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I am the Soul shapes up into a pot, the jiva doing its rounds on the wheel of eighty-four, has to be born into lesser-higher species, suffer the sorrows in akam nirjara and where it is possible to get a true teaching along with the penance and sacrifice, to perform sakam nirjara with restraint. This alone can help it rise higher, sooner and enable it get off the wheel of eighty-four.
Do you know? Does the pot get off the wheel on its own? No, it has to be sliced away by a thread, only then can it get off. Similarly, the jiva too has to suffer the sorrows that hurt and inflict. The moment it gets off the wheel the pot has to endure the heat of the sun, after which the potier taps it with a tool to give it a perfect shape. Brothers! Even we are tapped by our benevolent sages with the tool of advice, but if we take it lightly we are not going to be shaped as we should be. The haphazard shapes of passions and tendencies that tend to indulge in us, are what the sages' tool tries to tap us for. But do we really want it? Or do we like only somebody who makes sweet talk and praises us?
And now the last test of endurance is the most important. To pass through the fire of the kiln and come out unscathed, without even a single crack. Even a small hole is not acceptable, and if it is there, then all that has been endured so far is a loss. It will not even be worth a shell. Same goes for us too. If the affected disposition cannot be given up in spite of penance - renunciation - vows - restraints - prayers, if we cannot stabilise in our own natural disposition, if our idea of finding the joy of the Self in others is not abandoned, then it is all a waste like pouring over an upturned pot. But, if we learn the natural disposition and learn to recognise the Self, then we have passed.
Brothers! If you happen to go buying a perfectly made pot, and tap it, how very resonant it sounds. Only such a pot is lovingly bought and taken home by somebody and filled with water, which, when it cools, quenches the thirst. Brothers! After passing
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