Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

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GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
True nature of Enjoyment
A spiritually advanced person may be poor, may not possess a cent's worth of his own property, but he may still rule many people who are
great.
One's senses must not be controlled by temporal or sensuous enjoyments. It is not that he will cease to enjoy, but his enjoyments will take on a different nature or form.
There is a little illustration given in the Hindu scriptures. A person in his enjoyments is like a fly. One person may be like a fly sitting on a liquid, which is not sweet. He is drowned in it and it is a death, in a putrid, repulsive thing on which he has settled. There is another fly which goes to a sweet liquid, instead of something which is putrid. He enjoys the sweetness of it, but in a short time he, too, is drowned. Another fly settles on a sweet dry substance like cube of sugar. He enjoys it and then decides to fly away. If a person wishes to enjoy, he must be like the last fly which got his enjoyment from the piece of dry sugar, and when it has been received, goes away.
Real enjoyments do not consist in the possession of riches, wealth or ordinary worldly power but in wisdom and knowledge..
A person wishing to become a great master must not care for sensuous enjoyments. Ultimately we come to the point that a person must not be subject to prejudices and must not be a slave of passion. He must not allow himself to be engrossed by enjoyments, may he, after overcoming and acquiring those things needful, all of which are within his ability, become a true adept. Can he enjoy all pleasures? What are they for? This philosophy teaches us that the person who rules the wealthy is greater than the great wealthy person who is ruled
जह ते न पिअंदुक्खं, जाणिअ एमेव सव्वजीवाणं । सव्वायरमुवउत्तो, अत्तोवम्मेण कुणसु दयं ।।४।। यथा ते न प्रियं दुःखं, ज्ञात्वैवमेव सर्वजीवानाम् । सर्वादरमुपयुक्तः, आत्मौपम्येन कुरु दयाम् ||४||
As you don't like pains, so is to others Treat all like self, have compassion to all with care and respect
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