Selected 100 Letters by Shrimad Rajchandraji

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

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SELECTED 100 LETTERS
a self-realised being is to propitiate by all ways the instructions of one's spiritually enlightened master. Only when this fact is admitted undoubtedly by a spiritual aspirant then only the quelling of his faults or defects of all kind begins.
Shri Jin Tirthankara has defined a soul's ignorance in many ways and in them on various occasions or places he has been described as the dealer in various infinite kinds of deeds, and these deeds have bound him from times immemorial and this statement is perfectly correct. But here you ask whether relief from such bondage of deeds of an impending past is ever possible even though the means of its removal may be extremely strong or powerful? If what your question suggests is really true then what you feel that freedom from such bondage of deeds is not at all possible is also correct.
By way of reply to your above stated question the great Jin has said that this bondage of one's deeds though of a long past has till date continued but he has also said that by right knowledge of his self he can stop suffering future bondage as all his past deeds can be suffered in sum total by an enlightened person and he can be released from this bondage by scrupulously surrendering to his spiritually enlightened master. Since ignorance of true nature of the eternal self is the root cause of this bondage of deeds of an endless past and spiritual knowledge and guidance of an illumined saint can totally remove it and he can stop for ever this flow of deeds and consequent cycle of birth and death by such guidance.
The enlightened Jin has not said that the fruits of his actions the soul will have to suffer for infinite future. He has kept aside the talk of a spiritual disciple. He only says that so long as a soul's ignorance of identification of his embodied soul with his real self continues till that time only he has to suffer the fruits of his past
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deeds. But the moment he starts receiving the guidance of his spiritual saintly master he stops performing new binding actions and he starts getting relieved from the fruits of his binding past deeds and when that retiring cycle continue, he feels greater and greater ease and relief. The light of his self shines in his getting stronger and stronger day by day by the grace of his spiritual master, his infatuation and body sense get fainter and fainter. It is well known that even a spark of fire can burn a big hay-stack, similarly guru's guidance as a spark helps his disiciple to get clear off all his past deeds performed by him in ignorance. Whatever the disciples past, his future is bright when he surrenders to his spiritual guide. This soul may have to continue to take births and deaths in future if he continues to behave under the influence of his ignorance of his self as he has done in the past. The nature of the effects of ignorance, is that they die out on the rise of illumination of the soul's real nature as self. It the soul gets permanently bound by his deeds done under infatuation of a long time past then there will be no scope for his liberation. The Jin therefore clearly says that the soul can be free from his deeds by receiving knowledge of his true self from his spiritually enlightened master or a saint An ignorant soul cannot perform binding actions of the same harming kind in a serial order as he has no such time to perform them, otherwise before he gets relieved of previous binding deed he would have created another bondage for him and this serial order would keep him always bound with no chance of his release. Besides the Jin has said that lifebinding action is such that when a living soul finished two thirds of his life, then on the remaining one third of his life he performs binding action for his future birth, supposing he does not do so and he does not perform binding actions for his two further births - this is possible. Therefore a soul can perform such relieiving actions by which he can remove the