Suppose you are travelling somewhere in a bus and it is a 12 hour long journey for which you have to sit. Then that also is a sort of tapasya.
Being in a state of equanimity and enduring whatever comes, whether it is hot or cold, good or bad, praise or criticism, is tapasya.
Can you listen to an insult with the same equanimity as when you listen to compliments? That is tapasya. When someone praises you, you listen to it with a smile. When someone criticizes you, can you listen to it with the same smile and equanimity and watch what is happening inside you? That is tapasya. When you do not like something but are able to undergo that, then that is tapasya. If you can like something, can you be a witness to it and not be feverish about it, then that is tapasya.
Forbearing the opposites is called tapasya and it is essential in life. The extent to which we follow tapasya in life, to that extent we become stronger and stable.
- Gurudev Sri Sri..
