________________
Kshamapana balance sheet of profit and loss. Samvatsari is an annual festival. On this day the account of good and bad deeds of the whole year should be settled and sincere efforts should be made to get free from bad deeds. In the Agam scriptures, there is the story of three merchants. With an equal capital they set out for trading. The first merchant doubled the capital and returned. The second merchant got entrapped in depression of prices and returned only with the original capital. The third merchant incurred a loss. Instead of gains, he lost the original capital.
All the human beings, all the jivas in the world are like these three merchants. The first type of jivas preserve the original capital of humanity and moreover they attain reverence. They practise good conduct, keep vows and attain emancipation.
The second type of jivas do not attain emancipation but preserve humanity. They practise good conduct. The jivas of the third type lose even the traces of humanity. They practise bad conduct and are consigned to hell. Fault-finding and Inner Search
Today we should search the self. Who does not err ? To err is human. Errors are committed sometimes unconsciously, sometimes by force of Karma and sometimes through misunderstanding. We may or may not wish, but we have quarrels and distrees in life. All these errors are no doubt earmarked on the slate of Karma and the effort to clean the slate, before the errors are cemented on it, is true forgiveness. In his previous bhava (birth) as Triprushtha Vasudev, Bhagwan Mahavira poured overheated lead into his servant's (shayyapalak's) ears. Ages passed by. The servant (shayyapalak)
77
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org