Jain Journal 1980 07

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

Page 14

JULY, 1980
vibrations. On that you have to work. It is difficult, I know. These vibrations have gone so deep into the consciousness. When you are about to drop them, many many sharp memories will come, how many hurts you received, how many people humiliated you.
Then you will be tempted to say, "Well, what Chitrabhanu was telling is for him, not for me. How can I give up all the hurts? He did not get so many wounds as I have got !" Comparing yourself, you will go back to the same state of violence and hatred, and you will wallow in that. But it is too short a time, some seventy to eighty years. When we don't have time even to experience peace and love, how can we make time to harbor this hatred and live in this violence?
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Do we not want to go further? How can we go further if we do not take the step to drop this bag of rocks weighing us down? We must take this step. And this is the bravest step. It is written in ancient Jaina Agamas: "Kṣamā vīrasya bhūṣaṇam"-"Forgiveness is an ornament of the brave." If you want to know the bravest man or bravest woman, see that man or woman who has given up violence and who has forgiven even the enemies. This statement is beautiful. It was spoken 2500 years ago, one penetrating utterance. Seeing that person who forgives even enemies, you will know he is the bravest, she is the bravest. Not brave who fights, not brave who quarrels, not brave who shows animal force. Brave is he or she who goes so high, so very high that from there the person drops all this hatred and animosity and any violence in the valley. You can do it when you have lifted yourself so high.
It cannot happen overnight, because these heavy vibrations are long cherished, long built, long harbored, and longtime tenants. They do not go easily. You have to work again and again and again. You are meditating and all of a sudden, an incident comes before your mental eye, the incident in which you were seriously belittled or put down by somebody. You see yourself in that situation, how you were misused, manipulated, criticized, and that incident raises all your emotions as the storm raises dust. But when dust comes, your eyes are also covered with so many specks of dust that you cannot see. In the same way, when your violence is raised, when the humiliations and hurts come before your mental eye, all is so much swarming around you. The dust particles are swarming. You give up your beautiful meditation and then you are vibrating with that violence. What to do now?
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That is why the Masters say to take the third step along with the second step. Along with forgiving and dropping those incidents and