Bhavana Bodh

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

Page 61

Life of Shrimad Rajchandra
attachment to worldly life. By the meditation on death we realise the supreme and sole importance of knowing and experiencing the Atma alone. Therefore, Jati Smarana Gnana, the memory of knowledge of one's previous lives is very helpful in developing detachment from the world, and a spiritual affection for eternal imperishable ever-living soul. Shrimad obtained this exceptional knowledge of his previous lives at his very young age of seven, a rare phenomenon. In 1897, at his age of 30 years he wrote his famous poem in which he thanked the day when he realized unique peace. He has described in the poem the order of his spiritual development as under :--
" In 1874 I obtained Jati Smarana Gnana - the knowledge of my past lives. In 1875 I began to advance on the spiritual path from the point I had already reached in my previous life. In 1886 I developed a spirit of complete resignation and detachment to the mortal body and the rest of the world.".
In 1889 at his age of 22 years he wrote in a poem that the only friend of unqualified happiness is lonely indifference which in turn is the mother of spirituality. He also says therein, " In my very young age I knew the nature of final reality and this suggested to me that henceforth I had no future birth nor will I have to fall back from what I had already gained in spiritual life. I easily reached the state of the Soul which would require long study and spiritual practice for others". In another letter, he says: " I realized that when in infinite stretch of time in the series of my past lives I could not live without my dearest and nearest, but I could live without them in those lives too. This proves that my affections and attachments were based on ignorance".
He pithily declares that without right insight the scriptures are helpless, that without true spiritual contact, even meditation degenerates into wild imagination, that withoult the active guidance of a realized Saint final truth cannot be realized, that by following the normal path of the worldly people one cannot reach Supreme state of soul, that without resigning the world and its myopic calculations a life of exteme non-attachment is very difficult to be obtained.