Light Of Life

Author(s): Padmasagarsuri
Publisher: Arunoday Foundation

Page 20

If you should keep yourselt alive you have to consume tood and water. Then thoughts and reflections arise in you and your life attains a movement and a direction; and will become engaged in action. In the same manner, the soul also requires internal food or fertilizers if it should attain strength and mevement. Dharma, spiritual duties and activities and roble and sublime thoughts and contemplations constitute the food and fertilizers to the soul, They will be the means by which spiritual satisfaction can be attained. Those activities and austerities give an extraordinary power to the soul. Therefore, Dharma has been deemed absolutely essential. It is possible to exist without food but it is not possible to exist without [harma. Why is it so ? This is the next question that arises from the earlier discussion.
WHAT IS THE EXPLANATION OF DHARMA ?
Dharma explains the meaning of life. Those who ask the cuestion; "Wiry do we need Dharma ?'' must realize that Dharma constitutes a propriety in life; it means a proper organisation of life; and it is a supreme means by which life is given a proper direction. Dharma is not a bondage. If the bondage of love appears in life, that very bondage will become the cause for the attainment of MOKSHA. Dharma helps us to attain Moksha by getting rid of the bondage of Samsar, But love must appear in it. One should organize one's life on the basis of Dharma for the attainment of one's own salvation and for the calvation of all others. Dharma belongs to the soul and it is not different from the soul. The soul is imbued with Dharma but is in a dormant state; and it has to be awakened from that state of stupor. Fire and heat can never be different from each other. Water and coolness can never be different from each other. These objects cannot exist separated from those attributes. Where there is the substance called soul, the attribute called Dharma also exists there. We can never separate fire from its heat, and we cannot also separate coolness from water. Dharma is believed