Hindi-Is there a limit to tolerance? | Chaitanya Charan

This is an AI-generated transcript and it might not be fully accurate:

Is there a borderline or a limit for tolerance? Yes, there is. I will not tolerate your question now. No, definitely.

We see in Bhagavad Gita 2.14, Tamasitikshasubharata says, Tolerate. But what to do with this tolerance? Is he saying, Tolerate the atrocities committed by the Kauravas? They occupied Draupadi, they took all your kingdoms, you should tolerate that. He is not asking you to tolerate that.

What is he asking you to tolerate? Tolerate that you have to fight Bhishma. You have to fight Bhishma and Drona. This is very difficult.

But you should tolerate this. So before tolerating, what to tolerate, what not to tolerate, it is very important to understand this. So before this, in 2.13, Bhagavan says, Intelligence.

Dehinospinathadehe We should have intelligence. And there is a simple definition of intelligence. Prabhupadaji says, See things in their proper perspective.

We have to see which things are big and which things are small. And we have to give importance to big things, not importance to small things. So Bhagavan says, You are attacking Bhishma.

He is not a body, he is a soul. The corpse of the body is a small thing. The welfare of the soul is a big thing.

Emphasize on that. And what is the result of tolerance? That is Transcendence. yam hi na vyathyante te purusham purushar shabha samadukha sukham dhiram somrutatvaya kalpate With this, immortality will be attained.

trnād api suniśhā taror api sahiṣṇā And what should be the result of this? kīrtaniya sadā hari When we tolerate, with that we can always do the good deeds of Bhagavan. This should be possible. So what is there in this? Two things can be extreme.

It can be wrong. When we face difficulties, One is that we make a small thing big. So what happens with that? We become intolerant.

A small thing says something bad to us. We get very angry and start attacking it. This is not good.

But another problem can be that sometimes we make a big thing small. This is not tolerance. This is impotence.

This is powerlessness. So we should not make a big thing small. For example, there is a class going on.

Suppose there is a mother and her baby starts crying. If the baby starts crying, I start shouting. I shout at the mother.

Can’t you handle the baby? What kind of a mother are you? Can’t you handle the baby? Go away from here. If I shout at the mother, she will become intolerant. No matter how good my speech is, after the class, you will remember how I shouted at her.

So we should not make a small thing big. But sometimes what happens? If the baby is crying and no one is doing anything for him. He is crying.

I was in Seattle. There was a Western Outreach program. There was a 3-year-old boy.

He was running in the class. No one was doing anything for him. His mother was also sitting there and she was also not doing anything.

She was giving a speech. I saw the organizer. He was also not ready to do anything.

So I gave the class. Everyone was distracted. Then the organizer told me that he had come to our class for the first time.

And this woman was from the area where there was a lot of crime. So the gang leader there had a girlfriend. So someone went to tell him something.

I didn’t have the courage. I didn’t know what to do. So the point is if someone is crying in the class then we should say something.

It has become a big thing. We are not able to hear anything. So what is the small thing here? There is some noise.

The phone rings here. Someone is crying. That is a small thing.

But if there is always some noise and we have come to do some work then we have to listen to the class. If they are not able to listen then there will be a problem. So what should tolerance do? Ideally, we will keep the small thing small.

And from that we have to keep the big thing big. So that is why before doing tolerance we should develop intelligence. What are the big things in my life and what are the small things? So if there is a problem in a relationship then every relationship has problems.

No relationship is perfect. But does this mean if someone is doing physical violence then should we tolerate that? No, there are limits. There are limits.

If our life is in danger if we feel like we are going crazy in some situation if someone says if I have to live in this situation I will commit suicide. If something big is happening then you should not change it. So we have to understand intelligently what is a big thing and what is a small thing.

Keep the small thing small and then the big thing so that we can keep the big thing big. So that is the way to tolerate constructively. What should tolerance do? We need intelligence before tolerance and from tolerance we need transcendence.

The big thing that God is big and God’s service is big that will become bigger than that. God will become more important for us. Thank you very much.

Shri Prantharaj Shrimad Bhagwatam Ki Jai Shrila Prabhupada Ki Jai Gaur Bhakta Vrinda Ki Jai Gaur Premaandhi