Importance of patience on misfortunes

[Guest guest]

Sairam to all Sai Sisters & Sai Brothers !

I came across this thought provoking article and wished I could share with my Sai Family.

Regards

Keshav Prasad

 

Just as gratitude increases Divine bounty, so too complaint increases

misfortune, and removes all occasion for compassion.

During World War One, a blessed person in Erzurum was afflicted with an awesome

disease. I went to visit him and he said to me complaining bitterly: "I have

not been able to place my head on the pillow and sleep for a hundred nights." I

was much grieved. Suddenly a thought came to me and I said:

"Brother, the hundred difficult days you have spent are now just like one

hundred happy days. Do not think of them and complain; rather look at them and

be grateful. As for future days, since they have not yet come, place your trust

in your Compassionate and Merciful Sustainer.

Do not weep before being beaten, do not be afraid of nothing, do not give

non-being the color of being. Think of the present hour; your power of patient

endurance is enough for this hour. Do not act like the maddened commander who

expects reinforcement on his right wing by an enemy force deserting to join him

from his left, and then begins to disperse his forces in the center to the left

and the right, before the enemy has joined him on the right. The enemy then

destroys his center, left weak, with a minimal force. Brother, do not be like

him.

Mobilize all your strength for this present hour, and think of Divine Mercy,

reward in the Hereafter, and how your brief and transient life is being

transformed into a long and eternal form. Instead of complaining bitterly, give

joyful thanks."

Much relieved, he said, "Praise and thanks be to God, my disease is now a tenth

of what it was before."

The power of patient endurance given to man by God Almighty is adequate to every

misfortune, unless squandered on baseless fears. But through the predominance of

delusion, man's neglect and his imagining this transient life to be eternal, he

squanders his power of endurance on the past and the future.

His endurance is not equal to the misfortunes of the present, and he begins to

complain. It is as if he were complaining of the God Almighty to men. In a most

unjustified and even lunatic fashion, he complains and demonstrates his lack of

patience.

If the day that is past held misfortune, the distress is now gone, and only

tranquillity remains; the pain has vanished and the pleasure in its cessation

remains; the trouble is gone, and the reward remains. Hence one should not

complain but give thanks for enjoyment.

One should not resent misfortune, but love it. The transient life of the past

comes to be counted as an eternal and blessed life because of misfortune. To

think upon past pain with one's fancy and then to waste part of one's patience

is lunacy.

As far as days yet to come are concerned, since they have not yet come, to think

now of the illness or misfortune to be borne during them and display impatience,

is also foolishness.

To say to oneself "Tomorrow or the day after I will be hungry and thirsty" and

constantly to drink water and eat bread today, is pure madness. Similarly, to

think of misfortunes and sicknesses yet in the future but now non-existent, to

suffer them already, to show impatience and to oppress oneself without any

compulsion, is such stupidity that it no longer deserves pity and compassion.