If a rat is chewing at our foot should we tolerate it?

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Transcript

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Thank you. So if a rat is chewing with our food while we are taking prasadam, should we just tolerate it? See, the Chaitanya Chaitanya Tamil describes the incident of leper Vasudev, who had worms on his body. And when the worms would be there, and if they would fall off, he would pick them up and put them on his body.
They are getting their food. Now, often in the Chaitanya Chaitanya Tamil, especially in the scriptures in general, they describe certain principles through extreme examples. Now the extreme examples are not the standard.
The extreme examples are meant to dramatically illustrate a principle. Just like, in the past time of Ajamil, he chanted the name of Narayan once, and he was saved from the jaws of death. Now what is the conclusion of the Bhagavatam from this? Does it say that all of us can also do all kinds of sinful activities, and at the time of death we chant Narayan? No, that is not what the conclusion is.
That is an extreme example of the Lord’s mercy, and the Bhagavatam’s conclusion over there, what Shukadeva Swami says, and Prabhupada also says in his purport is that, that if Ajamil chanted once, and that too unintentionally, and he was benefited so much, then if we chant lifelong, and we chant with the intention of referring to calling Krishna, then if the Lord’s benefit was merciful to Ajamil, then will he not be merciful to us? He will surely be merciful. Therefore, the extraordinary example of mercy is not meant to be treated as a standard process for getting mercy. We have to follow the standard process, and the extraordinary examples are meant to reinforce our faith in the standard process.
Similarly, there can be extreme examples of tolerance that are given, but they are not the standard. The standard is that we do whatever is required for our service to Krishna. So, Prabhupada was quite particular that when the devotees were serving him, he would sleep in a mosquito net, especially in Mayapur, another place where mosquitoes were there, and Prabhupada was particular that there should be no mosquitoes inside that.
If they bit him, they would just distract him, and inside the mosquito net only he would wake up early, and then he would start doing his translations, his commenting. So, Harisharipuru writes one time that so many mosquitoes came inside, he had to get all the mosquitoes out, swap it and get it out. So, Prabhupada, he could have said that I can tolerate the mosquitoes.
He would have tolerated, but the point was he had to do something more. His goal was not just to tolerate. So, in our case, we have to see that the body is what we need for our service to Krishna, and for the service to Krishna, we have to take care of the body.
So, tolerance is not meant to, as I said, be made a supreme virtue, where we unnecessarily hurt ourselves. Tolerance doesn’t mean that others trample us and we just accept it. Tolerance simply means that we have our sense of perspective, that this is temporary, this is just temporary, that is much more enduring.
So, I would not let this temporary come in the way of the enduring. So, now in this case, if a rat is biting, I just flip the rat away and I move on. That is something just temporary.
I have to take care of my body. But suppose somebody has to go and preach in a particular place, and in that place, that place is just, there are so many rats over there. There is no other place to stay over there.
So, that is just unavoidable. That is the place where one has to stay over there. So, it’s not that, tolerance doesn’t mean that we don’t try to change anything at all.
That way, if we start saying, you know, we can just go to any limits. A small baby is crying, and the mother will say, let the baby cry. Maybe we will learn to tolerate pain by then.
No. Where will be all humanity? Where will be any love? Nothing will be left. Somebody, some devotee is sick, and instead of helping that devotee, we say, okay, the sickness is teaching tolerance.
So, no need to go to any doctor, no need to take any medicine, just be sick. No. Our focus should never be on simply tolerance.
Our focus has to be on dharma. So, when a baby is crying, the mother should not be thinking whether the baby is learning tolerance or not. The mother is thinking, what is my dharma? If a devotee is sick, we should not be thinking, I have to teach this devotee tolerance.
Think, in this situation, what is my dharma? My dharma is to do Vaishnava seva, to try to serve a devotee. So, but while doing our service, if some unavoidable difficulties come, then we tolerate those difficulties and we move on. Any other questions or comments? So, there is a difference between being tolerant and being passive, right? Very much.
Yeah.