Way of Life Part 3

SR No.: 006515
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bhadraguptasuri
Publisher: Vishvakalyan Prakashan Trust Mehsana
Publication Year: 1986
Total Pages: 348
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Religion
File Size: 18 MB

Page 47

DISCOURSE 31
35
who live in Bombay have to go such distant places as Borivili, Virar, Ghatkopar or Thana. Such people leave their houses before 8 a.m. and return home at 9 or 10 O'clock in the night. Under such conditions, the husband and the wife cannot have the satisfaction of living together; and father and children cannot enjoy the felicity of domestic life. Such men have to spend about 12 or 13 hours in their business or professions. They spend 6 to 8 hours in sleeping. They spend 2 or 3 hours for bathing and eating food; and they have to spend 2 or 3 hours in attending to their domestic affairs. How can they find time for carrying out spiritual activities. Even if they desire to carry out one or two activities how can they carry them out? Of course, they get a holiday every week; but on that day, they have to attend to many domestic matters; they have to visit and meet their friends and relatives and they have to take the members of their families for a walk or an outing. What spiritual activity can they carry out on that day?
If you listen to my words, I would exhort you to return to villages. In villages, there are many small occupations that can be pursued. There are many kinds of cottage-industries that can be carried on. The problem of unemployment also gets solved.
Question: If we go to villages, will you also come to villages ? Now-a-days, even Sadhus visit only cities.
Answer: You go to villages and settle down there; and I will surely spend my Chaturmas there with you. You have left your villages and have settled down in cities. When that is so will the Sadhus go to villages? Why should they go to villages? We, the Sadhus, have to visit cities, because lakhs of Jain families live in cities. The Sadhus have to go to cities to induce them to engage themselves in spiritual activities; and to strengthen their faith in Dharma. In the days when Jain families lived in villages, the Sadhus spent their Chaturmas in villages. In fact, they used to stay in villages, longer than the period of the Chaturmus.
In villages, life is simple and village-life is congenial for