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I am the Soul
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feelings, binds himself in severe karma. If this bondage is to be avoided, if the fear of the bondage of rebirth has arisen within you, then you should free yourself from the passionate feelings at the earliest. But these feelings can be knocked down only if you have a strong device in hand.
That device is Dharmakatha. Katha - a tale, a narrative indeed, not the sort that deviates the mind, but the sort that subsides the passions. Hence, here we say Dharmakatha - religious lore. Brothers! In other kinds of tales, the jiva has a great interest and there are not one but many devices to satisfy that interest. With such devices you feed this interest throughout the day and taint the jiva with the internal passions. As a result the passionate mind becomes more polluted. Hence, this device of Dharmakatha to clean-up the soot of passions.
These tales, based on the true lives of jivas who happened before, tell us how excellent their lives were as they lived in a passion-free natural state swabhava and how they derived excellent results. At the same time they also tell us about passionate jivas living in an affected state and how their ignoble behaviour made them struggle in this world. Here in the Kathanuyoga if there are the tales of Gautam and Abhaykumar, there are also the tales of Goshala and Kalasuriya, the butcher.
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Thus Dharmakathanuyoga succeeds in inspiring the freedom from passions and as a result the jiva chooses passion-free thoughts.
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The mind sometimes becomes so inactive that all the three anuyogas mentioned so far have no effect on it. To such jivas Srimadji says, if mind has become inactive, then it is advisable to study the Ganitanuyoga. Ganita - mathematics is such a thing that can revive a mind, whatever its state of inactivity. The reason is the concentration required to work on mathematics. You must have experienced it every day. As the day ends, you have to tie up the cash-book and the day-book; how engrossed you become! Mathematics, at the same time, demands a sharp intellect. Only
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