bhanuchandragani charit

SR No.: 002310
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Siddhichandra Upadhyay
Publisher: Jinshasan Aradhana Trust
Total Pages: 180
Language: Sanskrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari
File Size: 21 MB

Page 62

INTRODUCTION.
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to that of a male cuckoo cooing on the mango tree in a forest in the form of religious austerities. So he called him to his side and said, "O Lord! your form is stately enough to make you a king. You have youth hotly in your veins. Your age is meant for the soft pleasure of contact with the body of red-blooded damsels. Why, then, do you waste it upon the desert of severe austerities?"
In a rich and strident voice, the sage replied "Initiation into monkhood at a tender age is neither funny nor foolish. In the drinking of nectar, the wise never wait. Which age is more suited to austerities-youth or old age? Death lays his icy hands on the young and the old alike. O King! in old age a man has no resisting power-no vitality, without which, no austerities can be performed. It is, therefore, nothing more than a delusion to think that old age is the only and the most proper time for renouncing the world for the purpose of achieving the noble aim of spiritual liberation and perfection. In old age, the performance of things requiring vitality results into the dullness of intellect and nervous breakdown. Religious austerity is a sword that kills all the enemies in the form of wicked actions perpetrated by a man in his countless previous births as well as in his present birth. He who takes to this course of life is respected by all as a man of courage. man of courage. Like the Sun it grants the lustre-purity to his eyes, and gives him enough light in the form of knowledge and conviction to enable him to distinguish between the real and the shadowy,-the material and the immaterial." (246)
The Emperor, with his eyes rolling unsteadily on account of the influence of drink, asked him rather snappily:-"How do you manage to keep your mind firm at an age when it is exceedingly prone to be assailed constantly by the God of Love?"
"By means of knowledge-especially, knowledge derived from meditation on the higher truths of religion and philosophy which teach man how to understand his own nature and how he may be reunited with the Supreme Spirit-the mind would become firm and would be controlled just as an elephant is controlled by means of a hook" replied Siddhichandra.
The Emperor demanded angrily:-"How can I understand what you say without such knowledge?"
Siddhicandra replied:-"No such knowledge is required to understand this. For instance, a Brahmin's mind does not relish pleasures in which your Majesty indulges. Similarly, our minds have no inclination for such carnal pleasures, because we never tasted them any time in our lives. The people know that the mind of a woman, who follows her dead husband by throwing herself to flames, is free frem attachment towards her other relations and all the things in the world. In the same way, the mind of the ascetic who practises austerities, remains unaffected by worldly pleasures. Absolute detachment from worldly shackles is their be-all and end-all of existence. They are absorbed in the contemplation of the Supreme Spirit, and always immersed