An unwelcome guest and a welcome attitude - Chapter 15

तितिक्षा का ?

शीतोष्णसुखदुःखादिसहिष्णुत्वम् ।

What is titiksha (तितिक्षा)? It is the endurance of heat and cold, pleasure and pain etc.

We come across favorable and unfavorable situations in life and we experience these at physical (heat, cold, etc.), emotional (job, sorrow, etc.) and intellectual (praise, censure, etc.) levels. Titiksha (तितिक्षा) is the ability to treat these pairs of opposites in the same way. It needs to be understood as a consciously cultivated emotional immunity to difficult situations and not as a pessimistic resignation born out of helplessness. It also is not an absence of action but an absence of reaction to unfavorable situations. When faced with a difficult situation even while doing what best one can do to address the same one retains equanimity.

We look at objects/people/situations as favorable or unfavorable based on whether they add to our happiness or reduce our happiness. We saw previously how no entity of the external world has happiness as its inherent nature and therefore when we perceive an entity to be a source of addition or reduction of our happiness, we need to understand that we are merely superimposing a value on it that it does not have. Consciously developing the ability to look at objects for what they are in terms of their usefulness without coloring them with our likes and dislikes is the way to having titiksha (तितिक्षा).

Looking at the impermanence of situations is also a way to developing titiksha (तितिक्षा). We generally endure unfavorable situations when we know that it would only last for a very short duration. Consider having an annoying guest at home who disrupts the ways of living that one is used to. We find ourselves relatively more accommodating and cheerful based on the knowledge that the situation is impermanent and would last only for a couple of days. Working on expanding our basis for classifying something as impermanent will ensure that we endure more unfavorable situations with a cheerful disposition.

Titiksha (तितिक्षा) is the shock absorber with which one can ride through a bumpy life with relative ease and comfort. Without it every unfavorable situation would put one through misery and a mind constantly preoccupied with sorrow cannot think of subtle matters. Titiksha (तितिक्षा) therefore is an important quality that a spiritual seeker needs to possess in adequate measure before the commencement of Vedantic learning.