Tolerance - Now More Than Ever

Excerpts from a talk by Manubhai Patel ~

"Good afternoon everyone. Are you all getting ready for the big change next week? (a new president)

A few days ago, the baijis and I were talking about the new challenges I have in my own life, and the subject came up, how do I do what I have to face?

The answer was: tolerance.

I have learned tolerance from a very young age. Perhaps it's a part of my nature, of being shy and avoiding confrontation. But it has paid dividends.

Tolerance - a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, beliefs, practices, racial or ethnic, origins, etc. differ from one's own; capacity to endure pain or hardship; test of endurance, fortitude and stamina. This includes hardship and pain that comes from mother nature and events not in our control. 

There was a family who endured the Katrina disaster that is still in my memory. They asked the lady of the house, 'How do you feel? How do you cope with all of this?'

She said, 'We lost everything. But we did salvage a few things: our parents, our children. Some important documents and family photographs.' So you can see the value they placed on these things, as opposed to mourning what they had lost.

She also said they have an enormous peace and gratitude for the things that have come to them. This showed a great tolerance for hardship. This brought them strength, not weakness. They could have been angry, resentful, blaming everything on outside forces and suffering more. That was touching to me.

The practice of tolerance for the next four years will be important in the wake of the most contentious election campaign in modern history.

With seemingly every news article signalling a change from the status quo, tolerance will be coming up all the time. 

Helen Keller said: "The highest result of education is tolerance."

Timothy Keller said: "Tolerance isn't about not having beliefs. It's about how your beliefs lead you to tread people who disagree with you."

Gandhi was an excellent example of one who practiced tolerance when confronted with evil and injustice."

He said:

 and

The Boy and the Inheritance

From a satsang by Gautam Baiji ~

Once we realize the value of things, we give them their proper respect.

What is the value of family? Once you know that, then you start tolerating things. Sometimes kids tell you things you don't like. What do you do? You don't kick them out of the house. You tolerate it because you know the kids don't have that kind of understanding yet.

Once they reach a level where they can understand, then we can tell them. In the meantime, what do you do? You stay patient.

This power to tolerate comes from within - meditation gives you the power. Once you start doing meditation, you know what something is worth.

So when someone is not acting appropriately, it  becomes our duty to help them understand.

A true guru will say, "I am the servant of the ignorant people."

But know that if you directly say to someone, "Oh, you are wasting your time," what happens? What will the person do?

He will speak angrily with you. Why? Because he might think that this is his devotion, even though you can clearly see his actions are counterproductive.

Once there was a man who had accumulated a lot of gold objects when he passed away. His son inherited a heavy box of valuables and took it to his uncle.

"Can you sell this Uncle? I need the money."

The uncle looked at the items and quickly saw that some were real and some were fake. He wouldn't get the money he thought he could get.

But he knew if he told the boy this, he would think he was lying and trying to make money for himself by selling them later.

Instead, he said, "If you really need money, come work for me. I will teach you the business. In the future, when you really need money, then you can sell them for cash. But for now I will pay you enough money to live on."

So the boy came to work for him and every day the uncle taught him how to tell what real gold is, what a real diamond looks like, and slowly the boy learned.

Finally, when the uncle thought he could recognize what's real and what's not, he said, "Go get your box of valuables. Gold is getting a good price now, so you can sell yours for a good profit."

When the boy opened the box and examined the pieces, he finally saw what his uncle had seen. More than half of the coins and valuables were fake.

"Most of these are worthless!" the boy said.

"I knew that, but I felt you had to realize it for yourself, so I taught you."

"Good teachers are those who tell you where to look, but not what to see."