Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva.

 

When people trouble/irritate us, give us pain, speak with us angrily, our normal natural tendency is to retaliate. The golden words, "No counteraction is the best counteraction", gets evaporated from our hearts and all we want to do is to take the judgement rod in our hands and punish the people who offend us. But if we introspect ourselves, how many times were we peaceful after such retaliation? Did it do any good to us or the people who offend us? The answer is always a "No". It only caused us more pain and suffering, and made others more and more inimical to us. So neither do we progress spiritually or materially, nor do we help other souls to go close to Krishna.

 

Ramayana tells us how Bharatha and Shatrughna were not present in Ayodhya at the time of Rama's exile. So once they returned to Ayodhya, they were shocked to hear about the death of king Dasaratha and Rama's exile to the forest, along with Sita and Lakshman for a period of 14 years. They became all the more furious when they heard that Kaikeyi had caused all this chaos, being instructed by her servant Manthara. After doing the final rites for their father, the sons returned to the palace. On the way they met Manthara and pulling her into the palace, Shatrughna said, "This wicked one shall now reap the fruits of her evil deeds! She has brought acute and unbearable pain to all in this house, as well as to all the citizens of Ayodhya. Watch now as I punish her!"

 

He dragged Manthara violently across the floor and her ornaments broke and scattered. Kaikeyi heard her servant screaming and came quickly to help her. Seeing her, Shatrughna began rebuking her with harsh words. Kaikeyi was pained by Shatrughna's sharp words and ran to Bharata for protection. Bharata moved away from his mother and spoke to the furious Shatrughna. He said "Even when sinful, women should never be slain. You should therefore forgive this maidservant. Indeed, I would have slain My own mother if the eternal moral law did not forbid it—and certainly such an act would never be pleasing to Rama. Our pious brother would never speak with Us again if He heard that We killed this woman."

 

Bharatha was definitely angry with his mother as well as with Manthara. But he was more concerned not to displease Lord Ram by punishing these women. This is a very important lesson for us. We are reminded of conversation between one devotee and our beloved spiritual master H H Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaj. That devotee asked Maharaj, "After your physical absence, if some one misbehaves, how to deal with them?" Maharaj gave a beautiful response. "Whenever you are speaking with that person, just think that I am standing right there next to you." Many a times we wrongly think Guru and Krishna are far far away and that it is our duty to take the judgement rod. As soon as we start thinking like that both Guru and Krishna will become silent spectators of our deeds and we will have to suffer the reactions for the same. On the other hand when we tolerate the miseries, just to please Them, then They will guide us to come out of all entanglements. Maharaj also used to say that the more you tolerate, the more good you do to your offenders.

 

In the above instance we find that Bharatha's statements, made Kaikeyi realize that she had done a grave injustice to Lord Ram. She had always loved Ram and wondered how she decided to send him to exile. She didn't feel like blaming Manthara also as she began to understand that it was all due to will of providence and even Manthara was just a instrument in the hands of destiny. So here we see that by not punishing Kaikeyi, Bharatha was able to help her realize her mistake.

 

So we pray at the lotus feet of Gurudev, Srila Prabhupada and Sri Krishna to help us to always remember Their presence next to us, so that we sanely tolerate the onslaughts of material nature. Only such tolerance can give us real peace of mind.

 

Thank you very much

Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva,

Sudarshana devi dasi

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[granthraj] Effects of Tolerance