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I am the Soul
Do consider this! Most often when people are surrounded by suffering from all sides; when physical, mental, financial, household, social - all worries attack together, they say there is nobody in as much agony as they are. Why don't they say nobody has done such things, committed such sins or hurt others so much as they have? One who understands this, his vision undergoes a change, he does not consider sorrow as suffering and does not hold others responsible for his plight. He thinks, 'Well, the karmas that rise are on the way out, so rise they may. After all the ones that get destroyed, I will not have to suffer them in future.'
Brothers! This change in the vision of looking at things is essential. Let us change the way we are used to, in evaluating the activities, incidents, the advantages and the disadvantages. After all changing the vision is Samyag Darshan - true faith, as a result of which the jiva develops the ability to absorb both favourable and detrimental situations.
The King Shrenik is in the hell, yet he has taken with him the true faith, hence, he will pay for and settle all the sins and will not open a new account of sins. After completing that life he will be born again in the Bharat Kshetra as a Tirthankar.
The idea of relating this episode is to emphasise that satsang - good company of the sages - is a very strong device for the upliftment of the soul. Look, where the properly served Guru's feet can take you! You become like the one at whose feet you seek refuge. If the quality is lying within us, we are bound to become like him. That is why the Guru's feet have been eulogised everywhere.
But in this Dusham (944) age, full of sorrow, there cannot be a satsang always. Dusham age has also been interpreted to say that here the chances of devoted practice will not be available always, there will be no satsang everyday. So what does a jiva do in such times? Srimadji has a solution for it -
आत्मादि अस्तित्वनां, जेह निरूपक शास्त्र, TTH H A UM Afe, FTİ 3TER 945 .....83
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