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46 : PART IV
GUIDELINES TO MAHAVIR-DARSHAN
knowledge by reading, writing, thinking, memorising, pondering and discussing with others, like a student. These different methods of studies, when combined harmoniously with success and joy leads to great advancement of knowledge in a short time. As the knowledge acquired in this way is methodical, purposeful, useful, and blissful and again, because it has been acquired in the presence of and under the guidance of some enlightened saint, it leads the Sadhaka to a great height of spiritual progress in a very short time.
In the third and the last stage, further progress is required to be made by practising firmly in life the principles which have been learnt so far. This leads to the experience and conviction that soul is pure consciousness; it is of the nature of truth, knowledge and bliss (Sacchidananda ). Once this happens, all thoughts, impure and sorrowful, are discarded. Once it has been realised that passion (Karma), anger (Krodha ) and infatuation (Moha) are doors to hell, the Sadhaka propitiates the virtues of non-attachment, forgiveness and contentment.
Whether in the worldly pursuits such as bathing, taking food. business and other exchanges, family relations and their problems etc. or in spiritual obligations such as devotion, association with the saints, self-study, worship, daily propitiation, dhyana, etc., the routine of the continued divine awareness should be cultivated. The feeling that I am Sadhaka Atma’ should be persevered with such intensity, that life becomes remoulded and the fragrance of virtues spreads in each activity of our life; our entire life becomes propitious to ourselves as also to others. If we could accomplish this successfully, self-knowledge (Atmajnana); self-meditation (Atma-Samadhi) and self-delight (Atmananda ) will surely manifest themselves in our life because of the principle that “appropriate causes having been provided the invariable result must manifest.”
Glory of Indulgence in Self-study :
(1) We cannot make headway on the path of salvation without
knowing what the path is. We must therefore know the path through the sermons of a learned preceptor or through the study of the sublime scriptures.
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