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DISCOURSE XVI
SPIRITUAL JOY
Gentlemen,
May all the Omniscient Lords, all the accomplished Lords, all the adorable Acharyas, all the adorable upadhyayas and all the worshipful monks bless us. By their inconceivable prowess only, religion is spread and propagated.
Preaching is predominant in religion as with preaching as support, the monks, the nuns, the lay householders and the lay womendisciples, are capable of crossing over this ocean of worldly affairs.
This preaching has many branches and sub branches. One of the branches is Shri Uttaradhyayana Sutra. Its Thirty sixth subbranch out of thirty six branches has yielded the excellent fruit in the form of the description of transmigratory soul. We relished the sweet juice in the form of spiritual knowledge, and therefore today on this sacred occasion let us pay our tributes to this spiritual knowledge.
This is the last discourse on the topic of the soul and here we shall mainly consider how to acquire spiritual joy or bliss and therefore concentrate your attention in this direction only.
Four entities are considered as very rare and one of them is "Shruti" i.e., listening or attending to the sacred scriptures. Thus do not underestimate your attention to sacred scriptures. When your passions are slowing down, when your vicious attitudes are slackened and the desire for bliss has dawned in your heart then only you are inclined to listen to scriptures laid down by the Omniscient Lords and the sacred merits earned in the past secure for you an ideal preceptor who delivers those sacred preachings before you.
The main characteristic of the soul whose journey in this universe is getting limited is attachment for the words of the Great Lordsthe Jinas. If you entertain craving to listen to the religious discourses then be sure that your journey in this universe is getting limited and your spiritual uplift is imminent.
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