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HERITAGE OF LORD MAHAVIRA:
or estate, of beauty.or skill, of friends or family, of honour or reputation. And possession involves sorrow by the need of its maintenance. You have continually to take care of your land and of your fortune; you have to resort to lots of contrivances if you want to preserve your beauty or to retain your skill. You have to render sacrifice after sacrifice for your friends and for your family. You tremble for their lives when sickness shakes them and suffer agonies when fate seperates you from them. And the concern about his position and prestige has even sufficed to urge a person to suicide and other dangerous steps. In short, to speak in the words of Bhartrihari, the great Sanskrit epigrammatic writer :
सर्व वस्तु भयान्वितं क्षितितले वैराग्यमेवाभयम् ।
“Everything on earth is infested with fear ; the one thing which is immutable is the equanimity that comes from detachment.”
What is the good of a happiness which involves so much agony? What is the good of this feasting with the fateful sword of sorrow ever hanging above your head ? Would it not be much better to give up all this possession which promises, after all, such doubtful happiness? Why not give it up, as those sages of old did, of whom the Uttaradhayana Sutra (IX. 15 f.) says:
चत्तपुत्तकलत्तस्स निव्वावारस्स भिक्खुणो। पियं न विजइ किंचि अप्पियं पि न विज्जइ ॥
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
