Pratikramana Freedom Through Apology and Repentance

Author(s): Dada Bhagwan
Publisher: Dada Bhagwan Foundation

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Pratikraman
Pratikraman
immediately after I say it. This is because I fall short by four degrees (360 degrees is Absolute Enlightenment, Dadashri is at 356 degrees) and therefore I do pratikraman. I have to do pratikraman.
Pratikraman is when all the stains (atikraman) are removed and the clothes are immaculately clean.
Clothes must be laundered every single day. Each individual clothing item needs washing. What do the Jains do? They accumulate a year's worth of dirty laundry and then attempt to wash it all at once. The Lord certainly does not allow it. Each clothing item needs to be washed separately with great care. When you manage to wash at least five hundred a day, you will be making progress.
However many of your faults you are able to see, that many faults will decrease. This lady here is able to see five hundred of her faults a day, so what prevents others from seeing their own? Something is still lacking, surely it is not because they have become completely faultless that they cannot see their faults? (P.63)
The Lord has emphasized the need to do pratikraman daily but people do it once a year during Paryushan (Jain religious event of eight days). The Lord said that a true merchant is the one who keeps an account in his record book for the entire day, tallying his ledger in the evening. If he were to log everything just once a year, how would he manage to remember all his accounts and set his books straight? The Lord has stressed the importance of keeping a logbook for the entire day, as a true merchant would. If an entry is made incorrectly, that is if a misdeed occurs, it must be erased through pratikraman.
(P.64) 4. The Gnani Purush's Awareness Everyone in this world is faultless. And yet look how my speech comes out. I have seen everyone as faultless. I do not see anyone as being at fault whatsoever, so how can I speak in this manner? Is it necessary for me to speak this way? I should not speak this way about anyone and that is why I do pratikraman
Although I deliberately use stem words, according to nature, this is an error and therefore I make the one who has done atikraman (A.M.Patel), do pratikraman. Each mistake has its pratikraman. My intention however is not to hurt anyone. (P.64)
I cannot say that it is not so, when it is so and vice versa, which is why some people feel hurt by what I say. If I say something exists when it does not, you will be deluded and if I say it like it is, people will wonder why I am saying it. For all this I have to do pratikraman because no matter what, no one should be hurt. If someone believed that there was a ghost in the banyan tree, and if I told him that no such thing existed, I may hurt his feelings by disagreeing with him. So I must do pratikraman. I always have to.
(P.65) Questioner: If someone misinterprets something, what should we do?
Dadashri: All these so-called truths that you come across are all relative truths. They are all false. They may be right according to the way of the world, but from the real viewpoint, they are all wrong. Pratikraman must be done for each and every viewpoint.
You must even do pratikraman for saying, "I am a spiritual teacher”, because this is a wrong belief. In reality you are pure Self. All other beliefs are wrong beliefs. Do you understand this?
Questioner: Yes I do indeed.
Dadashri: Everything is false. Because people do not understand, they proclaim that they are telling the truth. If it were indeed the truth, it would not offend anyone.
(P.67)