________________
434
"Oh blind friend, you are quite robust, you can lift me on your shoulders. In that case I shall point the way out for us both to escape. The fire is approaching fast and there is no other alternative left for us to save ourselves".
PHILOSOPHY OF SOUL
The blind man welcomed the proposal and both of them with mutual assistance left the city to save their lives.
Here the blind man can be compared allegorically with a man without knowledge while the lame man with a man without practising religious rites. As none of the blind and the lame man could alone get out of the city, knowledge or religious rites alone cannot rescue the man from this wordly ocean. When both knowledge and religious rites jointly operate one can escape from the conflagration of the world.
FIVE KINDS OF RITES
Religious rites are not motivated by uniform emotions. All people observe these rites with varying emotions and intentions.
The revered authors of the scriptures have declared five varieties of intentions with which the rites are observed.
They are Vishanusthan, Garanusthan, Ananusthan, Tadhetvanusthan and Amrutanusthan.
Vishanusthan (poison-like-observance) brings about poison like rewards if the intentions of performing or observing the rites are perverted or adulterated despite the very rites being capable of bringing about unrivalled excellent rewards. The observances of rites which are intended for acquiring miraculous powers, fame, temporal luxuries etc. are declared as 'poison-like-observances'.
Garanusthan (slow poison like observance) is the observance which is carried out with a view to acquire various divine pleasures and enjoyments in the other world (hereafter) despite aversion for the pleasures of this world. This sort of observance is not so bad as the former, still it is un-welcomed undesirable and deserves to be abandoned. Renouncing temporal pleasures and craving for divine pleasures lead to the same catastrophe. In fact, one should observe the religious rites without any craving for temporal as well as celestial pleasures.
