________________
DISCOURSE 10
167
SEE THE DEROGATIONS IN SAMSAR
Jatashankar drank the kheer because he first saw the kheer. He drank it because he first saw merit in it. But the boy told him that a dog had licked it. So, he saw a defect in the kheer and his love for it disappeared. He threw it away. Do you understand ? You must renounce worldly life also in the same manner. You must see the defects and derogations in samsar. What happened to the great poet, Barthihari ? He saw a great derogation in life. His wife in whom he had great faith betrayed his faith and proved unfaithful to him. The wife is an important person in the family and his wife deceived him. When that was so, could he have faith in others ? Could he trust others and so he renounced his worldly life. You do not see defects and derogations in life. Is that so ? Do you see only merits? Though you have received such a hammer-stroke from life....
From the Audience: Of course, we receive the buffets of misfortune and we suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but in the midst of those misfortunes we also sometimes taste happiness which appears like a drop of honey; and delighted by it, we forget those sorrows and vicissitudes.
Maharajashri : You experience sorrow for twenty three hours and happiness for one hour, yet you are not disgusted with life. You are really men of miraculous patience. For the sake of the momentary sensual pleasures, and for the sake of transient physical joys see into what a snare you have fallen. Please see rightly how you are caught in that snare. What will happen in the other world ? How can you get sensual pleasures? How foul, how disgusting and how sickening ? You take delight in the stinking gutter. The pleasures you get in human life and in the animal life are as filthy as a gutter. You cannot also enjoy those pleasures always. Supposing you get such diseases as T.B. and cancer, you may be young; your wife may be beautiful but still you will have to sit helplessly shedding tears and when death approaches you, what will you do? Your wife will stand near your dead body and weep. People will take away your dead body to the cemetery. Close your eyes a little and imagine this scene.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
