Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

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seeks it in the toys which are put before it; the schoolboy turns to books; the young man to making money and getting married. Thence the centre of happiness is shifted to the family. The pursuit of honour and distinction occupies the thoughts of the more advanced in age. And then? But how many think of the 'then'? For the materialist the ideal of old age, after a life of bustle and turmoil, consists in a peaceful, eternal repose in the grave. Poetically, the idea does not seem to be quite unattractive, but when we turn to enquire into the nature of the pleasure which such 'peaceful' repose can possibly afford, he has no idea whatever on the subject. Peace, but for whom? For a dead body! Just as if a corpse could enjoy peace. Perhaps the soul is to enjoy the ideal, peaceful repose. But the materialist's vocabulary of existing things contains no such word as soul. Here is the fulfilment of an ideal, but under what conditions? He who longs for it is no more when it falls into realization! What a contradiction in terms, what an ideal to cherish !
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
A vast majority of mankind perhaps think that way. There are, however, a few who think the other way. These hold that the enjoyer survives the physical death. But then the grave ceases to be a haven of rest. Repose there might be in the grave, but who can say that it would be peaceful necessarily? And if it is not, the anguish would be all the greater, for here on earth it is given us to assist each other or to devise some means whereby suffering might be alleviated, but the probabilities on the other side of the grave are against such alleviation by mutual assistance or individual exertion.