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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
712
Ātman and Moksa
Great Partner and taste of His sweetness : the result is that the woman (soul), seeing that her husband (Kişņa) is incomparably more beautiful and sweeter than her gallant (the body), is led to forsake the latter and to cleave to the former .... In this union of the human soul with God it experiences Samadhi in which state all the external senses, one by one, refuse to perform their functions, and a new world opens to the senses of the mind.' The austerity of penance of the kind of premabhakti is not felt as a physical torture, on the contrary, before the sweetness and delightful presence of God the devotee naturally forgets his own existence, of body, senses, and mind; he is forgetful of his limited existence, and hence, there is no sense of martyrdom in him. Vaisnavas become quite natural and believe that martyrdom is not possible, and that the man who really devotes his life to God is somehow or other protected by Him. They say that the so-called martyrs of the world were moved more by vanity and pride than by piety.
According to Caitanya, the relation that a devotee has to bear to Kısna cannot be one of a son to his father, but it is of a different type. It has to be understood simply metaphorically. Shishir Kumar Ghose describes the relation of the jiva (soul) to the Paramātman or the Self most eloquently. That feeling which God, rather the Loving, the Personal, and the beautiful 1 Ghose Shishir Kumar: Lord Gauranga, Vol. II, p. 130.
Ibid. p. 134.
For Private And Personal
