Kartikeyanupreksha

Author(s): Swami Kumar, A N Upadhye, Kailashchandra Shastri
Publisher: Paramshrut Prabhavak Mandal

Page 64

INTRODUCTION
45
anxiously, greedily and sinfully but never enjoys it, is verily its slave. By expending one's increasing wealth in religious duties and in giving gifts to the pious and poor, without expecting anything in return, one earns praise and makes one's wealth as well as life fruitful. Wealth, youth and life are like a bubble of water: it is sheer delusion to understand that they are eternal. Knowing this, one should remove attachment from one's mind whereby the highest bliss is attained ( 4--22).
II Aśaraṇānuprekşă What protection is there in Samsāra, when it is seen that Indra suffers ruin and Hari, Hara, Brahman etc. are victims of Time. There is no rescue from death as in the case of a deer which has come under the paw of a lion. No god, spell, ritual or Kşetrapāla can save a man from death: none, howsoever strong, fierce or well-guarded can escape death. It is only a pervert belief that makes one seek the shelter of planets, Bhūta, Piśāca, Yogini and Yaksa. Every one has to die at the termination of āyus. The Ātman, which is constituted of Right Faith, Knowledge and Conduct, is the only shelter; and it should be duly tempered with qualities like forbearance etc. (23-31).
III Samsārānuprekşā
The soul leaves one and takes to another body and thus transmigrates through perverted belief and passions. On account of its sins, it suffers in hells fivefold misery and physical tortures beyond description: the hell is essentially permeated with an atmosphere surcharged with acute misery. In the subhuman birth, there are physical tortures and sufferings and mutual tormentations. Even in the human birth there are manifold miseries in the womb and during childhood: most people are victims of sin and few earn merits. Even the merited have privations and painful contacts. Bharata, despite his self-respect, was defeated by his brother (Bāhubali). Even the merited have not got all their aspirations and wants fulfilled : family needs, privations and mishaps are always there. Still one does not lead a religious life, giving up all sins. There are ups and downs and prosperity and adversity, as a result of one's Karmas. Even when one is born as a god, one is subject to jealousy; one's thirst for pleasures brings manifold sorrow. The Samsāra is worthless and an ocean of sorrow, Family, relations are subject to chaos even in one life, then what to speak of series of lives. The Saṁsāra is fivefold: every moment the soul is subjected to and gets release from variety of Karmic matter; there is hardly any spot in the Universe where