(Part 3 of 4)

If the sun is too harsh, you promptly protect yourself by wearing sun glasses. But if your son is too harsh, why do you get disturbed and try changing him? By desiring to change others, you create greater pain. Let us gather further insight for successfully managing our relationships.

T – Tolerance

Man’s intellectual capacity may have increased but his capacity to tolerate seems to have reduced. A son wanted a motorbike and when his father refused to buy it for him, he committed suicide. Why should you want everything to go your way?

In the world, your astute intelligence may be appreciated, not in spirituality. To have a calm and equanimous mind, power of knowledge is not enough, you need power of tolerance. How much? You should be able to tolerate what you consider as ‘wrong of others.’ Wrong and right is merely your conditioned perception. As your inner purity increases, you will understand and wonder at your own narrow vision, ‘how could I have perceived, analysed, judged, and labelled people and events the way I did?’

When opposed, you so easily get disturbed and react. You don’t always have to agree with others but do respect them. Respect their way of thinking, their habits, their nature. You can have your own understanding and beliefs, but you must also have tolerance for others’ set of beliefs.

To forgive and to ask for forgiveness should not be delayed. When Lord Rama returned after fourteen years of exile, He first went to pay obeisance to Kaikeyi, not His mother Kaushalya. For Him, giving and seeking forgiveness was spontaneous. Seeking forgiveness may yet be easy because you are at fault, but for forgiving others, you will need the virtue of tolerance.

Respect others even when you feel they are wrong. To maintain the family fabric, look at the bigger picture. Don’t get stuck in petty incidents. Once the family fabric gets disturbed, it starts showing in your happiness, peace, unity, and slowly, even your wealth and status start deteriorating. You will remain so disturbed that you will not benefit even from Satsang. You won’t be able to meditate. Your devotional practices will become mechanical.

Tolerance isn’t helplessness; it is a virtue, a mark of inner purity.

I – Interest

A grandfather plays cricket with his grandson not because he likes cricket, but because he knows that the boy is interested in cricket; and he in the boy. Take interest in your family members; their studies, their hobbies, their problems. For them, their problems are huge. Sometimes you just need to listen to make the other person feel secured that ‘someone is interested in me’.

Become loving and lovable. Before you become a successful leader, be a successful father, brother, son etc. See that your family has no complaints for you. If you have time to sit for your spiritual practices, but no time to give to your family, then this is not the correct approach.

When a steel vessel is falling, what do you do? You try to get your hand under the vessel, so that it doesn’t make noise. When did you last keep your loving hand on your son to make him feel at ease? When someone is vomiting, you compassionately rush to help. But if someone is vomiting words, why do you want to retaliate? Be compassionate, not angry.

You want to increase hours of meditation, devotional practices, satsang etc. What would you gain by reading books and listening to satsang if you can’t apply when you need them the most? All of this will be counted as entertainment. But if you keep passing your life-tests, all of it will qualify as spirituality.

On seeing a poor man, you want to give and not take from him. When someone’s balance of happiness is less, why do you expect from that person? Learn to be a donor of love, instead of expecting, begging and complaining. Be interested in others welfare and thus strengthen your relations.

(To be continued…)