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THE JAINA GAZETTE
also, namely in improving his body and mind. But when these are once weakened by a vicious life, noble thoughts will occur only rarely. When the man is weak physically there is little chance of his entertaining good and vigorous thoughts.
Moral acts are a great help in concentration; morality itself develops certain forces which are latent in us, A Christ for instance would develop his intellectual power, and by the purity of his moral nature there will be evolved a white light which will enable him to see many things and will give him a great many powers not obtainable in any other way. Intellectually a person may be very brilliant, and may understand how to work out intricate problems in astronomy, but if you ask him to control a great host of people by his will, or by his look, he cannot do that. But a man who is morally pure, in whom the people have confidence as to his nature, and object, and whose commands and wishes. they know, are for their good, for what is good, and never for that which is evil, has a really wonderful power by his moral acts, and his power makes the words which he speaks come true. Persons who are truthful are never in any difficulty in regard to accomplishing their object. Many prophets had only to say that a certain thing would be, and it did come to pass, because their will and their whole being were saturated with truthfulness. This means that the soul was in harmony with the laws of nature and the nature of the cosmos, and was not coming into conflict with any other influence, and therefore their will showed its result at every moment. Truthfulness will make all our acts and thoughts fruitful at every moment. The Yogis say "Let there be a tree and you will find a tree there: It is nothing unnatural; the power is so strong that it collects at once all the forces inherent in nature and brings together the particles of the objects which is desired. Further all the moral acts have great influence in concentration, and therefore also in the occult powers. There are many surrounding circumstances in our life in which we will be helped by concentration. If we set apart one room for the purpose of meditation and every day in the morning we take some time for this and for spiritual work, we shall saturate the atmosphere of the Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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