Golden Steps To Salvation

Author(s): Padmasagarsuri
Publisher: Arunoday Foundation

Page 67

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The Buddha said smiling, “In the same manner, if I do not accept your insults and abuses, that is, if I do not give ear to them, they will remain with you. They can have an effect on me only if I take them to heart."
Deeply impressed by this reply of the Buddha, the Kshatriya went away after taking leave of him. A great moral teacher has said: अतणे पतितो वह निः
स्वयमेवोप शाम्यति ॥ Athrine Patito Vahnih Swayamevaup samyati. "The fire that falls in a place where there is no grass is automatically extinguished.”
Suppose that an angry man is speaking into a telephone using abusive language. If from the other end somebody says, "Wrong number!” What happens? All his anger would come down to the zero degree; that is, it will cool down. If there is no one to listen to his abusive words whom can he abuse?
After Maharaj (King) Bharthrihari became a sanyāsi, that is after he renounced life, he was not at all perturbed by the insults and abuses that people hurled at him; and by way of giving a reply to them he wrote the following stanza :
ददतु ददतु गालिं गालिमन्तो भवन्तः वयमपि तदभावाद् गालिदानोऽसमर्थाः जगति विदितमेतद् दीयते विद्यमानम्
न हि शशक विषाण कोऽपिकस्मै ददाति ॥ Dadatu dadatu galim galimanto bhavantaḥ, Vayamapi tadabhāvād gālidanosamarthah Jagati Vidhitametad diyate Vidyāmānam
Na hi sasaka vishānañ kopikasmai dadāti.
“You have with you abusive language; hence you use it. But I do not have abusive language: hence I cannot abuse you. In this world people can give what they have. A hare cannot give its horns to any one (since it has no horns).”