Bliss

Author(s): Amarmuni
Publisher: Sanmati Gyan Pith Agra

Page 98

Attachment is bondage, detach ment liberation
essence of life. Obsessed with material gain and progress, they have ignored the importance of peace and contentment in life.
Permit me to explain my view. With the passage of infinite years in time, man's struggles will only weigh him down further. As competitiveness and peer pressure increase, levels of stress are only bound to be heightened. So, where contentment has no place, how can rest abide? To run and to continue running will become one's destiny and man will not find even a moment's respite to assess what the results of his actions are?
To think of contentment as the quality of cowards is a mark of extreme ignorance. To draw a line of control across one's desires is never easy because, for that, one has to control one's innermost self. To control the inner self is no child's play. It is not a task that cowards can undertake. It requires great courage. The religious scholars have stated:
A person can conquer any number of warriors in a battlefield, but a true warrior is he who can conquer the inner self. It is the greatest of victories, a victory true in spirit.*
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What better example than the mighty Rāvana. Many great warriors in this world have admitted that he was an extraordinary warrior of his time. But even he could not control his inner being, nor his desires. As a result of this weakness he had to face death. He led his family and nation to great shame and destroyed himself because of his discontentment.
Rāvana's story is pre-historic; leave it aside for the time being. Look at the life of Hitler, a great warrior of modern times. Hitler and his nation had no real need to establish their sovereignity over the whole of Europe. Still he led a campaign for victory and won over many smaller nations. But as he acquired more and more, his greed kept increasing.5 Finally his discontentment led him to Russia which turned out to be his last journey. A journey of absolute failure and loss.
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jo sahassam-sahaṣṣāṇam, saṁgāme dujjae jine egam jinejja appāņam, esa se paramo jao -- Uttaradhyayana Sūtra 9. 34
jahā lāho tahā loho