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Sometimes I feel the discoveries of Science to be insignificant (purposeless). Science is also so goal-less. It invented equipments to see the distant objects, to see the objects in the sky, to see beneath the earth and in the ocean beds, but did not develop anything to see within oneself. If you see spiritually, old age presents a golden opportunity to set up the apparatus to see within.
If you are awakened, will gain If not, alas! all in vain !
You may call it a man's tragedy or his stupidity, he considers the opportunity to devote time for spiritual pursuit as a sorrowful weeping state. If he experiences difficulty in seeing or hearing, he considers that akin to difficulty in breathing.
We have often been at Jambli Gali, Borivli upashrya in Mumbai and stayed there once for chaturmas also. One old man named Jaadavjibhai would sit the whole day in a corner of this gigantic upashraya. He was more than 70 years old. He would enter the upashraya at 5 a.m. at dawn and leave at 9.30 p.m. in the night. In the afternoon he would go for an hour only for his one and only one meal for the day. This shravak, (follower of Jain religion), would in a day, do 10 to 12 samayiks, (sitting steadfast for 48 minutes and contemplating on the soul or reading, learning scriptures, meditating or chanting mantras). An amazing aspect was that he could not hear at all.
Once I wrote on a piece of paper and inquired :"you must be facing trouble due to lack of hearing, isn't it?". The reply he gave me then is still etched in my memory, even after a
MIND YOUR mind : 18
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