Cultivate Tolerance or Krishna Consciousness

Srila Prabhupada wonderfully explains tolerance in his purport to Bhagavad-gita 2.45 as follows:

"As long as the material body exists, there are actions and reactions in the material modes. One has to learn tolerance in the face of dualities such as happiness and distress, or cold and warmth, and by tolerating such dualities become free from anxieties regarding gain and loss. This transcendental position is achieved in full Krishna consciousness when one is fully dependent on the good will of Krishna."

Srila Prabhupada says that one has to learn tolerance of the dualities of this material nature. And he also explains that through Krishna consciousness, i.e. being fully dependent on the good will of Krishna, one achieves the transcendental position beyond the dualities. So should we cultivate Krishna consciousness, or should we cultivate tolerance? The answer is that we should cultivate both because the more one is tolerant of the dualities, the easier it is to remember Krishna, and the more one is Krishna conscious, he is naturally more and more tolerant.

Srila Prabhupada Tolerated Great Difficulties to Start His Movement

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version

Question: How To Visualize Krishna?

Thank you again for your wonderful daily messages.

I am still questioning myself, during the chanting, how I should visualize Sri Krishna? Should it be like we see him depicted in Swamiji's books in blue with the gopis or the cowherd boys?

Also I wish to ask you why Sri Krishna created man imperfect and material as a prisoner of materialism instead of creating man perfect directly at the beginning so that he does not need to come back to his original home in the spiritual world after falling down into material existence?

Sorry if these questions have already been asked to you a thousand times, since you are so much devoted to us night and day !

Also I wonder how Swami Prabhupada could have had one single second to sleep with all that he did (disciples over the world, so many many books, etc. etc.)

Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Edmond in Switzerland

Answer: Dive Deep Into the Sound of His Name

The Vedic injunction is that in this age of Kali we should fix our mind on the sound of Krishna's name. If you go deep, deep into the sound of Krishna names, you will find everything there: His unlimited names, His boundless forms, His infinite qualities, His endless pastimes, etc.

Krishna is manifesting us as perfect beings who can reciprocate love with Him perfectly. But since love is voluntary, not forced, part of our perfection is the free will to either love God or leave God. If we choose to leave him, we suffer in this material existence. But then the Lord comes personally or in the form his representative, the bona fide spiritual master, to rescue us and bring us back to our original perfect, liberated position in the spiritual world.

Srila Prabhupada slept very little. He would take two hours of sleep at night and a one-and-a-half hour nap after lunch. This detachment from his own personal sense gratification was a symptom of his intense dedication to the order of his spiritual master to make the Krishna consciousness movement successful.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari