I am The Soul Part 01

SR No.: 006790
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Tarulatabai Mahasati
Publisher: Shri Gujarati Shwetambar Sthanakwasi Jain Association
Total Pages: 468
Language: English, Hindi
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 355

I am the Soul
297 Naya is activity based. But what should be the activity that goes on under the banner of Dharma? It is very important that we know. That is why in this gatha, the last line reads -
Ha eft à uhn HHA..... 3€
- that religious activity, those observances which become inspiring for the supreme path, the Moksa marg, alone are respectable, none others are.
Be it a Sadhu, be it a householder, but the result of the vratas, observances being performed by oneself should be the experience of the soul. The state of experience will occur only when the passions, binding for infinity, get depleted and then gradually the other passions too begin to wane and abate. Whether the external behaviour has measured up to the ideal is reflected in the way the passion-free feelings develop, the self begins to steady within, gets absorbed within, the external view gets shut out, the complex that the self is superior and others are inferior gets avoided and a friendship on an inner plane develops with all jivas.
The external observances may be in the form of mahavratas, in the form of fasting, in the form of poojas-archanas to the Prabhu, in the form of devotion or swadhyay, but if after doing them there is a false belief that “what we are doing is right and all others are wrong, we alone are on the path of moksa and since the others are not doing what we do, they are misguided? then such act is also the reason for being tied down.
Brothers! In life there are such bitter experiences. You sometimes come across staunch kriyavadis who would not even agree to be seated on the same level as other sadhus. He will insist on an elevated seat for himself and lower seats for the others whom he considers inferior. Such things! Oh Lord! If a higher or lower seat could get you Moksa then the insects and jivas residing on mountain tops should have got them by now. Then not the traveller resting below the tree but the crow perched