Ratnakarandaka Shravakachar

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

Page 39

Verse 2
does not accompany the self to the next birth. The friends who have shared the joys and sorrows of an individual cannot save him at his death. No one, relations or others, can take away an individual's manifold sufferings such as disease, old age and death. Happiness cannot be found in any object that we zealously seek.
The highest aspiration of man can only be to attain Divinity for his soul which gives rise to unalloyed bliss and happiness, and freedom from pain and suffering. The man with such an aspiration does not identify himself with thoughts of worldly existence and endeavours to march on the path indicated by the Omniscient Lord.
Supreme happiness Ācārya Nemicandra's Trilokasāra depicts the extreme happiness appertaining to the lords of the men and the devas but holds it as insignificant as compared to the supreme happiness enjoyed by the Siddha parameşthi:
चक्किकुरुफणिसुरेंदेसहमिंदे जं सुहं तिकालभवं । तत्तो अणंतगुणिदं सिद्धाणं खणसुहं होदि ॥ ५६० ॥ The happiness appertaining to the king of kings (cakravarti), the resident of the regions of enjoyment (bhogabhūmi), the lord of the lower celestials, the lord of the heavenly kalpa, and the lord of the heavens beyond the kalpa, is successively infinitely more. The supreme happiness or bliss that appertains to the Siddha parameşthī, however, can only be described as: “Just one instant of bliss that the Siddha parameșthi enjoys is infinitely more than the combined happiness that all the above mentioned worldly jīvas enjoy during the course of their past, present and future lives.”
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