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descending upon earth; hence He gave people the mighty weapons of alochana, pratikraman and pratyakhyan.
What is pratikraman?
All natural and spontaneous actions that take place in the worldly life are kraman. As long as they occur naturally and spontaneously, it is kraman but when an action becomes excessive and hurtful, it is atikraman. For all the atikraman that occur, one will have to do pratikraman without fail if he wants to be free. It will become clean only if he washes it off.
If in the past life, one had created an intent 'I want to slap that man, in this life when that intent materializes, he will end up slapping someone. That is atikraman, and for that he has to do pratikraman. Recall the pure Soul within that person and ask for forgiveness. The Lord has said, "You will attain moksha if you do pratikraman for all your atikraman."
Any negative conduct is atikraman. A negative conduct is a stain (karmic stain) that will 'bite' you in your mind; in order to get rid of it, you have to do pratikraman. If you commit atikraman towards someone, you have to do pratikraman whole day, in his name. Only then will you be free. If both you and the other person do pratikraman towards each other, then you become free sooner. The pratikraman comes to end sooner if you both do five thousand pratikramans each. If the other person does no pratikraman, you will have to do ten thousand pratikramans if you really want to be free. At least you will become free; however, because there is only one-sided pratikraman, the other person will continue to feel the hurt himself. Through your pratikraman, the other person will change his feeling (bhaav) towards you. Not only will you improve your own bhaav, but it will also positively influence the other person's bhaav. There is so much power in pratikraman that even tigers turn into dogs (they become tame)! When is pratikraman useful? It is only useful in the wake of negative results or effects. If a
tiger is in its den and you do pratikraman sitting in your home, then pratikraman is not very useful, but if you come face to face with a tiger that wants to eat you and you do pratikraman, it will truly give results. The tiger will become like a lamb at that very moment.
Pratikramans being done today are mainly dravya pratikraman; the act of pratikraman is effect i.e. unfolding of past karma. Dravya (effect) pratikraman means your clothes' (the relative self), becomes clean but not the owner of the next life (the cause has not been washed). If Chandulal were to keep repeating, Chandulal eat rice and lentils. Chandulal eat rice and lentils...' does that mean Chandulal has eaten? No, nothing happens by simply speaking. Let me explain to you what dravya pratikraman is. Say Lord Mahavir bought a big bar of soap to clean his dirty clothes. He soaked the clothes first, and then he scrubbed them with the bar of soap and washed them in water Now, how is the dirt on your clothes going to wash away by you simply reciting the process of how the Lord cleaned his clothes for one hour once a year? Allya! The Lord's stains and his process of washing were different and your stains and your process of washing are different. Now if you simply keep reciting the Lord's method, how are you going to be clean? Your plight is like that of a bull in an oil mill; no matter how much the bull walks, he remains in the same place in the oil mill. Your atikraman will be washed only if you do pratikraman the moment any atikraman occurs. How can you remember your atikraman if you do pratikraman once a year? The current time is so strange that people cannot even remember what they ate one hour ago, so how are they to remember their atikraman? Pratikraman has to be done on the spot, the instant the atikraman occurs. It needs to be 'cash'; not pending as a balance.
If you spill tea on your clothes, you get up right away to wash off the stains and yet when your self becomes stained,
