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અધ્યાત્મતત્ત્વાલાક.
[ ચાથુ
scrupulously appearing careful for small things bring humanity in troubles and worries by base deceptions. It is also due to this delusion that they are prompt in the use of deceptions and also in the display of ardent zeal in the worship of deities. Fraud, deception, deceit, false appearance and all forms of hypocrisy are never seen to bring happiness, comfort, wealth, prosperity in their true significance. It stultifies the heart and the head. It retards spiritual progress. It furthers the accumulation of Karmic energies, the chief cause of the cycle of repeated births. With these results before one's mind one should try to tear away the bonds of this evil passion and make rapid progress on the path of salvation. Greed proceeds from desires (vāsanās), the main root of propagating the Cycle of Births pregnant with all troubles and miseries. Desires proceed from attachment to objects of senses and pleasures. Sordid love of money and property retards all endowments of mind from professional activities and quiet possessions of heart. A greedy man is inaccessible to arguments of reason, philosophy and religion. The varied springs and characteristics of a covetous man baffle the powers of dramatic writers, satirists and others to draw or explain them in full. It is a matter of common experience that persons affected with avarice, greed and covetousness have done irreparable loss to human society. Like a huge monster, avarice devours the highest virtue. It overshadows the best powers of vision and intellect. It hardens the hearts of men even to the extent of
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