Way of Life Part 4

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

Page 55

DISCOURSE 76
In the same manner, the shravaks who stay in the upashraya for a long time do not have any devotion or regard for the sadhus who may be staying there. Sometimes, they treat the sadhus with indifference and disrespect. They perform the samayik, sitting; tell the beads of the garland in their hands but they keep looking for faults in the sadhus. They keep watching the behaviour of the sadhus. They listen to what others say about sadhus. Later, adding something of their own to it, they start calumniating the sadhus.
EVEN SADHUS MUST NOT DEVELOP TOO MUCH FAMILIARITY WITH OTHERS
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If a sadhu is too familiar with a grihastha, he will be treated with indifference. Too much familiarity causes excessive confidence and trust. Too much confidence sometimes causes deception. I heard that some years ago there was an Acharya in Rajasthan. He was a self-styled Acharya. He collected seventyfive thousand rupees in the form of donation from the people for building a temple or a choultry, and then he entrusted the entire amount to a householder who was very intimate with him because he paid a high rate of interest. When two years later, the Acharya asked him for the money, the householder said coolly, "Which money? What are you speaking of? I do not have even a rupee of yours with me".
On hearing this, the Acharya suffered a heart-attack. He fell seriously ill. On account of excessive intimacy, man develops trust naturally in others. But wicked and unworthy people take undue advantage of such a trust. Of course, sadhus and sadhvis should not develop too much familiarity with anyone. Those who develop too much familiarity with others will sometimes or the other be entangled in a mess. Yet they throw the blame on their karmas of their previous life. They do not realise that it is the result of their blunder in this life. "I developed too much famliliarity with that grihastha and so I have fallen into this misery". They do not think thus.
Those who do not have a full knowledge of the Karma philosophy keep saying these things, "This is the result of the effi