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Path of Worthy Thorns*
LEONA SMITH KREMSER
Homage to the path of worthy thorns, path that the Jina's footprint adorns, footprint that leads from blood-violence to harmlessness, restraint and hard penance.
...Harmlessness to every living creature in the body presence, saintly or obscure, for alike to us, one and all want to live. And verily, our karma of deeds returns us what we give.
...Restraint in thought, word and deed
to put down the honeyed vanity of greed,
for family and gold are a wasting delusion. Verily, the cosmic lotus is our abiding possession.
...Hard penance to impale the flesh
lest with sense-objects it dares to enmesh,
for within a void of space waits an ultimate wisdom. Verily, matter is gross; the soul is our cosmic blossom.
Pilgrims are we, on a conflicting journey:
In part, we indulge the wayward body
even as our person craves to be heedful to the Jina who passed from body to pure soul
by His care for those that the world yet scorns -the food-animals, betrayed on their track of thorns.
Thorns, the common share of all living beings: cold fevers, fears, the melancholy of time's undoings. Yet, let us foreknow that we have free will to elect our responses, sweet or hostile. Worthy thorns! Their mission is not torment, but 'tis to test the devotee's non-attachment. By meek sufferance, we beget a spiritual karma that wafts us onward, on the footpath of the Jina.
Holy Jina, His footprint is His holy promise : The path of Jaina ahimsă leads to infinite bliss.
*A page from work-in-progress of the same title.
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