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I am the Soul
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making others understand or understanding others with these aberrations. Even a young child expresses his emotions through anger, greed, stubbornity etc.,. With growing age, these passions grow stronger. And now we believe that these aberrations are the true natural disposition.
This delusion has to be broken. The sages have organised the observances for this very purpose.
At this point, there is one thing that needs to be specially understood. When does our Tirthankar, get the name Tirthankar? He is endowed with three forms of knowledge at birth, the moment he gets ordained he acquires the fourth, that is the manahparyaya jnana. Then with penance - meditation and devoted practice, kevaljnana appears. Well, having reached this point, having achieved the highest status from the view of the purity of the soul, he has not become a Tirthankar yet! Now this supreme soul endowed with kevaljnana explains the sadhuDharma and the shravak-Dharma. Everybody hears it. But if nobody accepts the vrata he cannot be a Tirthankar! Only when somebody accepts the vrata of a sudhu or a shravak the Tirtha gets propagated and he is called the Tirthunkar. So to become a Tirthankar, the rise of the virtuous state of Tirthankar nama karma is instrumental, of course, but equally instrumental is the acceptance of the vratas by sadhu, sadhvi, shravak and shravika and their progress into desh-virati and sarva-virati feelings!
Brothers! Imagine from this, the importance of the acceptance of a vrata! The Prabhu delineates the path of Moksa. The biggest hurdle that is there on the path of Moksa are the jiva's own predilections. And these predilections can be restrained only with the leash of the vrata. Hence accepting a vrata is of great significance.
Many predilections have got woven into our life like the warp and the weft. The activities of every single moment have
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