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humble and yet your stepmother torments you persistently. Aren't your arms strong enough to beat her up once and quieten her down for life?” This advice would have gone down the lad's throat quickly. He would have loved it since his own mental state also reflected the same thought. Moreover, a soul is attuned to believing the other as the wrongdoer, from time immemorial. Therefore, to make his friend see the truth, by telling him, “Friend, it is not your mother who is odious, it is your own karmas which are blameworthy," was like swimming against the tide and yet the friend thought it appropriate to make this youth comprehend the reality, wherein lay his welfare.
He gave his friend advice in a sentence for his benefit, “Friend, your mother is not evil. Your karmas are evil. One has to offset the force of only that which is nasty. If we also start opposing what is not evil, then in all probability, even others may start opposing us.”
Query: If one does not oppose the mother, then the badgering caused by her will persist. It will not give us the desired result of “no miseries lasting in the present” and "no new miseries being inflicted in the future.”
Answer: No, it will become a resisting force. The meaning of this is that pain, disasters, sufferings that befall you are considered a source of unhappiness only if they make you unhappy. If the soul does not feel sorrowful, they are not regarded as the cause of unhappiness.
Alexander was returning to his homeland after conquering another country. He had with him the treasury of the defeated King. One labourer was made to lift a sack of jewels and was ordered to walk alongside him. They
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