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Chapter 16: Guru's Exposition about the Path and Means of Liberation
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Chapter 16 Guru's Exposition about the Path and Means
of Liberation (Sixth Fundamental) The Guru has noticed that the pupil earnestly desires to proceed on the path of liberation. When a Guru gets such a pupil, he is pleased and is willing to teach him. Actually, the truly knowledgeable ones are usually looking for the right pupils to whom they can pass on their knowledge. The fountain of knowledge spontaneously starts flowing towards the deserving pupils. The Guru is therefore ready to show the right path to this pupil. That path has been laid in the Letter of Six Fundamentals (Appendix-ll) as follows:
"There are means for attaining liberation. If the bondage of Karma continues to occur, its cessation would never be possible. But there are evident means like knowledge, conviction, soul-oriented life, detachment, devotion, etc., which are the opposites of that bondage. By the intensity of those means, the bondage of Karma becomes slack, is calmed down, and is destroyed. So knowledge, conviction, restraint, etc. are the means of liberation."
For gaining liberation, one should avoid whatever results in bondage. The first step is to avoid ignorance. All living beings instinctively tend to identify themselves with the body. But human beings are endowed with discernment (Vivek). By exercising it, one can learn that the embodiment and its surroundings are temporary phenomena, while the soul stays forever. Such learning is termed as right knowledge.
That learning, however, may not enable him to undertake right activity, because he would be lacking
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