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[14] Release from Bondage of Inner Enemies
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(extraordinary spiritual effort)?
Dadashri: That is called purusharth. It is not called parakram.
Questioner: Then what is parakram?
Dadashri: Parakram is higher than purusharth. This is certainly not parakram. How can you call this parakram when you are nursing a burn with a healing ointment? One 'knows' all this and one also 'knows' this 'Knower.' That is parakram. Doing pratikraman is purusharth. With continued pratikraman, everything, including verbal conflict, will decrease. Everything will decrease naturally. The ego is the first to go and then everything else will follow. Everything will fall into place and you will experience stillness from within. And there is peace within. Do you feel such peace?
Questioner: Absolutely, Dada.
Dadashri: Yes. Then that is all we need.
The Spiritual Stages
Questioner: Please explain the fourteen spiritual stages (gunasthanaks)?
Dadashri: The first three gunasthanaks are of no use. They will not do for moksha. In those stages, one simply goes to temples; that is all. He just wanders around, life after life. When one attains right belief (samkit), he enters the fourth gunasthanak. Before that there is wandering around in the first three stages. There is enlightenment in the fourth gunasthanak. One progresses from there on. He then comes into the fifth. Then, as he does more and more pratikraman, he goes to the sixth. That is how one progresses by doing pratikraman.
Four Levels of Intensity of Kashay What have the writers of scripture written? Suppose this
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Pratikraman
man says something that breaks this woman's heart, such that it will not mend in her entire life. Her mind is permanently fractured. It cannot be mended. The scripture writers call this *anantanubandhi krodh' - anger that will make one bind karma for infinite lives.
Another kind of anger is one where she will not speak with him for a year or so. Her wounds will heal after a year and the anger will be gone. What is this kind of anger called? It is *anger for which one did not do pratikraman' (apratyakhyani krodh). Because pratikramans were not done in the past life, the anger occurred.
Questioner: Is it the same anger that occurred in the past that is expressing now?
Dadashri: No. Not like that. If pratikraman is not done after anger occurs, then the anger will come out with the same intensity and force again. If one does not do pratikraman after anger, it will last for a year (apratyakhyani krodh). And if he does pratikraman, it will last for fifteen days. They will forget everything and become friends again within fifteen days. That is called pratyakhyani krodh.
The anantanubandhi krodh is anger that will ruin the entire life. It is like a big crack, of a foot or two, that forms between rock cliffs. No matter how much gets filled in it, the crack will still remain.
As compared to that, the one that lasts for a year or so is apratyakhyani krodh. That is comparable to the cracks that form in the earth in the farms and the fields. They will eventually fill up after a year.
Then there is the anger that lasts fifteen days or so. That is pratyakhyani krodh. It is like the markings in the sand. If you write in the sand on a beach, what will occur with that writing? How long will it be before it is erased?
