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 94

36
I am the Soul
his head and there was no going back in him. His affinity for food had overwhelmed him with a vengeance. We often come across great scholars who wax eloquent about knowledge, yet in their own lives there is hardly a control over infatuation - moha. This is the reason for the comment -
वर्ते मोहावेशमां .
The wizened wise here are rooted in their infatuation.
Attachment and aversion are both forms of infatuation. Given a reason for attachment, a being reacts with an outburst of affinity, just as given a reason for anger he reacts with an outburst of aversion. Generally it seems that our laughter or tears, our enjoyment or sorrowing is all subject to a stimulus. We laugh when somebody makes us laugh and we cry much the same way. Faced with either of the stimulii we can avoid neither. If affinity wells up in us in response to an impulse for attachment, we do not stop to think 'this is not my true nature. That I should not get attached even when the reason arises'. Similarly, when there is a provocation for anger or aversion, we should be able to remain aloof and say 'I shall not get angry, it is not my nature. Joy or sorrow, whatever be the reason, I shall not react to it. I should be aware that I am not subject to provocation, I am above it'. Brothers! one who firmly dissociates from the rising passions will not be affected, whatever be the provocation.
Consider the episode of Gajasukumala Muni that appears in our scriptures. Live coals were kept on his head. It was provocation of the extreme kind. How would Gajasukumala Muni have reacted in that situation? What would have happened to him? The provocation was such that had he surrendered to it he would have strayed far away from his path. An enemy from the previous birth was administering lethal torture; what would have been the Muni's state of mind then? I feel he had no dehadhyasa - affinity left for the body, which must be why he never felt pain