Skip to main content

Tapas and Titiskha, Austerity & Forbearance

March 5, 2012

Swamini Vimalanandaji of the Chinmaya Mission has been giving talks on "Sure Mantras of Success (SMS) from the Bhagavad Gita". I was listening to one of them on DVD and saw a very neat distinction drawn between tapas (तपस austerity) and titikshA (तितिक्षा forbearance).

Swaminiji was discussing Śrī Kṛṣṇa's instruction in 2-14:

तांस्तितिक्षस्व भारत । taa.nstitikShasva bhaarata |
"Endure them bravely, O descendant of Bharata."

Swaminiji says that tapas is what one voluntarily undertakes while titikshA is accepting what comes to you.

As I thought about this, it made sense. Fasting is austerity, we do it voluntarily. So is maunam (मौनम़ - vow of silence). Accepting the ups and downs of the weather is titikshA. Undertaking voluntary activity or seva is tapas, acceptance of the quirks of one's spouse or child is titikshA.

In the case of titikshA, we may wish things were different but cheerfully accept what life has to offer. Stretching oneself in order to change habits (think of diet control to deal with diabetes or cholesterol problems) or for consciously remembering the Lord (fasting on Shivaratri or Ekadashi) is auterity.

We have numerous opportunities for both tapas and titikshA. I may choose my job, but I cannot choose my colleagues. In these times of a floundering economy, it is tapas to continue to perform well in our jobs (rather than complain about dwindling bonuses or absence of salary raises), while cheerfully learning to work with all types of colleagues is titikshA.

Choosing to wake up early to make a detour for a spiritual talk or to go to the temple is a small act of tapas, enduring traffic that could potentially make you late is titikshA.

When everyday acts of tapas or titikshA become natural to us, then we become ready for bigger things. Let us undertake our small acts of tapas and titikshA...and celebrate when we do them well.

Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Geeta in Literature - IF by Rudyard Kipling

September 12, 2011 I came across a nice YouTube video that is an animation of Rudyard Kipling reading his famous poem IF . The full text sourced from wikisource is below: If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same: If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And los...

Geeta Dhyānaṁ 2 - Vyāsā's Vast Intellect

January 7, 2013 Previously on Geeta Jayanti, I had posted on the eternal debt of gratitude to Mother Geeta that is the basis of Geeta Dhyānaṁ. I love Param Pujya Gurudev 's commentary on the Geeta Dhyānaṁ. Pujya Gurudev's commentary is after the introduction to the Bhagavad Geeta in the commentary on Chapters 1 & 2 published by the the Chinmaya Mission. I personally believe it should be a book by itself. After invoking Mother Geeta, we now pay tribute to the wise Vyāsa Rishi - the Guru whose Jayanti marks Guru Pūrnima every year. Pujya Gurudev starts His tribute to Veda Vyāsā in his commentary on the 1st verse of the Dhyānaṁ. Vyāsa, the father of the Vedās, who, first collected, edited and published the Veda texts and who thereafter, gave us the dialectics of Vedānta in his Brahma Sūtra, himself a great man of realization, was indeed well fitted for the job. The ancient seer had both the mastery of the theoretical science of religion - Hinduism and also the practical expe...

Philip Glass and "Satyagraha", the Opera

May 27, 2012 The famous music composer Philip Glass composed an Opera called Satyagraha on Mahatma Gandhi's movement against the South African apartheid laws (strictly speaking the system wasn't officially called apartheid until ater the Second World War). I was intrigued by this because the Wikipedia entry for this opera says that the opera is sung in Sanskrit. Yet the link to the libretto (the latin name for the lyrics of an opera) on the Metropolitan's website, shows the text in English. Act 1 of opera is titled "The Kuru Field of Justice" begins with Gandhiji narrating, "I see them here assembled, ready to fight, seeking to please the King’s sinful son by waging war.” And thus addressed by Arjuna, Krishna brought that splendid chariot to a halt between the two armies. In front of Bhisma and Drona and all the rulers of the world, he said, “Behold Arjuna, these kinsmen assembled here.” And the Prince marked on each hand relatives and friends in both a...