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Learning and magic, too, are here to mockery reduced! Disease and old age come, the body grows inert What medicine here can cure a man of these? Yet a. four-fold refuge is ever available to him! The Enlightened, the Liberated, the Saints and true and perfect Religion! Salvation for reprobates, for the helpless, hope,
Loving care for the orphans, for the drowning, a hand
A friend to the friendless, to the abandoned, a brother, The saviour of all, whether rich or poor!
Q. The illusion of taking the transient for the eternal
is the result of delusion. The cause of delusion is the illusory nature of one's approach. On account of a perverse point of view, a man's conceptions go awry. One aspect of those conceptions you have cleared up. But there must be some other aspects, too. Will you kindly talk about these?
Ans.
When the mortal is taken to be immortal, it is a patently false approach. Similarly, to look upon that which has no refuge as a haven betrays an illusory perception. Man seeks protection in material objects and thus further sinks into delusion. If we go into it deeply, we shall find that none in the family, society and the country, can give salvation to man. To begin with, it seems that the greater the extension of relationship, the more solid is one's base, but even those things which, in the process of their acquisition, seemed to offer lasting joy, are later found to be wanting. What seemed
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