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PHILOSOPHY OF SOUL
401
When you have entered in a frightful forest who protects you except religion? Similarly, any fear arising from an elephant, a lion, a serpeant, fire or a goblin is waived by religion only.
You relish the sweet dreams of heaven, but these dreams are not fulfilled without any effort. Those who have properly practised religion only can realise this happiness of heaven. Liberation of soul which is profound with infinite joy is only achieved by practising religion properly.
Thus religion has many advantages and the people of understanding should practise religion to the best of their capacity.
WHAT WOULD YOU PREFER, RICHES OR RELIGION?
Some say, "We want money, and not religion as with money we can secure food, clothing and prestige". To them we reply: "With money you can get food and clothing but not prestige. We do find some such people who have no prestige with millions to their credit. Really speaking the society condemns them on the contrary. People do not wish to remember them in the morning. If money can beget fame or prestige then such persons would purchase any amount of fame. Those wealthy persons who command great respect and fame in the society are very generous at heart and they spend their wealth for the acts of religion and benevolence. Thus, respect and fame are not the fruits of wealth but are the fruits of spending wealth out of their feelings of homage for religion.
Still let us presume that wealth fulfils the desire of food, clothing and prestige, but then how do you earn wealth? If labour begets wealth, then all the labourers should earn equal amount of wealth. But this is not so. One man with less labour earns much wealth, the other man with much labour earns nothing, while the fourth one despite great labour, incurs loss. To what should we attribute this distinction? If you reply that it is fate then fate may be good or bad. In that case, we should consider the factors which decide good fate and bad fate. Those who acted righteously, performed meritorious deeds and followed the path of religion in the foregoing lives, secured good fate and those who acted sinfully and performed unmeritorious acts and acted irreligiously secured ill-luck. Thus, finally everything rests on religion. Our wise people say as the
