Way of Life Part 3

Author(s): Bhadraguptasuri
Publisher: Vishvakalyan Prakashan Trust Mehsana

Page 20

THE WAY OF LIFE
therefore Bahubali became greatly infuriated and decided to deliver a tremendous blow to Bharath with his fist. He ran towards Bharath with fury but suddenly a thought occurred to him, “By means of a stroke with my fist Bharath will go down into the ground dead.... I will be committing fratricide. I will be killing my brother.... What a great sin it will be !.... No! I should not commit such a sin for the sake of Kingdom”. With this kind of thinking he became detached from worldly affairs. He stopped on the way. With the first he had lifted to strike his brother dead, he plucked off the hair of his own head .... and he became a Shraman (a medicant). He renounced everything but at that point he did not go straight to Bhagwan Rishabhdev. IT IS DIFFICULT TO DESTROY EGOISM
Bahubali thought, "If I go to the Bhagwan now I will have to salute my ninety eight younger brothers. I am their elder brother. How can I salute my younger brothers ? Of course, those ninety eight brothers of mine have become Shramans before myself. They have attained Keval Jnan also : so if I go there I will have to salute them but the Keval Jnanis do not salute one another; therefore I will go to them only after becoming a Kevaljnani myself so that I may not have to salute my younger brothers who are junior to me.
This was pride. "I am their elder brother. How can I salute them when they are junior to me in age ?" This is but a manifestation of pride. Thinking of one's own eminence and the others as inferior to oneself is nothing but pride. Bahubali could renounce his Kingdom; he could renounce his wealth and grandeur .... he could forgive Bharath's blunder; he could give up all his worldly pleasures but he could not give up his pride; he could not realize and visualise his inner enemy.
Bahubali's sisters Brahmi and Sundari who were sadhvis came to him and said;
safter on TT ! 75 77 Batt T
a te ..." (Brother! alight from that elephant. Because those who are seated on the back of an elephant cannot attain Kevaljnan.)