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LET US SEARCH TRUTH OURSELVES
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written by those who gained spiritual experiences became śruti or written or spoken literature which can be understood, interpreted or discussed by theoreticians, but it could not and can not lead anybody to direct experience. Spiritual experiences are not social experiences, but personal experiences gained by personal exertion. Of course, śruti is useful because it prepares the background for sādhanā. But this background serves no purpose unless the practitioner has exerted himself. Unless he has personally entered into these experiences, he cannot say whether they are true or false. He will have to stand on his own legs. It is no use citing the Āgamas or the Gitā or the Grantha Sāhab or the Koran or the Bible to prove that spiritual experiences are genuine experiences and reveal truth. Mere intellectual conviction is not experience. Unless a theory has been translated into practice through experiments, it can not yield any tangible results. It is only be who has experienced truth can say this is truth and I have known, perceived and experienced it.'
The field of self-search is also a field of scientific research. Every practitioner will have to think and exert himself scientifically. There is no other way to ascertain truth. Whatever truth or truths Ācārya Tulasi has discovered cannot be claimed by his followers as their discoveries. They will have to gain their own experiences in their own way. They cannot borrow them from their preceptor. The search for truth is a long and complicated process of scientific experiments. To say 'search truth' is not enough. Mahāvira added the word 'yourself' to this exhortation. He amended it thus : 'Search truth yourself.'
It may very well be said that there is no laboratory for experiments in the search for truth. It is true that we need a well-equipped laboratory for this search. The hunan body is the biggest laboratory in the world. No scientist has at his disposal such a huge laboratory. It is a wellequipped laboratory. It has all kinds of epuipments for the search for the self. It contains the finest gadgets and instruments like microwaves, electronic instruments of high frequency etc. These are self-propelled units. But as they
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