Golden Steps To Salvation

Author(s): Padmasagarsuri
Publisher: Arunoday Foundation

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"When desires are discarded, worry goes and the mind becomes carefree. He who has conquered desires is the emperor of emperors."
Where there is desire, there sorrow abides. Those people who have conquered desires are, by virtue of their freedom from worries and sorrows, attain the greatest Lordship and Supremacy.
The mind of a detached man is like a mirror. The mirror reflects hundreds of things separately but does not retain them. In the same manner, the man who has renounced the world does not desire to possess the things that he comes across. Though he uses them, he is not attached to them.
If anyone puts his hand into a bucket containing water, his hand becomes wet; but if he smears oil to his hand and puts it into water, it will not become wet at all. In the same manner, the mind of a sādhaka (one who is pursuing spiritual elevation) smeared with the oil of renunciation is not touched by the water of samsāra
existence. Even while existing in samsār (life), he remains detached. How can we make detachment an attribute of our soul? This can be achieved by means of
fazla” or the wisdom of distinguishing one from the other. The Lord has expressed this idea in Sūtrakritāng Sutra.
अन्नो जीवो अन्नं सरीरम् ॥
Anno jivo annam sariram. “The jiva (the soul is different from the body."
The senses run after carnal delights. The senses are related to the body but the jiva (the soul) is different from the body. The body is not the soul; and the soul is not the body. After death, the body is either burnt or buried but the soul being imperishable remains intact and iives for ever. In order to experience the results of its noble and ignoble acts, the soul again and again takes on a bodily existence. The entity that dwells in the eighty-four lakh forms of life that keep wandering through samsāra is the jiva not the body.