I am The Soul Part 01

Author(s): Tarulatabai Mahasati
Publisher: Shri Gujarati Shwetambar Sthanakwasi Jain Association

Page 29

I am the Soul
1-23
thoughts very magnanimously embellished the original. Whether the verses were from Kabir or from Narasinha or from Ramana Maharshi, whether they were from philosophers of Jain following or totally anonymous great sages, Tarulataji has kept the maxim of 'good is gold' before her while making her selections.
Where there is a deliberation upon contradictions too, her balanced approach is so evident like the tender fingers, which lull the sufferer into sleep, while the thorn in his foot is being removed.
In this Siddhi-ocean of Srimad, there is no negation or striking down of any faith; there is only the reprimanding of stubborn and headstrong insistence on unilateral thinking. Srimadji has only tried to present the Jain philosophy as the allencompassing view of all the faiths, like the sagacious Haribhadrasuri, a visionary yogi.
Tarulataji has understood this theme in its propriety and filled up a cupful of gems of verse-references to explain all the gathas of Atmasiddhi. How wide a spectrum of literature she has touched! She is the first Sadhvi in our country to have made such a commentary with a collection of such pure verses, which are so spiritually touching. Here is a Sadhvi who has fathomed the depths of the spiritual oceans, in her quest for harmony in the spiritual verses, and compiled a heap of such gems. Tarulataji has thus followed the Atmasiddhi and burnished the essence of spirituality. If eventually, this treatise were not to be called 'I am the Soul' or a series of discourses on Atmasiddhi, and were to be realistically christened with a universally touching title, it would have to be ‘Adhyatmasar’ - essence of spirituality.
We shall also refer to this treatise as 'Adhyatmasar' here.
Now, come let us go through pages of Adhyatmasar and in Tarulataji's words (page 778 in Volume two of the English Edition) -