Once Chatrapati Sivaji (who was a famous King in India during the reign of Aurangazeb), was riding in his horse in the forest for hunting. While he was going, suddenly a big stone hit his head. Being a King, he became extremely angry, thinking who had the audacity to throw a stone at him. He was looking around to see who did this but he could not see anybody. Slowly an old woman came in front of him and told that it was she who threw the stone. When he asked her the reason, she said, "I am sorry my Lord. I wanted to pluck those mangoes from this tree, I could not reach them. Hence I threw a stone to hit them. But unfortunately it hit your head. Please forgive me."
 
Normally Sivaji himself or any other person would have become angry and punished the offender. But by Krsna's mercy Sivaji got a nice realization. He thought,"If a tree, which is not a highly elevated living entity, can be so tolerant and merciful to give sweet mangoes even when hit by anyone, being a King, should I not be more merciful and tolerant than the tree?" Thinking this way, he donated a handful of gold to the old woman.
 
Many times, we are cited examples of lower living entities like grass, tree etc to remind us of how humble and tolerant we should be. We all know the famous verse in Sikshashtakam by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

trnad api sunicena taror api sahishnunaa
amaani na maana dena kirtaniya sadaa harih

"One should chant the holy names of the Lord in a humble state of mind, thinking oneself lower than the straw in the street. One should be more tolerant than a tree, devoid of all sense of false prestige and should be ready to offer all respects to others. In such a state of mind, one can chant the holy names of the Lord constantly."
 
The quality of tolerance is tremendously important not only to relish devotional service. It is essential even to live a peaceful life in this material world. We have to tolerate the various kinds of miseries that are forced upon us by the other living entities, by natural disturbances and by our own mind and body. We have to tolerate the temporary nature of this world. We have to tolerate the political disturbances and cheaters all around. Even when we come to devotional service, in the beginning we all think that the whole environment is wonderful and everything is so nice. But as time goes on, all our anarthas come out and we get into so many misunderstandings and non-sensical things which is anyway happening in the outside world also. So what is the difference between the materialists and us? Nothing really. We are just performing some 'glorified' activity in the name of devotional service. This is because we lack the quality of tolerance. We get agitated at even small things.
 
But by performing sincere devotional service somehow or other we can develop these qualities in this life time. Just like the realization popped out of nowhere for Sivaji, Krishna will supply us too with nice realizations at the right time, when we deserve them.
 
Until then, we have all the time in the world to pray to the Lord and our spiritual master to increase our eagerness to serve them more and more.

Now you can listen to the ancient sanskrit chants of Bhagavad Gita, sung in classical melodies by noted devotional singer Sri Vidyabhushana. Listen to all 700 verses of the Gita with a beautiful accompaniment of flute, veena, sitar, mridanga, tabla and tala. (Scroll down to listen to it online.)

Set includes 10 audio CDs (7 CDs of sanskrit chants, 2 CDs containing english translations for the entire Bhagavad Gita, and 1 CD providing an introductory lecture on the Bhagavad Gita by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada).