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even if the shopkeeper shuts his shop down in this life, are they likely to leave him alone in the next life? No, they will not and they will only rest having avenged themselves. And that is why the Lord has said to become free from vengeance by whatever means you can
An acquaintance of ours had borrowed some money from us, but he never came to return the money. 'We understood that this was due to some past life's vengeance and that so it was fine that he did not come to return the money, what is more: 'we' told him, "You don't have to return the money. We are setting you free. "If you can break the bondage of vengeance by writing off some money, then do so. Sooner or later, break the vengeance otherwise bondage of vengeance with even one person, will make you wander life after life.
How can one deal with such vengeful people? With such people, even if you were to fire a gun at them, your bullets would go to waste. In addition to that, they will bind vengeance towards you. If you bind vengeance towards one person, that vengeance will ruin your life for seven more lives. He will say, 'I don't want to go to moksha, but I will not let him go either.' You know that enmity between Lord Parshvanath and Kamath had been going on for eight lives, and the Lord became free only when He became vitarag. Only the Lord could have tolerated the cruel and malicious acts Kamath directed at Him. People of today do not have the capacity to suffer what the Lord had to Kamath made balls of fire rain over the Lord as He sat in meditation. He threw large rocks at the Lord. He created heavy rain fall on the Lord but despite this, the Lord suffered everything with equanimity and on top of that he blessed Kamath and thus dealt with all enmity that Kamath had for Him.
Just as a cat can smell a mouse, so can those who have a score of enmity to settle, they do not have to look for each other. When Lord Parshvanath was sitting down below (on
earth) deep in his meditation, Kamath who was a celestial being (Deva) was passing by from above, he really did not want to look down but even then he happened to see Lord Parshvanath. He started to trouble the Lord by throwing balls of fire on Him, he hurled big stones and created a torrential rainfall on the Lord, he did everything he could to create havoc on the Lord. At that time Dharnendra, another celestial deva, upon whom the Lord Parshvanath had bestowed blessings in the previous life, gained knowledge of Kamath's malicious acts towards the Lord through his divine powers of clairvoyance (avadhignan). He came down to earth and turned into a shield of canopy over the Lord's head to protect him. The celestial goddesses also created a huge lotus flower to lift the Lord out of the rising floods. Despite all this, the Lord remained in his meditation; He did not have the slightest of abhorrence towards his tormentor Kamath or the slightest attachment towards Dharnendra, the goddesses who protected Him. Such was his state of non-attachment (vitaragata) and this you can see openly in his deity: tremendous non-attachment. For the darshan of vitaragata amongst the twenty-four tirthankaras, the idol of Lord Parshvanath displays vitaragata
Today people have hardly anything to suffer and yet they complain so much. If you take all the suffering of their entire life, it is not equivalent to even one day of suffering of a spiritually elevated being and yet people go around complaining.
'We constantly see in our Gnan that everyone in the world is bound through vengeance and that is why their faces look so miserable. Vengeance causes clash and conflicts. If you were to have even the slightest understanding of what Lord Parshvanath stands for, seeds of vitaragata will begin to sprout within you, but alas, how is anyone to attain such an understanding? People refer to the vitarag Lords as 'Lord Parshvanath; the one with the snakes over his head' or 'Lord Mahavir; the one with the lion. They are able to distinguish the
