Question: In my day-to-day life I meet with people in different circumstances. With these people I have to use tolerance. And when I have to call on tolerance, I suffer afterwards, because I feel that I should see that person in the same light as I see you. But I do not have that capacity. Is this pride or ego?
Sri Chinmoy: Let us first of all try to understand what tolerance is. There are two kinds of human tolerance. The first type is the tolerance of the weak person for someone else who is stronger. I have to tolerate him because I am helpless. He can strike me or hurt me. I am at his mercy, so I have to tolerate him. This kind of tolerance is really helplessness. This is what often happens in our day-to-day life. The superior lords it over the inferior, and the inferior has no choice but to tolerate this.The second kind of tolerance is the tolerance of the strong person for someone who is weaker, the mother’s tolerance for the child. Constantly the child is doing something wrong or something foolish, but the mother tolerates it. Why? Because the mother knows that the child is limited; he has not yet developed wisdom. But his limitations are also part of her very existence, and she tolerates them happily.
Beyond these two kinds of human tolerance, when we go deeper, we see the divine tolerance. That divine tolerance cannot be explained in words. It is infinitely stronger and more fulfilling than the human mother’s tolerance, because the divine tolerance houses the whole world of imperfection. This world of ours is full of imperfection. Each person’s imperfection causes suffering in somebody else. People either tolerate each other’s imperfections, or are indifferent to them, or punish them. In God’s case, He will never be indifferent. He may try to show me the right path by giving me an experience which the human vital may take as punishment, but this is not actually punishment. What we call divine tolerance is deeper than this, and before I speak about it, let me first speak about forgiveness.
Do I actually forgive the person who has done something wrong to me, or is my inner divinity totally one with the person who has made a mistake or who is creating a disturbance in my life? If the soul’s oneness with the other person comes to the fore, where is forgiveness? It is oneness. This is what divine tolerance really is.
Now to come back to your question: is human tolerance an act of ego or pride? If we are tolerating someone with a feeling of our own superiority, then we are not identifying ourselves with that person’s present achievement in the process of evolution. This is certainly an act of ego. Spiritual tolerance is nothing but the conscious feeling or awareness of one’s oneness with others. I do not tolerate you because I feel that I am superior and I have capacity while you have none. With a spiritual person, it is not ego that comes to the fore. It is his identification with the other person’s limitations.
This does not mean that if you constantly do things wrong, I will continually identify myself with your wrong actions and imperfections. No. Then you will remain in ignorance constantly. When you do something wrong, I will identify myself with your present development, and tolerate your ignorance, but I will not ignore it or inspire you to continue in this way. By doing that I would merely be embracing ignorance.
If your friend is in ignorance and you identify with him, then immediately you have to raise your consciousness from there. You have to enter into your highest consciousness, which is not ignorance, imperfection and bondage, or you will be caught by the ignorance of your friend. You normally bring down your consciousness somewhat in order to maintain harmony in your ordinary life. But every day without fail you have to go back to your higher consciousness. Otherwise, you will be caught by the low consciousness of the everyday world.
So after you have identified with others, please go back to your own higher consciousness in order to maintain the inner peace, light and joy that you have received from your spiritual life. From that level you can inwardly inspire your friends to accept the higher life, to enter into the deeper existence. This is what spiritual tolerance means.
