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SANNYASA DHARMA
of stone. These will have to be 'insect-freed' likewise, Towards the end of the salle khana death the saint endeavours to conquer sleep itself, and spends the whole of his time in holy meditation.
Those who attend on a saint duly set out on the accomplishment of the sallekhana death should be endowed with great faith and wisdom, and should refrain from all kinds of show of sentimentalism that might cause him to waver in his resolution or to be agitated in thought. They should exclude all undesirable visitors and hangers-on and should always endeavour to strengthen him in his arduous faith and conduct, by means of the narration of stories of great ascetics who have successfully gone through the trying ordeal, as well as of discourses on the merit of dharma, propounding the doctrines of Faith and describing the terrible sufferings which unemancipated souls have undergone and shall have to undergo in their migratory career in the future.
The effect of these narrations is extremely soothing, and wonderful altogether. It brings into manifestation something of the higher energy of the spiritualised will that is an attribute of the soul, and that speedily puts an end to all kinds of lower cravings and undesirable forms of feelings, filling the mind with the utmost degree of vairagya (spirit of renunciation). With his soul resting, as it were, on the unshakable rock of Right Faith, his mind illumined with the light of pure Truth, that is Right Knowledge, and his actions all regulated and controlled by the
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