Walk With Me

Author(s): Chandanaji Acharya, Vastupal Parikh
Publisher: Veerayatan

Page 28

Walk With Me
and without any bondage. Sin sinks our soul in more bondage. Violence is a sin; theft is a sin; lying is a sin; and destroying another life or even encouraging to hurt others is also a sin. At the root of all sinful acts is our passion for possessions. Cultivate forgiveness to eliminate anger, humility to control ego, fearless straight forwardness to avoid deceit, and self-satisfaction to be free from greed", he stated.
As a Vedic pundit, I have been busy advising people on how to please gods whose mercy alone could absolve all of their sins. I used to lecture them on how to chant mantras, how to please the gods by offering We cannot achieve
ve animals in yagnya. I have advised them happiness if we are regularly that a periodic dip in the holy River making another life
| Ganga would cleanse their souls. However, unhappy, directly or
indirectly. here was ahavir telling us that the gods have nothing to do with our happiness or misery! Instead, he was saying that our eternal happiness will come when we are able to purify our soul by winning over our passions. This sounded logical, but difficult.
Mahavir had more wisdom than any other human being that I had ever met, and I listened to his words intently. "We cannot even hope to liberate our soul if we put another life in danger," he was saying. “Know that every living being has a soul. It feels happiness and pain as we do. Every living being wants to live peacefully. It loves its life as we do ours. We have no right to destroy another life, or to cause its destruction. We cannot achieve happiness if we are making another life unhappy, directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally. This is the truth."
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Jain Education Intemational