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20
THE WAY OF LIFE
meet. Rupasen was greatly overwhelmed with delight. "I have been fortunate in getting the company of the princess; and I have won her love !" With this feeling of jubilation, the peacock of his mind began to dance in elation. He returned home; yet he was not free from that feeling of jubilation. How could he realize this truth then ? "By experiencing this delight, I am binding my soul with a sinful Karma and I am making my future dark and bleak. In future, I have to suffer bitter anguish".
It should be remembered that Rupasen had not yet committed sin with his body; but he was only thinking of enjoying a unión with the princess; had made a plan to attain that end and had experienced the sweetness of the action only in imagination. He had only made a plan for committing the sin; but even on account of this, his soul had gathered the Nikachit Karma. He did not know it. How could he realize it then ? When a man is blinded by passion he cannot see how a sinful Karma binds his soul.
When on that night, he was going to meet the princess, an old wall fell upon him and he died. After his death, he entered the womb of that princess because just when Rupasen died, the princess was enjoying a union with a thief believing that he was Rupasen; and she became pregnant. Her lover himself entered her womb as her child.
When the princess found that she had become pregnant, she was greatly terrified. She feared disgrace and social censure. She decided to get rid of the pregnancy by means of an abortion. With the help of her servant-maid, she secured some potent medicine and caused the foetus in her womb to become decomposed. Who was there in her womb ? Rupasen's soul was there. How much anguish did he experience? How much terri. ble agony did he experience ? What was the root-cause for all his agony and anguish? The root-cause was that he experienced delight in the contemplation of a sinful action. He experienced elation at the thought of committing a sin.
Question: Now-a-days, we commit thousands of such sins. What has happened to us ?
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