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Modus Operandi
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borne in mind that we have to find out our own course in life. Pure religion ought to be alone accepted as a help in life. Seers and scriptures can only guide us. We have to tread on the path by our own efforts, discrimination and wisdom. When we are overtaken by pain, physical or mental, no one can save us from its pangs. We are the makers of our own future and our pleasures and pains are of our own making. We have to learn to bear them with equanimity and without depending on others.
(3, 4) Ekatva-Anyatya Bhavana - Ekatva means aloneness or Soleness and Anyatva means separateness. We enter the world alone and we leave it also alone. Each one of us has to suffer the fruits of our individual karmas. Our cooperation in worldly affairs, love and affection for others should not be allowed to be degenerated into attachment because no amount of attachment either for our family or friends can save us from pangs of life. Consciousness that I am alone, and alone have I to chart my course of life. As also that my family, my friends and my belongings are not mine, does not breed selfishness, but bugging, to all these things, does bring selfishness because such bugging is the result of gross attachment which is the worst vice in human nature. In fact both these Bhavanás of Ekatva and Anyatva are not only complimentary to each other but are also the logical consequence of the Asarana Bhavana referred to above. What these two Bhavanas prescribe, is to suggest that you have to bear the fruits of your own karmas - others cannot relieve you of them. Similarly you cannot relieve others of the fruits of their karmas. If we cultivate such an objectivity of outlook we would be better equipped to serve ourselves and others around us.
(5) Nivetti Bodha or Samsāra Bhavana — Nivștti means retirement. This Bhāvanā asks us to remember that this self is wandering in this Saṁsāra from one life to another, time immemorial. In words of the Great Sankara1 "Punarapi mara1. पुनरपि मरणं पुनरपि जननम्, पुनरपि जननी जठरे शयनम् ।
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