Selected 100 Letters by Shrimad Rajchandraji

Author(s): Shrimad Rajchandra,
Publisher: Shrimad Rajchandra Prabhavak Trust Hubli

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SELECTED 100 LETTERS
remedy. Though to throw away the sense of mineness of one's body or to lessen it is very difficult yet it can be done sooner or later by a person who is determined to do so.
So long as one's living body is the best means of knowing that he is quite different in nature from that of his body, some care of his body is beneficial to him in obtaining his liberation. And believing this relation of means to the end there is no harm even to use medicine to remove bodily pain, but this should be done only with the sole aim of utilizing his regaining health for surrendering himself to the will of an enlightened saint leading him to liberation. To this extent the sense of mineness for one's body is permissible. Thus in the end, such a man will enjoy equanimity of mind both in the condition of happiness or sorrow, pleasure or pain, life or death. At no time a spiritual aspirant should think of his body as the source of bodily pleasures of sense enjoyment or think that he has to abandon such source with distress. In all occasions of bodily troubles, a spiritual aspirant should always feel that he was given human body only to think of his permanent self shining in his body. This is the way to his spiritual good or welfare.
Shri Tirthankara and great saints like him have said that a man should draw his intellectual powers to obey the guidance of the enlightened saints and live fearlessly and remorselessly, and I say the same thing. For no reason one should be afflicted by this worldly life. Want of proper thinking and ignorance of one's infinite past are the main causes of all his afflictions, infatuation and adverse fortune or wrong life. The cause of one's return to his real self is good spiritual
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thinking of ultimate truth and self-knowledge. The most effective way to my mind to achieve it is to meditate on the teachings of spiritual saint.
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1.
SELECTED 100 LETTERS
2.
-Salutation from me
Petlad, Bhadarwa Sud Sixth V.S. 1949
Think with a steady mind, a saying that you should make certain whether the person has attained religion from whom you have asked for it.
You only ask for religion from one whom you have already known or recognised as a spiritually enlightened saint, and you should consider yourself fully fortunate that you have contacted such a great person that your meritorious deeds of the past have brought about this spiritual contact. You accept his teachings whole heartedly and without any suspicion or doubt and by such following you can abandon faith in wrong perspective difference of religious opinions, loss of faith or deception. and saying of untruth etc. In other words, you should not accept any of your prejudices or your preconceived notions of religion. The religion of the self is in the self itself and the teachings of a self realized person show the path of reaching the self. Do not engage yourself in any other religious path.
3. If you after doing all what is said above find yourself unable to leave your preconceived religious notions or ideas and wrong