Bhavana Bodh

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

Page 14

BHAVANA BODH
beneficial to one's self. They are :(1) ANITYA BHAVANA :- Aspiration that for a human being desiring liberation is good to be convinced that one's physical body and its attendant pleasures, allurements, prosperity, riches, happy family relations, children, parents and others - all these are transitory and doomed to die away, the basic nature of the living soul is that it is enternal and to move towards it by thinking about it, is called Anitya Bhavana. It is first in the list of twelve aspirations. (2) ASHARAN BHAVANA : Aspiration that when death is near, nothing can save the living being, that he is helpless and none can protect him from death. Therefore in such a helpless condition only adoption of right religion is true protection which can lead a living soul to eternal peace, fearlessness and self-enlightenment. To adopt such a line of thinking is called Asharan Bhavana- second in the list. (3) SANSAR BHAVANA :- Aspiration that the living soul has repeatedly gone through a cycle of birth and death and taken each and every form of human, deity, animal and hell, the strong feeling that when shall I get free from such a worldly cycle? and realise that the worldly life of sorrow and sufferings is not mine - to feel that my soul by nature is liberated and to live like that is the real purpose of birth in a human body. This is called Sansar Bhavana-third in the list. (4) EKATVA BHAVANA :- What I can call mine in the correct sense of the term is my soul - it has come alone and it will alone leave the living body at death; it will be alone to enjoy or suffer the fruits of its actions good or bad. To feel this strongly, from the bottom of one's heart is called Ekatva Bhavana - fourth in the list. (5) ANYATVA BHAVANA :- In this worldly life none is related to anybody else, to feel that starting from our living body all the rest are not ours and we are totally separate from all these. This is called Anyatva Bhavana - fifth in the list. (6) ASHUCHI BHAVANA :- To feel that this living body is really unholy, filthy, a mine of bad smelling urine and refuse, an abode of diseases and oldage; that I am quite separate or different from the body which I wrongly call mine. To strongly feel and think that way is Ashuchi Bhavana - sixth in the list.