Bhavana Bodh

Author(s): Shrimad Rajchandra
Publisher: Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram

Page 13

BHAVANA BODH understand and follow whole heartedly the above mentioned teachings of great philosophers and especially those of Bhagawan Mahavir? Because all of the philosophers have shown such teachings as sure path to liberation and freedom from all miseries. They all have praised liberation as the highest achievement of the human soul in general. In the third section of 24th Gatha of sixth Adhyayan of the first Shrutaskandha, of the second part of Sutrakritang, it is said that :
"NIWANSETTHA JAHA SAVVADHAMMA" "LIBERATION IS HELD AS BEST IN ALL RELIGIONS"
This means that to be free from all worldly miseries is really liberation of the soul. In the end right perception, right knowledge etc are the incomparable things to acquire and in them lie everliving highest happiness and highest joy, in it there is total absence of the travails of births and deaths, there is total elimination of sorrow and suffering. We shall discuss more about such spiritual subject at some other time.
It should also be undoubtedly accepted that unending sorrow or suffering cannot be removed by any worldly pleasures. Blood cannot remove a blood stain: it can only be removed by water. Similarly by adorning worldly pleasures, one cannot be free from worldly sorrows and therefore to liberate oneself from such worldly sufferings the sure detergent is adoption of a spirit of nonattachment and for fixing such a spirit of non-attachment, one should be greatly attached to the teachings of Vitaraga Vardhaman Mahavir. The minimum, such followings can achieve, is the stoppage of the origin of poison like attraction and attachment to worldly pleasures. And in the result or in the end that is the real cause of real liberation or self-realization. With a spirit of discriminative intelligence, O you aspirant! hear, think or reflect and constantly meditate on these teachings and enlighten yourself,
FIRST PHILOSOPHICAL LESSON In this we shall advise adoption of some soul-saving, worldly life liberating aspirations. Philosophers have enlisted twelve such aspirations for developing a leaning towards objects that are