________________
If you ask a prosperous merchant to undertake a fast, he will say it is impossible for him to endure it. But what happens when his shop is chock-full of customers and he is doing rollicking business? This same man who declared his inability to forego even one meal a day will forget all about food, will forget the very existence of his stomach in his engrossment of making bumper sales! The question of endurance does not arise at all.
The man who renounces material things gains an inner satisfaction. To him self-denial is the most natural way of living. Engrossed in matters of the mind and the spirit, he does not even realise hunger.
When one endeavours something without a deep longing for it, the task will seem to be a task, and a burdensome one at that. But no sacrifice seems big enough for the attainment of something you long for. A doting mother will give up everything for her child and yet will not think it sufficient, for she feels that she has done nothing. And when the "Sacrifice" is for the soul where is the question of conceit or vanity?
The temple of Ranakpur lies in the lap of nature. There, midst the lofty grandeur of the Aravalli mountains, sits this beautiful temple built by the merchant,
