Tolerate

As an aspiring devotee when I am faced with a provoking situation or a material disturbance - I usually react as if it were an assault to my very existence and being. I take it very personally and react accordingly to stand up for myself or if its a material situation I try my best to bring things back on track.

However as I read Srimad Bhagavatam the message of tolerance is repeatedly stressed upon as the response to a difficult situation or a difficult person by one who is a devotee of the Lord acting on the platform of the soul.The Avadhuta Brahmana and the Avanti Brahmana also teach the same thing by their example.The message of tolerance is also given by Suta Goswami after Maharaj Pariksit leaves his body.You can read the post here.
The essence is that we must tolerate all types of difficult people and situations and not use in our energy in brooding or retaliating as that will keep us in the material conception of life.Instead we must use our intelligence to remain fixed on the Lotus Feet of the Lord fixed in Service to Him and his devotees.


Lord Krishna says in the 11th Canto:

SB 11.22.54-55: The soul's material life, his experience of sense gratification, is actually false, O descendant of Daśārha, just like trees' appearance of quivering when the trees are reflected in agitated water, or like the earth's appearance of spinning due to one's spinning his eyes around, or like the world of a fantasy or dream.

SB 11.22.56: For one who is meditating on sense gratification, material life, although lacking factual existence, does not go away, just as the unpleasant experiences of a dream do not.

SB 11.22.57: Therefore, O Uddhava, do not try to enjoy sense gratification with the material senses. See how illusion based on material dualities prevents one from realizing the self.

He says that illusion based on material dualities prevents us from realizing the self. The life that we think is ours is based on illusion, its based on a false reality - everything that we aspire for in the material world is temporary. If everything is temporary then why cry over something that we did not receive, over some respect that someone did not give us, over some pain someone inflicted upon us. If we identify with the body and the mind all these will seem very hurtful. Then our mind gets engrossed in the pain and in plans about retaliting to those who have caused us pain - thus taking time away from Krishna.

However if we realize that everything that is happening to me is my own karma coming back and everything that is happening to me is destroying the plans of enjoyment of my body and senses - if I waste time brooding over it- it is time away from Krishna.If I do not understand this and stay in the material conception I will further entangle myself in the material conception of life and go deeper in the material pool. Instead let me just tolerate these dualities like how I tolerate the summer and winter months without getting disturbed and let me keep my mind focussed on serving Lord Sri Krishna who is my eternal master and serving His servants just as Lord Sri Krishna instructs Uddhava in the following verse:

SB 11.22.58-59: Even though neglected, insulted, ridiculed or envied by bad men, or even though repeatedly agitated by being beaten, tied up or deprived of one's occupation, spat upon or polluted with urine by ignorant people, one who desires the highest goal in life should in spite of all these difficulties use his intelligence to keep himself safe on the spiritual platform.