The Strength of Forbearance

Kshanti: forgiveness, patience, endurance, tolerance, humility, bearing with.

Salutations to that great power, the Devi Shakti, who lives in every class of the world with qualities such as forgiveness, patience, endurance, tolerance, humility and the capacity to bear.

To find the power of this great Devi, we must look for Her in many qualities, the qualities the sutras describe.

That is the meaning of kshanti rupa. Kshanti means forgiveness, patience and endurance. Through the many teachings of the sutras we can look for the form of the Adi Shakti and even see the Mother.

Instead, we are told to look for the Devi on hills, mountains and in idols. Many books may have written all sorts of things, and may go on writing them.

But when we study the sutras composed by the sage Markandeya, with their methods and practices, we can see the true great power. One meaning of such a sutra is “kshanti rupena samsthita”: forgiveness and endurance.

Another meaning of endurance is forgiveness. Another shows a quality of character: I have forgiven you.

In the past the great siddha teachers explained many qualities to their seekers, and among them named ten principal transcendent virtues.

Paramarthika means going beyond, transparently (liberation). It means granting perfection from the supreme state, from Buddhahood.

There are ten such paramitas:

1. Dana (giving): good conduct and the wisdom to move forward; satisfying the gods, the learned and the cows; honouring guests; holding devotion for teachers and elders; practising meditation; protecting orphans, relatives and those who seek refuge; visiting holy places.
2. Sheela (virtue): being cheerful, attentive, creative, capable, friendly, generous, serious, active, fortunate and modern; goodness and good character.
3. Nishkarma (desirelessness): selflessness, absence of desires, desireless action. Through practice it is the way to liberation; in that state there is no bond of karma. (It conveys the meaning of “Tat tvam asi”.)
4. Prajna (wisdom): knowledge, radiance, intelligence, valour, learning, insight.
5. Virya (vigour): not semen, which you call viryanu. Virya means strength, ability, courage, heroism, prowess, manliness, vitality (ojas, energy) and essence.
6. Kshanti (forbearance): endurance, purity, cleanliness, compassion and patience. These are all qualities earned through the perfection of practice.
7. Satya (truth): if truth is eternal, the search for truth is eternal too.
8. Adhishthana (resolve): relying on the Self alone; foundation, base, staying in one place, authority, rule, being established, blessing.
9. Maitri (friendliness): friendship, the path of virtue, extending fellow feeling to all.
10. Upeksha (neglect): ignoring, failing to practise, leaving the work undone, disregarding the Guru’s words.

There are two kinds of kshanti:

• patience toward living beings (sattva kshanti);
• patience toward the dharmas (dharma kshanti).

One who practises patience toward living beings gains immeasurable merit (apramana punya). One who practises patience toward the dharmas gains immeasurable wisdom (apramana prajna). With these two benefits, merit and wisdom, he attains the fulfilment of all his wishes (yatheshta siddhi).

On satya. This is the journey of the full unfolding of possibilities. For Harishchandra, keeping his word was the path of truth. For Sri Ramachandra, remaining the delight of his people was truth. For Karna, giving was the road toward truth. For devoted wives like Sita, fidelity was the practice of truth. So each of these great lives walked the path of the supreme truth.

The path of the truthful is the path of liberation itself, the path of challenges. The seeker’s journey toward truth begins with sacrifice. A seeker reaches the goal of truth only through one great gate. Truth is one; those who know it describe it in many ways.

Sat means what is, that is truth; what has become everything, that is truth.

Speaking roughly, sat is whatever our eyes can see and our hands can hold. For the ordinary mind, sense experience is the first proof.

But day by day we learn from experience that the objects we perceive with the senses, the things we see and touch, are not truth. Though they seem to exist today, we watch them slowly perish before our eyes.

So we do not call true the things that appear today and vanish in a moment, that exist today and perish tomorrow. We call them mithya. Mithya simply means momentary. Though all such dealings are fleeting, the sages called truth the great power within that creates this whole play.

This truth is built with a covering of gold.

Seekers of truth, dharma and vision practised along the many paths of the siddha tradition, realised the truth, understood it according to their own feeling, devotion and vision, and taught it. Its meaning is: eternal, beautiful, auspicious, true (shashvatam, sundaram, shivam, satyam).

On maitri. When a person follows the way of friendliness, bearing every insult and injustice done to him, he must keep holding friendliness even toward those who attack him. Then the mind can be kept steady like the earth, clear like the air and deep like a river. If we do this, friendliness is not disturbed (by agitation, anxiety or distraction).

Though friendliness is born in the heart, its reach must be infinite. Its thinking must be broad, beyond measure. There must be no hatred at all. Practising compassion alone is not enough; practising friendliness is necessary, because friendliness is the freedom of a kind heart. It embraces everything; it flashes, shines, blazes and glows.

On upeksha. Neglect, carelessness, paying no heed, ignoring the Divine. Even while practising a mature Shiva sadhana, to practise without faith or devotion in Shiva, in the Guru and in the Guru’s power: that is upeksha.

These are the ten paramitas, and “kshanti” is one of them.

Example: a seeker stays patient through honour and dishonour, success and failure, all the rises and falls of life.

Pleasure and pain, ups and downs, come and go. Like waves, the rises and falls will always be there. Only when one understands all this does one become truly patient.

Patience does not mean suppressing the ups and downs, suffering them and putting up with them.

Patience does not mean “life just goes like this” or “everything carries on the same way.” Everything in life keeps happening, events keep occurring, and the result comes in the form of forgiveness.

When the moment to forgive arrives, one sees that there was a mistake, and the confusion begins over whether one must forgive others, be forgiven, or ask forgiveness. That is what patience, kshanti, is about.

Whatever happens in an ordered life, a person enters kshanti by seeing and understanding its rises and falls, its ups and downs, as waves.

Having gained this kind of patience, along with the quality of forgiveness, good conduct, activity, purity and the power to understand everything (shakti, power), he fights and wins, with courage, whatever comes in life.

Yet simply watching whatever happens in life, just observing it, is itself courage and power. Entering kshanti without desire, one becomes peaceful.

So the Adi Shakti, present in everyone in the form of kshanti, makes us possible and helps us unfold. We accept this life as it is, with a good and pure heart, with patience, understanding the meaning of forgiveness. Everything keeps happening, and the power that makes it happen is a form of the Adi Shakti. That is kshanti, kshama.

This Adi Shakti, present in everyone in the form of forgiveness, leads everyone on the journey of evolution.

If kshanti (forgiveness) is not understood, the journey of spiritual growth is stunted.

The Adi Shakti fills us with such qualities and sets us playing. If you want to see and realise this Adi Shakti, look for Her in the qualities these sutras describe, and move forward on the spiritual path with love and selflessness.