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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
207
great difference between Visha (Poison) and Vishaya (passion). Poison kills us only if we drink it, but passion kills us even if we think of it.”
You keep the matchstick in the box as long as it has the power to produce fire. After that power is exhausted, it is freed from the box. In the same manner, as long as the mind has the quality of causing the fire of passion or desire, it is kept in the box of saṁsāra. Only when the mind is freed from that quality, does it get salvation.
Two scholars sat in a boat and set out from Mathura to Brindāvan on a moonlit light. They kept smoking bhang (an intoxicating leaf) and rowing the boat throughout the night but the next morning they found that they were near the city of Mathura. It happened so because they had not removed the anchor and released the boat in their mood of intoxication. In the same manner, as long as we do not release the mind from (t rope) the bondage of passions and desires we cannot reach the magnificent mansion of eternal felicity or moksha even if we continue to perform austerities through countless janmas (lives).
If you want to enter a palace, you have to obtain the permission of the door-keepers. In the Yogavashishta it is said that the mansion of moksha has four door-keepers. They are: (1) Self-control, (2) Contemplation, (3) Contentment and (4) Noble Company.
The man who rises above joys and sorrows becomes a jivanmukta (attains salvation even while living in this body). It is said in the Yogavashishta elsewhere, "He who is contented with what he gets and whose equanimity is not affected by joys and sorrows is a jivanmukta (one who attains salvation while living). He who becomes a jivanmukta like the Arihantdev can also help others to attain eternal freedom. After narrating an incident which illustrates this great truth, I will end my discourse. Thinking that by hearing the Bhagavata, one can attain brahmajnāna (knowledge of the supreme reality) a certain king heard the Bhagavata for a week read by a scholar but he did not attain brahmaināna, Therefore, he was not willing to give any gift to the scholar and the two began to
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