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of food (staple food, liquids, general food, and savoury food) and devote all time exclusively to religious activities like meditation and self-study. On the following day also take only one meal.
Upabhoga-paribhoga-parimāņavrata – The consumables like food, drinks, perfumes, and flowers are called upabhoga and other provisions like bed, chair, ornaments, house, and vehicles are called paribhoga. To set limits to their consumption is called Upabhogapaibhoga-parimāņavrata.
Atithi sarvibhāgavrata - To offer; following due procedure; pure and prescribed food, ascetic equipment, medicines, and place of stay; from that prepared for one's own consumption and use; to an ascetic, other follower of discipline, or a worthy individual is called Atithi samvibhāgavrata.
SALLEKHANĀ OR SAMADHIMARANA
A śrāvaka, who has progressed on the path of victory over the self, adhering to the discipline of codes and vows all his life, also faces the inevitable. Considering death to be inevitable, he prepares to conquer death when faced with fatal trouble, incurable disease, or other such insurmountable cause. He celebrates the festival of death in a unique way. For this he abandons food gradually or suddenly and spends the remaining period of his life trying to cleanse his soul from attachment, aversion, fondness, and passions to gain equanimity. In context of friend and foe or life and death he becomes so equanimous that he has no feelings left for either life or death and he is free of any fear of death. For those who are obsessed with carnal pleasures, death is fearsome but for those who are endowed with knowledge and detachment, death is neither a cause of joy nor that of fear. Why should they, indeed, be afraid of death when they believe that as we discard a worn out dress and wear a new one so does death replace our old wornout body with a new one.
People commit suicide for some reasons by getting hit by a train, taking poison, falling from rooftop, burning, or some other method. Some people believe that sallekhanā (the ultimate vow) or samādhimaraņa (meditational death) are similar acts of suicide. But there is a basic difference that is ignored. The cause of suicide is
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