Jain Journal 1972 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 16

152
JAIN JOURNAL
True religion points out the way to perfect knowledge and perfect happiness; and gives details of the lives of the Divine Masters, who once lived on this earth and departing, left behind them two thingsthe path of salvation itself, and their own glorious example for others to follow.
In the Bible there is an injunction that warns against the folly of putting one's heart into earthly treasures. The "treasures of heaven” are the joys of self-realization ; they undoubtedly survive death, and in the end are able to conquer death itself.
As the end of the present incarnation draws nearer and nearer, all desire for wealth and possessions, all worldly ambitions and the pleasures of sense-gratification are gradually given up by the aspirant to immortality, because these are the desires that keep the soul in bondage to matter. The enlightened man (or woman) makes this renunciation most cheerfully, because he feels and knows his true self to be divine. All he is giving up are the forces of darkness and delusion.
It is important to know that right faith in itself relieves the soul of much deadly matter. Should death intervene by accident or otherwise, before the normal supply of body-vitality is exhausted, the power of right faith (or insight) will lead the soul into desirable conditions in its next incarnation, and the more the lower, desiring nature has been overcome, the more enlightned and joyful will be its future state.
Pure joy is a natural function of the spirit, and arises when the forces which hinder its manifestation are removed. Spiritual joy is vastly different from the tantalizing pleasure arising from sense-gratification. Sensual pleasures, desires and passions can never be satisfied, and if persistently sought after, eventually bring nothing but pain, misery and torment to the soul.
Finally, actual experience will be found to supply all the necessary assurance of the practicability and truth of this teaching. This living faith, built on the rock of truth, can never be moved or shaken. The question of external proof does not arise with anyone who has the "witness in himself”. Abundant life, exhilarating vitality, sublime content, rich understanding, live sympathies ; all these and many more are the natural qualities of the great soul, and are to be had by treading the path of self-realization.