TITIKSHA
Titiksha is the state of enduring
or bearing.
It is the capacity or power to endure without opposition, and to suffer pain, distress, hardship or any prolonged stress without succumbing, murmuring, complaining, lamenting or repining. It is patient fortitude. It is the ability to bear and continue in spite of destructive forces.
He who endures conquers. Through endurance, will-power and patience are developed. Through endurance, evils and difficulties are overcome. Your strength often increases in proportion to the obstacles imposed upon you.
The palm-tree grows best beneath a
ponderous weight, and even so the character of man. The greater the difficulty,
the more glory in surmounting it. Through endurance, you exhibit your divine
grandeur and make alliance with God. Titiksha is a condition of wisdom. It is a
means for acquiring knowledge.
Though Titiksha develops your will-power and brings happiness herein and hereafter, it has one defect. People misconstrue those who practice forbearance for impotent, effeminate men.
Power of endurance is a virtue to be possessed by a Yogi, a Jnani and a Bhakta. Many hardships and privations have to be faced by the students in the successful performance of Yoga.
Sri Sankara defines Titiksha in Vivekachudamani as follows: "The bearing of all afflictions without caring to redress them, being free at the same time from anxiety or lament on their score, is called Titiksha, forbearance."
Lord Krishna advises Arjuna to bear heat and cold: "The contacts of the senses with the objects, O son of Kunti, which cause heat and cold, pleasure and pain, have a beginning and an end; they are impermanent; endure them bravely, O Arjuna. That firm man whom, surely, these afflict not, O chief among men, to whom pleasure and pain are the same, is fit for attaining Immortality." Bhagavad Gita (II-14, 15).
Continued.....
