Golden Steps To Salvation

Author(s): Padmasagarsuri
Publisher: Arunoday Foundation

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story. Gowtama Swamy began weeping like an ordinary man. He wept thus not for ten or fifteen minutes but for the whole night. He kept lamenting over the separation from Lord Mahāvira but in the fourth prahara that is in the last part of the night or by early morning, the chain of his feelings and thoughts took a different direction. He began to think, "Lord Mahăvira's body was perishable and transitory. That had to perish and become separated from me but the Lord's message is imperishable. It can bring spiritual welfare to all beings. Falling a victim to moha (desire) I wept and now I realize that lamentation is futile and that it brings no benefit; on the contrary lamentation pollutes the soul. What a fool have I been! I have memorized the message of Lord Mahāvira but I have not acted according to it. I stand condemned. I was Lord Mahavira's favourite disciple but I have become an unfit disciple of Lord Mahăvira by my action of weeping over this separation from his body. No, no, I should stop weeping and I should prove that I am his true disciple."
By this kind of thinking, he attained Kevaljnan or the highest knowledge. As long as he had attachment for the body of Mahāvira that attachment impeded his at. tempts to attain Kevala Jnan but when that impediment was overcome he attained absolute knowledge and became a truly enlightened person.
पर उपदेश कुशल बहुतेरे । जे आचरहिं ते नर न घनेरे ॥ -रामचरितमानस
Par upadesh kushal bahutere Je ācharhim te nara na ghanere.
Ramcharitmanas "There are countless people that can console others in their sorrows. But those who practise their own precepts are very rare."
Once Swami Vivekananda went to America. There when someone laughed at his simple dress, he said to him, "In your country it is a tailor that creates Civility but in the country where I live, it is conduct or beha