Sannyasa Dharma

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain

Page 50

SANNYASA DHARMA Ones who have brought it into realisation in their own lives. The next necessary observance is confession. Many faults, of commission and omission, are committed by the sādhu daily, especially before he can attain to the higher degree of perfection in asceticism. These he must recognise and acknowledge to himself and before the acharya (the leader of the company of saints). The effeco of confession goes very far to wash out the stain, and to wipe it off the soul, though it may not fully, without further prāyaschita (penances), be effective in removing it altogether. A saint that does not confess his faults before the leader of his sangha (company of saints) will not advance further. The fifth necessary observance is the cultivation of the sense of detachment from the body. The saint at the time that he is practising this form of holy observance will not care for bodily comfort or ease. He will not defend his person if assaulted; he will not run if a wild beast should attack hin; he will remain uomoved by and indifferent to the changes and inclemency of the weather. All the time that he is cultivating this necessary and desirable habit, he remains, as it were, comfortably seated in his own Self, enjoying the bliss appertaining to the 'Kingdom of Heaven 'within, utterly indifferent to, and unconcerned in, the passing transient mockery of a show without. And he is in no sense a loser by thus shutting himself out from the wide world and becoming isolated within his own Self; for the true and lasting source of happiness only lies within,-not in anything
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