Gandhi Before Gandhi

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

Page 76

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
The second sacrifice is to be made to parents and ancestors. We owe so much to our parents. They have brought us up, fed and clothed us and have remained awake many a night to care for us in babyhood
how can we expect to derive real benefit from them? Nothing can injure such a person except on account of the Karma engendered in the past life which is not yet
exhibited out. I have said in my
other classes concerning the Hindu monks that when a
person practices universal love his very being becomes saturated with the vibrations of love. The wild animals, which prey upon each other because they have no sympathy, in the case of these monks, their vibrations subdue the animal nature and the monks can sleep in the jungle among the wild beasts with perfect safety.
The third sacrifice was in favor of those men and women who needed our help and care. Every man is a part of our existence and by helping a fellow man we help humanity.
How one can reach the higher stage?" It is through the Law of Sacrifice."
Five Great Sacrifices as prescribed in Hinduism
The fourth sacrifice is to the animals. By protecting, feeding and taking care of animals we help their progress. On the ladder of evolution they occupy a lower step, but that does not justify our actions to destroy them. On the contrary, we owe a duty to them. This sublime law of sacrifice has often been misinterpreted and abused. The Brahmins in India and the Jews in Palestine had done it, for centuries together they used to sacrifice animals to the degraded and blood-thirsty intelligence or to an angry God.
The first sacrifice was to the Devas, the shining powers and intelligence of the upper world. Everything that gives nourishment to the human body is by correspondence related to the subtle energies of other worlds and is in fact fed and nourished by those energies. It is like praying God of air, water, light etc.
The fifth sacrifice of man is for himself, by devoting some time, energy and money for study and spiritual benefit. It is higher self of an individual