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I am the Soul
importance without really understanding it well. Simply giving up food is mistaken for penance. Often such misplaced penance is performed and the great importance of penance is lost in the mundane activities. Is forsaking food and remaining hungry any kind of penance? No, it is mere fasting. The purport of penance has not dawned upon us. If merely giving up food were to be taken as penance, then the Tirthankar would not have listed out twelve types of penance and would not have placed greater importance upon inner oblation over external penance. Of course, if the fasting is done with full realisation, and with a feeling of involvement, then it becomes abstinence. If you knowingly avoid food telling yourself that this day your body can do without it, and make an attempt to purify the soul, then that abstinence has a proper meaning. Such an abstinence will help you burn down countless karmic matter. Therefore, any penance should be performed with a proper understanding.
Look similarly at conduct. We have mistaken external character for right conduct. Observing the vows of a householder or an ascetic is no doubt good conduct. But it is only on a material level. It is only a means to the expression of a good inner conduct, that is the purification of thought. It is not an end in itself. Howsoever faultless be your external conduct, unless it is complemented by the purity of thought, it is bound to ring hollow and does not beget any reward.
How do we define conduct? Here the purity of thought is to be understood. To understand this we need to first know what is proper jnana and darshan. For unless there is proper jnana and darshan, character does not develop at all. Srimadji, in one of his verses मूळ मारग सांभळो जिननो रे has stated in a simple and straightforward way -
छे देहादिथी भिन्न आतमा रे, guen sit 31119 ... 40 एम जाणे सद् गरु उपदेशथी रे, Chei Foru tej 774 ure ...400
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