Counteracting reversals

[Guest guest]

My dear King, do not be agitated and anxious because your sacrifices

have not been properly executed due to providential impediments.

Kindly take my words with great respect. We should always remember

that if something happens by providential arrangement, we should not

be very sorry. The more we try to rectify such reversals, the more we

enter into the darkest region of materialistic thought.

 

PURPORT

 

Sometimes the saintly or very religious person also has to meet with

reversals in life. Such incidents should be taken as providential.

Although there may be sufficient cause for being unhappy, one should

avoid counteracting such reversals, for the more we become implicated

in rectifying such reversals, the more we enter into the darkest

regions of material anxiety. Lord Krsna has also advised us in this

connection. We should tolerate things instead of becoming agitated.

 

--- Bhag. 4.19.34

 

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There‘s a beautiful quatrain in Dutch literature expressing the

same idea that one becomes “implicated in rectifying reversals” by

counteracting them. The remedy it gives is the same too: better to

tolerate than to add to the agitation. I have translated it into

English below.

 

However much destiny draws misery near,

Be silent, you make it worse, forbear.

Who pushes waves back into the sea?

The attempt itself makes new one appear.

 

For those of you who are able to read Dutch, here‘s the original:

 

XII.

 

Hoe ook het lot met kwelling u mag slaan,

Wees stil, gij maakt het erger, laat begaan;

Wie duwt de golven van de zee terug?

Het pogen zelf doet weer een golf ontstaan.

 

 

( J.H. Leopold, Soefisch XII. In: Verzamelde verzen, p. 197)

 

Hare Krishna. Your humble servant,

Rogier.