The Book of Life

tolerance and fight everything that seems unfavourable, the only result will be that we destroy one “evil” by name, only to fall into another, even worse evil. If the lion and the elephant did not tolerate each other, both would invite their own death. But when they accept each other, both gain the chance to live. This is the greatest benefit of tolerance. Tolerance gives you the chance to act. It provides the opportunity to achieve something. And without doubt, the greatest thing in this world is the chance to act. To lose this chance is destruction; to gain it and use it is success. A MISUNDERSTANDING O nce I went to a village and saw a man cut down a neem tree. Afterward, he began stripping the bark from its trunk. “Why are you removing the bark?” I asked him. He smiled and replied, “If the bark isn’t removed, worms will get inside and spoil the wood.” This was in 1965. Ten years later, in August 1975, I visited another village. There I saw the trunk of a neem tree that had been cut down but still had its bark. This reminded me of the earlier incident, and I thought I would test whether the villager’s words had been correct. I asked a man from