Mahavira Golden Principals Of Life

Author(s): T J Salgia
Publisher: T J Salgia

Page 4

34. All material objects, the body, the
house, wealth, the spouse, the son, the friend, the enemy, and the like, are quite different in their nature from the soul. The foolish man, however, looks upon them as his own!
41. A cruel man docs cruel acts and is
thereby involved in other cruelties; but sinful undertakings will in the end bring about misery.
35. If there were numberless mountains of
gold and silver, as big as the Himalayas, they would not satisfy a greedy man, for his avidity is boundless like space.
42. Here in this life pleasure and amuse
ments are not able to help or save one. Sometimes a man first forsakes pleasures and amusements, sometimes they first forsake him.
36. Spouses and children, friends and rela
tions, all are dependent on a man during his life; but they will not follow him in death.
43. Pleasures and amusements are one thing
and I am another. Why then should we be infatuated with pleasures and amusements which are alien to our being?
37. Time is the cause of the shortening of
the duration of life as well as of wealth; the amassers of wealth love money more than their lives! "Sin is the enemy of the soul, and virtue its friend", whoever knows the scripture, reflecting constantly in this manner is the most excellently wise.
44. Subdue your Self, for the Self is difli
cult to subdue; if the Self is subdued, you will be happy in this world and in the next.
45. Know that the present time is the best
opportunity to mend and that an awakening is difficult to obtain. A wiseman should be aware of this.
38. Devotion to ignorance bestows igno
rance, and devotion to Jnan (self knowledge) bestows knowledge; for it is wellestablished that a thing can grant only that of which it is possessed!
46. Birth is misery, old age is misery, and so
are disease and death, and ah! nothing but misery is the samsara (the transmigratory condition) in which you suffer distress
39. As the fallow leaf of the tree falls to the
ground when its days are gone, even so the life of men will come to its close; Gautam, be careful all the while!
47. The samsara is like a wheel at a well
where, before one bucketful of distress is gotten over, a large number ofafllictions overtake the soul.
40. A man who insults another will long
whirl in the cycle of births, to blame others is not good.
48. A man believes himself a hero as long