate but there is one sufficient reason for us to love and co-operate—it is pleasing to God” – Radhanath Swami
No matter what the circumstances of your life are, when two egos are living so close to each other, there is bound to be conflict, there are bound to be differences and disagreements. “It is natural,” says Radhanath Swami, “but it is not more important than the sacred principle of why you are together as partners in life; it is not more important than the marriage vows you take before God to help each other become pure, to help each other practice the yoga of life, and to love and protect each other for that purpose.”

We can learn a lot from animals. When a predator attacks a tortoise, the tortoise swiftly withdraws its head inside its shell to protect itself from attacks. Similarly, we must learn to retract and withdraw our minds from the enemy called selfish egoistic agendas. While the tortoise is motivated by the principle of survival, we can be motivated by the sacred principles of married life. Then there can be peace and harmony.

A person who has given up all desires for sense gratification, who lives free from desires, who has given up all sense of proprietorship and is devoid of false ego- he alone can attain real peace. (Bhagavad Gita 2.71)

Categories
Tolerate

A Lesson from Gandhi’s Life

Lesson from Gandhi's Life

Lesson from Gandhi's LifeThis is the solution for almost every problem in marriage, these two words—‘forget it’!—Radhanath Swami

 

There is an extremely instructive incident in the life of Mahatma Gandhi which Radhanath Swami’s guru, His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, often narrated. Gandhi once had a serious fight with his wife.

They both got to a point where they became extremely emotional and Gandhi shouted at his wife asking her to get out of his house. Kasturba Gandhi cried and walked out. Though Gandhi was the pioneer of ahimsa or non-violence of the modern age, though he was the inspiration for Martin Luther King and so many others to bring about change in society based on that non-violence, and though he was much against fighting, yet here he was, fighting with his wife. That’s the nature of marriage. Radhanath Swami derives a lesson out of this incident, “Mahatma Gandhi is having trouble keeping peace in his house, though he was much more experienced and empowered than anyone of you. Therefore, you must not be under the illusion that you will not have any troubles in your married life.”

 

After sometime when Gandhi opened the door, he saw his wife sitting out on the walkway. So he asked her why she was still sitting there when he had asked her to go away. In reply she looked up at him and said she had nowhere else to go. Gandhi smiled and asked her to just forget it and took her inside the house. And that was the end of the conflict.

 

Radhanath Swami concludes, “This is the solution for almost every problem in marriage- these two words ‘forget it’!”


Categories
Tolerate

Don’t be Childish

Don't be Childish

Don't be ChildishThe nature of the mind is that sometimes you like each other and sometimes you don’t like each other; sometimes you are angry with each other and sometimes you are happy with each other. This is because the ego is very flickering, the mind is even more flickering, and the senses are all the more flickering — Radhanath Swami

A child may cry for a new toy he sees in the toy store and won’t let you get out of the store unless you buy it. So, you give into its plea and shell out a large amount. The child stops crying and plays with it the whole evening. Next morning you find him uninterested in the toy and he now wants something new to play with! Similarly, our desires are flickering and insatiable. Our mind always tries to seek something new, something different. So, if our relationship is based on these superficial principles such as desires of the mind or the senses or the ego, then our relationship is very superficial, it is without much substance and may soon lose sheen.

Radhanath Swami reminds us that marriage is a sacred event and therefore it is sanctified in a sacred place like a church or a temple. It is to be taken as a priority, above everything else. When we focus on the sacred principle that has brought us together, and harmonize whatever that may come in our lives according to that, our relationship deepens, and is no longer based on the flickering nature of the ego, mind and senses.

‘The embodied soul may be restricted from sense enjoyment, though the taste for sense objects remains. But, ceasing such engagements by experiencing a higher taste, he is fixed in consciousness.’ (Bhagavad Gita 2.59)