Jain Journal 1990 04

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

Page 15

126
Soul is always soul. True happiness brings satisfaction while sensual pleasure is the cause of increasing dissatisfaction or desires. Desires are going on increasing. If one desire is satisfied, others still remain unsatisfied. Besides that, the very same desire, which is satisfied for a while, rises up again with greater force than before. Each moment that desire is fulfilled, there is always an increase of desire. If any melodious song is heard, there is a desire to hear more melodious songs. Wise men have, therefore, said that as fire cannot be extinguished by pouring fuel into it, so the fire of desire cannot be satisfied by enjoying sensual pleasures. The time of this corporeal life is short. The time comes when a person is obliged to leave the body and along with it all the conscious and non-conscious objects. Soul, full of desires, leaves the body and goes disappointed to another body where he is again surrounded with desire according to the number of senses he possesses. There also a lifetime is passed after finding out means to satisfy the senses and at last he is again obliged to leave the body and go to take another body fully disappointed and unsatisfied. Thus numberless bodies have been adopted and left without ever being able to satisfy any of the five senses. Really, desires are diseases. Sensual enjoyments, instead of quenching the thirst of desires, increase the diseases of desires. Enjoyment of true happiness only can gradually cure the disease of desires. Desirelessness is the real health of the soul. True happiness only can procure desirelessness. Enjoyment of true happiness gradually diminishes the desire for sensual pleasure. We are habituated to sensual enjoyment for a very long period and it is, therefore, not possible for every soul to give up the desire at once. At first, we must have true belief and knowledge that true happiness only is the real happiness and it is the nature of the soul, while sensual pleasure is not only unreal and dependent but also the cause of miseries. To form our Conduct, according to our belief and knowledge, requires some time. Subsidence of passionate Karmas, bound before cannot take place at once. It is therefore found that right believing laymen, while enjoying true happiness by the practice of self-meditation and self-concentration, are obliged to enjoy sensual pleasures according to passions which arise on ripening of karmas, bound before. But their conscience, being pure, urges them to enjoy senses as harmlessly as possible. Although they believe and know that enjoyment of sensual objects is fictitious and unreal, yet being devoid of strong soul-power and being overpowered by effects of passions, they are obliged to satisfy their senses. Still they remain free from lust or strong desire for sensual pleasure. They are not fond of the sensual pleasures which wrong believers who have never realised that there is any kind of true happiness other than sensual pleasure, are always fond of. A patient who is unwilling to drink bitter medicine is obliged to drink it, on being pressed
JAIN JOURNAL