________________
courageous to make changes.
I started to attend his talks regularly. I heard him speak on the hidden power of man. “Don't undermine the power of the human being. We have energy. When a man breaks the gravitational pull and goes to the moon, we applaud it. But what about us? Each of us has this power. When we drop those things which are pulling us down, we can go to that height of the pure real Self.”
Why have we not realized this power? Because we have misused it. “Instead of using our innate power to go up, we have used it to protect ‘mine' and to churn in the same mire of success, achievement, name, and fame."
Why do we suffer? “To get something which can never be ours. The day you stamp a thing with ‘mine' you have made an agreement with suffering. All the emotions, doubts, and projections are born from that. You are worried that someone will come and take away the stamp. Pain and toil are not in life. They are in your distorted perception. You have not come here in the world for that, to labor and suffer for your emotions. You have a higher calling."
Always he uplifted, gave a greater perspective, a panoramic vision. I heard him speak on the dignity of the human being, on the equality of women, on the rights of animals, on the root causes of slavery, war, poverty, and exploitation. He gave series of talks on the dynamics of meditation, the seven centers of energy, the different levels of mind, the nature of pain, numerous ways to live life beyond suffering, in tune with one's Self and in reverence for all life.
He spoke three and four times a week in Manhattan. I attended a few weekend retreats in country settings. I happened to catch sight of a picture of him on a platform in India speaking to a crowd of what appeared to be at least one hundred thousand people. Tears came to my eyes. “He left all that to come here? Such a sage among sages comes across one's path once in a lifetime, if at all. .Now I want to study under his guidance. Let me absorb what I can from his wisdom, from his presence.” The more I heard him, the more I realized that he was the embodiment of every quality I had always admired in my deepest unspoken dreams.
xii
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
