Durban, South Africa
To Tolerate
Kala, Tamohara and I
were flying from Mauritius to South Africa. While waiting at the airport in Johannesburg, the stopover
before heading to Durban, I was reading some anecdotes from those who were with
our guru. A passage I read happened to
be of an occurrence while our guru, Srila Prabhupada, had flown from Mauritius
to Durban. It was a small lesson on
tolerance.
Pusta Krishna: We were flying from Mauritius
to Durban on Quantus Airlines. I was seated beside Srila Prabhupada wearing my
little British hat, shirt, coat and pants. At that time there was a rugby match between
South Africa and New Zealand teams, and there were a lot of rugby types on the
plane. We had a seat in the non-smoking section, but people were smoking there
and I was disturbed. I was also
concerned for Srila Prabhupada’s welfare. So I asked the stewardess to please ask them
to stop smoking in the non-smoking section. She told the rugby type guys, who were
drinking quite a bit as well, to stop smoking. But they didn't stop. I was about to ask the
stewardess, “Please ask them again,” when Prabhupada stopped me. He said “What is the difference between us and
them if we can’t tolerate these sort of things? Don’t be an ordinary, common, foolish man.”
I thought the passage
was instructive. Why whine over
everything? While in the air on whatever
jet, there are always little things that we persevere through. Anyway,
“Sawubona!” which means, “Hello!” in Zulu.
May the Source be with
you!
5 KM
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