Drushtant Kathao

Author(s): Shrimad Rajchandra, Dinubhai M Patel
Publisher: Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram

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Bhavnabodh - Anyatva Bhavana
covering, the skin gains beauty due to lustre and the lustre draws its beauty from dress and ornaments. Then does it not follow that my body bereft of its
skin has no beauty of its own ? Then is my body a mere structure of blood, marrow and bones ? And I take this structure as mine. What a mistaken thinking ! What an illusion of my understanding ! And what a strangness it is ! I look beautiful by only external things, skin etc. Why should I call my body as mine, when it looks beautiful only by skin and the rest it wears? If I go on calling it mine, ultimately it is going to give me pain and lead me to nothing. One day my soul will be separated from this body. There is no doubt that when my soul will depart from this body to be born into another body, this body which I hug as mine, will remain here only. If at that time, this body will cease to be mine, then to call it mine is sheer folly; why should I have the sense of mineness in that which is really quite different from my soul? My soul alone is mine. Thus I and my soul are one; the rest are all externals, and sooner I know them, better it is for me. If my body which I call mine, does not remain mine, why should I be attached to such a body? It is better to be clear about the fact that when the body is not mine, then I am quite separate from it. I should think, determine and act accordingly as per this discrimination.
This whole world is full of indefinite number of things and objects or substances; I love my body more than any or all things of this world and if that body not behave as mine what else in this world is likely to behave as mine? Oh, I was deluded very much, I fell down in wrong attribution namely calling my body as mine which is not really mine; neither these young damsels, nor my obedient sons, nor that incalculable wealth nor that great kingdom of six continents are really mine. Nothing of it is mine. No part of my real being has anything to do with these external things, objects or persons. My body, with whose help, I enjoy all these things or objects, has not behaved as mine, then how can I call other things as mine ? None of my relatives, sons, family members, friends etc., are likely to remain as mine. I do not want this false sense of calling body and other things as mine. I am not theirs in as much as they are really not mine at all. In the end, all my worldly life and its efforts to gain all externals are in vain. In the end, I and they are bound to be separated for ever. This is the most sorrowful state of things and sooner I realise it, it is better. Ultimately whatever sins I committed to have these externals as mine, my soul alone will have to bear the fruits of these sinful actions. None will come to share this painful result. No ignorance is greater than believing things as mine which are not really mine. With this ignorance, I became the enemy of my own self or soul and I made my soul the sufferer of all my evil deeds in lower births. This is really ignorance, indiscrimination and delusion. I am regarded as one of the Treshath Shalaka Purush - sixty three excellent personages and still did not realise this simple truth that my soul alone is mine and nothing else. It is unwise to go on this infatuation and life of ignorance. I now have no attachment and feeling of mineness to these sons, wives, royal prowess and conveyances etc..
This clear picture of non-attachment was so firmly fixed in the mind of Bharat, the greatest of all kings, that the dark spell of ignorance got dispelled and he achieved purest meditation. That very moment all the rest of his bondages were burnt and he was enlightened with Keval Gyan - perfect knowledge, great divine and shining even more than thousands of sun rays. Immediately at the same time he adopted ascetic life and he was endowed with saintly dress by Shashan Devi and thereafter that great renouncer became free from all attachment, and became all knowing, all seeing and freed himself from Chaturgati-all four states of soul after
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