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JainDigest Samvar Bhavana
By Ramesh K Khandhar Ramesh Khandhar is a former secretary of executive board and a past Pathshala teacher at Jain Center of Southern California. His current activities are: conducting swadhyay on various Jain scriptures, reading and contemplating on spiritual scriptures, listening to the spiritual discourses and visiting several religious ashrams in India for 3 to 4 months every year. E-mail: ramesh.khandhar@gmail.com
By immersing in knowledge and meditation, the soul does many wrong beliefs such as not bind new karma. That is the eighth Samvar Bhavana. I am the body. - Shrimad Rajchandra, Vachanamrut
• My happiness depends on material things, people,
my relationship, my achievements. Samvar Bhavana is about disciplining the body and I am unhappy because of other people and events. the mind to abstain from karma-inducing thought, • make things happen. speech and action. Samvar means awareness of our etc; etc. faults, our shortcomings. Samvar Bhavana means earnestly thinking about how can I get rid of my faults Due to such beliefs ingrained in us we have all kinds of and advance on the spiritual path.
emotional attachments. We are attached to our body, its
well-being. We are attached to people - family, friends, The opposite colleagues. We are attached to our capabilities and
of Samvaris skills. Since we believe that these things make us happy, "Being self-aware is not the Ashrav which is all our efforts are focused on these external things. All absence of mistakes, but the influx of karma. our thoughts - Sankalp/Vikalp - are about people and ability to learn and correct The reasons events which in turn increases our attachments to them. them."
for Ashrav are Mithyatva But a careful observation and introspection tells us that
(Wrong Beliet), such attachments are the root cause of our unhappiness. Daniel Chidiach
Avirati (Lack The happiness we get from external means is temporary
of effort for and often results in to unhappiness. Hence developing spiritual advancement), Pramad (Carelessness), Kashay detachment will take us closer to Samkit or Self(Passions) and Yog (Actions of Body, Mind and Speech). Realization. Let us look at this in more detail. Since, these cause influx of karma, it is obvious that the opposite of these will stop the influx of karma. Hence a) Detachment towards people our goal should be to achieve Samkit (Right Belief), Detachment is not about having no emotions or Virati (Doing efforts to advance spiritually), Apramattata desires, but having control over our emotions, actions (Awareness), Veetragata (Control over passions) and and desires and be able to manage them. Free our Ayog.
emotion of love from the sense of control, and we are
free of our emotions! Detachment is not the opposite There are specific steps we can take in order to stop of attachment, but detachment is freedom from the influx of karma. Jain Scriptures have identified attachment. Detachment in real life does not mean 57 steps. Some of them are a daily practice of 3 indifference; on the contrary, it will empower us to live Guptis (restraint of mind, speech and body), 5 Samitis every relationship with love and intensity, knowing that (maintaining vigilance while performing any activity), it could end at any moment. 10 Yati Dharma (focusing on 10 attributes of soul), 12 Anupreksha (reflections on 12 bhavanas), 22 Parishahjay You don't need to renounce your relations with our (Detachment from body) and 5 Charitra (observing family or society. These relations are karma-related and code of conduct).
we may have to fulfil our obligation as long as we remain
in the 'sansar' (material world). We have to transform the Let us see how these steps help us achieve our goal. internal belief that they are part of you and that they
will help you remove any adverse situation that may arise 1) Samkit: Right Belief
in future. Before he became monk 'Anathi muni' went Due to our ignorance about our true nature, we have through intense introspection about his acute disease.
