Sadhana Panchakam - Post 46

We now come to the portion that deals with Titiksha or Endurance.

Here again we find there is an order: The first three Steps cover the common difficulties we endure in each of the three aspects of life, and the fourth combines them all:

 The Relationship Between Titiksha & Ego

It is a characteristic of Sri Sankara to always put things in a logical sequence. From scrutinizing the sequence of these four steps, an interesting fact emerges. We notice that the required Titiksha increases with each Step. The trend is: the greater the blow given to the Ego, the more demanding or challenging becomes the needed Titiksha to endure it.

i) At the Body level: These Hardships are the least difficult to bear. The reason? Only the smallest of pinches is felt by the Ego, since external difficulties are not directly under the Ego’s control. What the Ego cannot control does not disturb it very greatly.

ii) At the Speech level: The Ego content is more. We are more self-conscious when we speak than when we bear bitter weather. The required endurance is more.

iii) At the Mind level: We are now virtually in the palace of the Ego. Every thought and feeling is weighed against how the Ego is affected. The pains borne in the mind are commensurately greater, due mainly to the involvement of the Ego in every matter.

iv) At the relationships level: This is where the greatest challenge in endurance is called for. The majority of our problems are people-related. All the previous three are combined in varying degrees to really give our Ego a good churning!

We keep an eye on this trend as we consider each level one by one:

At the body level, the content of the hardship is predominantly bodily discomfort and pain. The cause of this discomfort and pain is largely some external factor which we have little control over. It may be unbearable weather, either too hot or too cold; it may be deprivation of basic creature comforts due to poverty or natural calamities; it may even be living in unavoidable conditions of squalor, imprisonment or rampant crime. Whatever it may be, there is little we can do about it other than “bite our teeth and bear it”.

Physically, it is not possible to have all the ideal conditions. Nature gives us a “package deal” of mixed conditions, both favourable and unfavourable, wherever we may be. We can safely say that there isn’t a place on earth where everything will be perfect.

“What cannot be cured, has to be endured.” We should not run after ideal conditions. The conditions we live in are determined by our Karma, our Paapa and Punya. So we just have to be stoical and bear external hardships.

When Krishna displayed His divine Resplendence to Arjuna, He speaks of Himself as the Creator, the Preserver, the Gods and Seers, the illumination, strength, fame, prosperity, intelligence, receptivity, firmness, determination, the imperishable Time, all the positive forces in manifestation, He also made it clear that He also is the rod that chastises, Vasuki among serpents, Ananta among the nagas, Prahlada among the daityas, deceit in gambling, the terminator and destroyer, the rod that chastises, the all-devouring death and the World destroying Time, with terrible form touching sky, blazing with colours, with eyes glowing bight, with mouth wide open, terrible with tusks, where hosts of warriors seem to enter, some even caught between the teeth, the three worlds tremble, lack of receptivity, the illusion that conceals, bewilders, deceives, as gambling. There is nothing in creation which does not have stamp of his authority and control. 

Therefore, for one who is aware of the universal and all-pervading nature of the Divinity there is nothing that needs to be rejected and everything to be understood in the right perspective. He accepts things without preferring or denying, without liking or disliking without choosing and selecting as the sign of detachment from duality in samsara. 

In awareness, there is neither good nor bad, neither noble nor ignoble. 

Therefore Krishna tells that the one who is equal to friends and foes, to honor and dishonor, to cold and the heat, who free from attachment is same in pleasure and pains, silent in speech content with everything, having no fixed attachment to any abiding place, firm in mind, that man being devoted is dear to Him.

 

Love.