Mokshamala

Author(s): Manu Doshi
Publisher: Manu Doshi

Page 55

there in the guise of Brahmins. But instead of being pleased with his handsomeness as before, they nodded their heads in disapproval.
Thereupon the ruler asked, "Oh Brahmins, what is the reason for moving your heads differently this time?"
Brahmins (by virtue of their clairvoyance): King, there has been a great change in your body; the difference is equivalent to that between the sky and the earth.
Sanat: Please explain to me clearly.
Brahmins: Great king, earlier your body was ambrosial, now it is poisonous. We were pleased when it was ambrosial; since it is now poisonous, we felt sad. If you want the proof, please spit the betel from your mouth; as a fly sits upon the same, it would die."
Lesson 71: Sanatkumär, Part 2
Sanatkumär did as suggested and what the heavenly beings had said came true. His body had turned poisonous due to earlier unwholesome Karma combined with his vanity for handsomeness. He developed detachment at heart to notice such vagaries of the destructible and impure nature of physique. Considering that such impurity abides in the bodies of wife, son, friends and others, that nothing of the sort is worth remaining attached to, and that it is necessary to give up the worldly life, he abandoned the authority over the six continents and left the worldly life.
While he was moving around as a monk, he acquired an acute disease. In order to test his steadiness in that state one heavenly being came there in the guise of a physician. He told the monk, “I am an expert physician. Your body is afflicted with disease; if you want, I would instantly cure you."
Monk: Oh physician, I am afflicted with the acute and terrible disease of Karma; if you are capable to cure that disease, please do it; otherwise let this disease stay.
Heavenly being: I am not capable to cure that disease.
Thereupon while exercising his accomplishment to the possible extent the monk put his finger in the mouth and applied the saliva to the afflicted part of the body, the disease instantly vanished and the body was restored to its original state. On seeing it the heavenly being manifested his true form; he gave compliments to the monk and after bowing to him he went back to his abode.
The body is subject to diseases like leprosy in which blood and puss continue to flow and it can collapse at any time. From discerned point of view it is the storehouse of diseases, because more than one disease can appear in each of its millions of body hairs. It consists of excreta, urine, bones, meat, puss and mucus; its charm lies merely on account of the skin. It is indeed an illusion to remain attached to such a body. What is there to be enamored of the body, which could not bear even a slight vanity indulged by Sanatkumär! Such illusion is in no way helpful.
Lesson 72: Thirty two disciplines
The saintly beings urge to purify the soul by observing the following 32 disciplines.