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MAN AND THE WAY
113 took a long time to get There. There was so much to change, to get rid of, to get well of. Forgiveness by a god for world-order (Rta) violated was no more so much believed in. Man had to forgive himself. He had taken on to his own shoulders, as Man, as Jiva, the task of the ideal Guide and Judge. He had now to placate, to satisfy This. And it was not a forgiving judge-this Self.
He asked himself, was there no quicker way to reconciliation with himself, no speeding up, no intensive process? Yes, there was lapas, the bruising, the buffeting, the ill-treatment of the body. It was chiefly body that offended. The best was ever a something not of body. Let only body be plagued hard enough, its appetites for gratifying sense, its love of ease, its wanton insolences, -man who was not body, man who was really Jiva, would thereby be more puickly set free to fare further in the Way to his Well. Deeds were mainly of the body. Deeds were the penalties (danda) of the body. Past deeds were causes of present troubles. Present deeds were causes of future troubles. Let the embodied power of present deeds to sow be repressed, let the embodied power of past deeds to reap be worn away, by acts very unpleasant when self-inflicted. For such a short-cut all a man's strength and time were needed. World, world-work, world-joys must go. Life must be treated like a too prolific plant, and be hacked and pruned to its roots.
Now here we have one of those initial mistakes, one that led men wrong in two ways. Most of us admit to-day that man needs not a tormented, a reduced body as his instrument, to realize the best he may become. He needs a well-fostered, well-trained, well-developed body. It is by and through body that we advance, grow, become,' werden.' Man wills; thereby he grows. But he wills through body, i e. through open act, speech, mind. Again man wills the welfare, the more-welfare of others through this threefold way of body. We are the very worthless judges if we despise the body, our worder, our worker in the helping of fellow. men. We cannot do without body, nor shall we ever till we get
to Way's-End. Neither can we do so well with a lowered, abused Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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