Self Realisation

Author(s): Shrimad Rajchandra, Govardhandas
Publisher: Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram

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The Self Realization
faith needed for religious discipline. Very few have faith in religion. Those who have faith do not study the religion for themselves nor do they seek proper Guru who can explain them the truths of religion. In case a few try to understand religion there are many besides who will obstruct their path rather than help them. This is the plight of the educated people of the time and they keep away from religion.
The uneducated in the present times, on the other hand, are so inert and orthodox that they fear to go a step beyond the beliefs of their forefathers and they go the easy way of following blindly the religion of their ancestors. Hence, they believe that the religious teachers accepted by the elders in age know everything and that they should be followed wholeheartedly. Neither teacher worshipped nor the uneducated worshipper cares to obtain knowledge and both of them are rocked in the craddle of a few accepted slogans and pet forms of prayer. One can rarely find in the present religious folds of Jain religion, one who has intense desire for knowing and following the eternal path of the liberated Jinas. Normally the Jaina Sadhus are initiated by force of adverse circumstances or by an accidental rise of the spirit of intense non-attachment by distressing events. One who really wants to follow the eternal path of the Jinas gets suffocated in the clumsy practices of the Jaina creeds and he runs out of these clutches to a wider atmosphere and freedom wherein he can make real progress.
Srimad says that there are very few souls interested in spiritual religious research. Those who would heartily desire to be free and would actively work for it are still few. Even for such souls the proper guides by way of an enlightened Guru, proper religious contacts and the supply of adequate religious scriptures
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