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A Path-way of Life
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fully engrossed in activities of life, but the key of their attainment of spiritiual bliss was their awareness that real happiness resides in own self and can never be obtained through the enjoyment of worldly objects. Once such a firm convic. tion is developed, worldly activities and their results do not 'touch' us, and if they do not touch us, all our doubts, dejections and despairs vanish and one begins to get the taste of real happiness and bliss. Without such an awareness or conviction one easily identifies himself with worldly objects of enjoyment which are foreign to the self and transitory in their nature. The fickle character of these objects when identified with our self does bring in its train all the tensions and turmoils which affect us in our day to day existence,
So the first and foremost postulate of a happy and blissful life is the discrimination of self and non-self, and the conviction that the self's indulgence in non-self is bound to result in suffering due to the transitoriness of worldly objects as well as pleasures and pains created by them. Such a realisation and conviction would greatly reduce our usual tensions and would enable us to face the realities of life with calm and fortitude, never experienced before. We would then be no more pulled and pushed by outside factors, because the exigencies generated by these forces are not able to touch our ‘self'. We, and not the outside forces, become masters of our own ‘self'. Practical Steps
To give a practical shape to the above realised discrimination and conviction, the Jaina masters have prescribed some practical and workable methods to train our psyche. They have asked us to bear constantly in our mind the twelve Bbavanas, i. e., reflection of Anityatva, Ašarapatva etc. as described in the chapter on 'Modus Operandi'. All these twelve Bhavanas, i. e., reflections are the logical conclusions derived from the behavioural pattern of the human mind in its intera. ction with material objects of the universe. Just try any of these reflections or Bhāvanas consciously, constantly and
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