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THE WAY OF LIFE the road shivering in the cold, would you take delight in wearing expensive and luxurious garments and deck yourself with silk ? When somebody is sleeping on the pavement in the midst of dust and 'rubbish can you happily and peacefully sleep on "Dunlopillo" or in your beds in your palatial mansions ? When somebody is experiencing dire anguish on account of some dreadful disease, can you make merry and lose yourself in enjoyments and entertainments ? If your answer is “Yes”, then your heart is unkind, callous and merciless; and you are unfit to acquire and practise the dharma that has been expounded by the Paramatma Jineshwardev. Unless you are fit or worthy, you cannot attain and practise dharma and even if you practise it, it won't be genuine.
If you share the sorrows of others; if you try to remove the sorrows of others and if you remove the sorrows of others even if it means making a sacrifice of your own happiness, you are a worthy person and the sublime dharma will enter and pervade your tender and compassionate soul. Water soaks into soft land, but cannot enter a stony area.
SORROWFUL PEOPLE ARE OF TWO KINDS
In this world, sorrowful people are of two kinds. Some are sorrowful on account of Dravyas or substances and some are sorrowful on account of their own thoughts and feelings. Those who do not have food, clothing and shelter are sorrowful on account of a lack of dravyas or substances. Those who are suffering from physical diseases; those who are poor and destitute are sorrowful on account of a lack of dravyas or substances; that means their sorrows are external. Those who are destitute of dharma and whose minds abound in sin are sorrowful on account of thoughts or feelings. The people who commit violence and theft; whose conduct is ignoble; who have worldly attachments; who give way to such base passions as anger, pride, deception and hypocrisy are internally unhappy. Those who commit sins experience internal sorrow. Those who are sorrowful on account of the effect of sin experience external anguish. Those in whom sinful karma has emerged and who commit sinful actions experience external as well as internal sorrows. In
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