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WHO IS A TRUE SAINT ?
Dt. 01-03-1982
Scriptures lay special emphasis on purity in life. The Jain Shastras, for instance, declare that a mere change of the robes giving up the workaday dress and donning the ocher hued clothes will not suffice to be termed holy. To be a real Jain Saint, there should be a change of mind and a firm decision to uphold the five grim vows in his entire life-of nonviolence, adherence to truth, non-stealing, celibacy and non-attachment.
In a discourse in Dadavadi Jain temple, Acharya Vikramsurishwarji who dwelt on the vigilence said that a person who enters the Jain monustic order should observe as cited in a parable. A wealthy person made a strange gift to his four daughters-in-law; to each one of them, he gave five grains of paddy. Treating this as 'nonsensical', the first one threw them out. The second thought them as 'prasad' and munched them. The third one preserved them in a golden box. The last one could guess that her father-in-law's act ought to have significance and sent them to her parent's farm to be sown.
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The old man called the women after five years and sought to know about the grains. The first and the second confessed what they had done. The third returned them while the fourth replied: 'I require carts to bring back the rich harvest.' The old man assigned the duty of maintaining the house clean to the first, supervision of cooking to the second, guarding the treasure to the third and handed over the estate to the last to multiply the wealth.
The Acharya said no one should emulate the first two. The third was not bad but not good. Like the fourth, a saint should observe vows faithfully and find out ways to increase his knowledge.
Instruments of success in life is Restriction through rules and regulations.
It is better to be unsuccessful following right ideals rather than succeeding with wrong ideals.
Dead yesterday, unseen tomorrow. Why worry, if today is sweet.
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