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 78

I am the Soul
The youth having swallowed water, panicked and started yelling for his life. That was the limit. The saint then picked him up on his shoulders and came over to the river bank. The youth had swallowed enough water. The saint pumped the water out and when the youth came to his senses a little while later, asked,
"How do you feel, Son?”
The youth replied, “I felt as if I have just escaped the clutches of death."
“Is that so? Well then, while you were drowning whom all did you remember?”
“Nobody."
“How is that? Don't you have a wife and children? Your parents? What about some friends?”!
“I have them all, Sir." “Yet you remembered none?”
“No, Sir! The only thought hovering in my mind was “escape or you die’. How to survive was the only thing I could think of. Sir, to tell you the truth I was perturbed.”
The saint then said, “Son! You were so perturbed for the sake of an impermanent life that you forgot everything that you had. You were all alone in your thought. You must have felt as if you were the only one in the whole universe. Well, that is exactly how you should feel if you are trying to search the Self. You will have to sever all bonds, forget everything else. Only then can you realise Self, not otherwise."
Brothers! Srimadji has also tried to tell us in this gatha, that the task of realising the Soul can be taken up only when we detach ourselves from the material life and focus our sight on the soul alone. This is possible only when we understand the path of liberation. How those who do not understand this path remain illusioned and how their time and energies are wasted on a misguided path is what we will learn from the next gatha.