THE ART OF PATIENCE

Reflections On Forbearance

Onset:

Forbearance is proclaimed to be the greatest virtue. To patiently endure the unendurable and subsequently emerge triumphant is often lauded as the greatest test of character any man can undergo. Forbearance, resultantly, is cast as the most effective furnace that mints strong trailblazers capable of altering the course of history because they have stoically resisted the urge to surrender to despair. But this begs the question, is continued forbearance in the face of the unendurable always the answer? How do we define the limits of the unendurable? And is it always just to tolerate the unendurable for the sake of enduring alone?

History’s Answer:

Historically, forbearance has defined the careers and lives of great men. But a conspicuous similarity underpins the essence of forbearance displayed by all of them. In our celebration of forbearance, to inspire us to tolerate the mundane triviality that afflicts our modern lives, we forego acknowledging the results of this forbearance. The great individuals we look up to did not endure just for enduring alone. They endured with an end-goal in mind; a decisive plan to surmount the insurmountable confronting them either conventionally or unconventionally for the ultimate success of their cause or mission.

The onset of the Christian era, catastrophically, removed this emphasis on enduring for the sake of the cause rendering it into enduring for the sake of endurance alone. Thus, the great paragons of endurance who forbore the greatest of atrocities for the virtues of liberty and the like were overwritten and supplanted with ascetics enduring for some otherworldly reward that they could neither substantiate for themselves or others. The biblical tale of Job and the field of theodicy it furnished only further exacerbated this regression effacing the age of heroic forbearance and replacing it with the forbearance of the weak.

Seneca’s Tale:

The pre-Christian era emphasis on forbearance and enduring for a mission is delivered by the Stoic philosopher Seneca. Upon the ascension of Caligula as emperor, Rome was thrown into pandemonium but this chaotic state would pale in comparison to the iron-fisted and power-intoxicated sadism that Caligula would deliver next. Riven with insanity, Caligula turned on friend and foe alike for the smallest of transgressions arbitrarily executing them with the most atrocious methods he devised in the dark depths of his disturbed mind. The most conspicuous target of his wrath, known to us, was the eminent retainer Pastor.

Pastor’s son, unfortunately, displeased the emperor through an unintended slight enraging the tyrant who ordered him detained in the imperial dungeons. Pastor humbly approached Caligula and begged the maniac for his son’s life. The emperor casually waved him away making it out that the lad would be detained for a few more days before being released. Pastor departed unknowing what the next dawn would bring. Caligula, meanwhile, took his royal guard and went to visit the arrested boy whose arrest had compelled a man as mighty as Pastor to fall at his feet. Smiling at the child’s misfortune, he ordered him executed.

Pastor soon received summons to the imperial palace for a celebratory party in his honor. He was met by Caligula who seated him beside himself ordering the most sumptuous of meals for the grief-stricken retainer. He then perversely observed Pastor’s reaction to his goading, acerbically inquiring what the man felt now that he knew his son was dead. Whether he could fathom the almost orgasmic shuddering the emperor felt gripped by upon the boy’s execution or his muffled screams for mercy. Pastor remained silent even drinking wine as if it was his own son’s blood to appease the monster.

Aggrieved, Pastor forbore his fate. He resisted Caligula’s provocations until the emperor had him hurled out from the palace. Did Pastor endure for enduring alone? Seneca recounts that Pastor endured because he had already planned against the emperor. He had a second son who had been conveyed away from Rome on his father’s orders. This son was instructed to train in the arts of statecraft and warcraft with the aim of aligning with anti-Caligula factions while working towards ridding Rome of the tyrant’s miasmic reign. For the success of his surviving son’s mission, Pastor was prepared to endure atrocity upon atrocity.

Pastor’s Merit:

Pastor’s forbearance underscores the fact that forbearance is the first aspect of a deliberate strategy that is formed in the most direst of circumstances to incite a change in circumstances for either oneself or others. Forbearance when unaccompanied by resulting action is emblematic of cowardice and weakness. Those who forbear for the sake of forbearance alone or some otherworldly respite are weak and unable to confront fate and control their destinies. Those who forbear for the realization of their vision are consummate planners. They are masters of timing knowing to remain silent until the right moment.

Great strategists and tacticians await the right time to attack. Similarly, men possessed by great purpose endure the unendurable until the opportune moment. When it arrives, they shed all pretenses of languidness and leap to realize their mission or pave the way for their successors to do so if they themselves die at the tyrant’s hands in the process. For Pastor, the strength of his forbearance arose from the fact that he had a surviving son who would avenge the immeasurable barbarity levelled on his family and his people by deposing the tyrant Caligula. There was no pretense of heaven empowering him. But cold hard reality.

The Sikh Factor:

The heritage of the Sikhs is replete with stunning examples of forbearance in pursuit of a greater mission. Guru Arjan, the fifth Sikh Guru, mounted the iron plate and joyously accepted the penalty of being fried alive for his refusal to convert to Islam or kowtow to the Hindu orthodoxy. Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, stoically forbore inhumane tortures in the dungeons of Delhi and then smilingly accepted beheading for his own refusal to convert to Islam. The commonalities for both Gurus are emulative. Both prepared resolute successors while buying the Sikhs time to arm themselves against tyranny.

Guru Arjan forbore his fate for the eventual success of his son and successor Guru Hargobind, the sixth Sikh Guru, whose subsequent military offensives against the Mughals considerably weakened the Islamist empire. Guru Tegh Bahadur forbore his fate for the eventual success of his son and successor Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and final Sikh human Guru, who implemented the vision of Guru Nanak (the progenitor Guru) by ratifying the Khalsa or the fraternity of orthodox Sikhs adhering to Guru Nanak’s and other prior Gurus’ injunctions in the canonical Guru Granth.

The subsequent age of conflict that succeeded the Guru era witnessed innumerable Sikhs adopt the Gurus’ strategy of deliberate forbearance, enduring the most diabolically monstrous of atrocities for the realization of their mission of Sikh liberty or for the survival of their future generations. Sikh generalissimo Banda Singh unflinchingly courted death by being mutilated to death after having his child’s heart torn out and thrust into his mouth on the orders of the Islamic clergy while others like Darbara Singh endured exile and hardships in the Punjabi hinterlands while battling for Sikh supremacy over the Punjab.

The most significant aspect of Sikh forbearance is that it is not forbearance in the Judeo-Christian sense. It is not done to accrue some otherworldly reward. Such indoctrination works well for tyrannical institutions that would rather have their victims look to the next life for justice rather than war for it in this more substantive reality. The Sikh Gurus were cognizant with this fact and emphasized that their Sikhs continually study the arts of strategy and derive inspiration from their history and the history of others to analyze how forbearance can be sagaciously utilized for their times and for their aims and ambitions.

The Sikh Merit:

For the Sikhs, forbearance is a strategic weapon that can be leveraged for the eventual realization of their vision. The collective nature of their religious community often witnesses the most prominent and outspoken among them forbear pain to the point of death for the continuity of their mission and its eventual success through the efforts of fellow Sikhs who are animated by the same religious spirit and zeal. The Guru Granth, the canonical Sikh scripture, elaborates the virtues of an epoch-making hero by utilizing the lives of the Gurus as a template:

ਸਤਿ ਸੂਰਉ ਸੀਲਿ ਬਲਵੰਤੁ ਸਤ ਭਾਇ ਸੰਗਤਿ ਸਘਨ ਗਰੂਅ ਮਤਿ ਨਿਰਵੈਰਿ ਲੀਣਾ ॥

ਜਿਸੁ ਧੀਰਜੁ ਧੁਰਿ ਧਵਲੁ ਧੁਜਾ ਸੇਤਿ ਬੈਕੁੰਠ ਬੀਣਾ ॥

ਪਰਸਹਿ ਸੰਤ ਪਿਆਰੁ ਜਿਹ ਕਰਤਾਰਹ ਸੰਜੋਗੁ ॥

ਸਤਿਗੁਰੂ ਸੇਵਿ ਸੁਖੁ ਪਾਇਓ ਅਮਰਿ ਗੁਰਿ ਕੀਤਉ ਜੋਗੁ ॥੭॥

“The genuine warrior is humble in his power, truthful, and forever residing in the presence of the innumerable self-realized beings who have wholeheartedly accepted and taken to the profound path of having no enmity with the truth. From the onset he marches under the unsullied white banner of forbearance that he plants on the path to the heavens. The beloved seekers of the truth attain this rank and become one with their Maker when thus fated. In this way, those who serve the divine truth (by imbuing it) attain peace for such are the actions revealed to them by Amar Das the Guru (the third Sikh Guru).”

-Guru Granth, 1393.

The above verse emphasizes that the strategic nature of forbearance should not devolve it into a mundane tool to be used and then discarded. It requires dedicated cultivation and only the seekers of the truth, the truly enlightened individuals, can master it. The Sikh purview declares life to be a war and the Sikh a warrior. The genuine warrior is humble in his power and forever deriving inspiration from those who have trodden his path before him. Forbearance is his defining quality and to emulate him, his emulators must outdo him in terms of his endurance for this is the path to the heavens or self-realization.

Ending:

The aforementioned potent examples establish several nuanced facts:

-Forbearance has strategic utility but it requires mastery.

-The strong forbear for a purpose i.e. the eventual realization of their mission that becomes their mission in life.

-The weak forbear for some otherworldly reward that integrates well with their tormentors’ designs because it disallows them from offering righteous resistance.

-To be patient is to forbear. The greatest strategists and tacticians are patient, can forbear, and masters of timing. Similarly, forbearance too is a matter of timing and foresight.

-Those who have planned ahead and laid the foundations for the future realization of their aims are more likely to forbear to the point of death knowing fully well that if not in life than in death they would be triumphant.

Our current nihilistic existences demand we forbear. But forbearance alone is not enough if we are not enduring to alter ourselves and our world for the better.