People call it Philosophy, I call it the way of life.
एक ही खुशबू है… वो है तेरी साँसों की
एक ही धुन है… वो है तेरे लब्ज़ों की
एक ही घटा है… वो है तेरी ज़ुल्फ़ों की
एक ही आवाज़ है… वो है तेरी धड़कनों की
एक ही गहराई है… वो है तेरी आँखों की
एक ही चमक है… वो है तेरे दाँतों की
एक ही गर्मी है… वो है तेरे होठों की
एक ही नरमी है… वो है तेरे हाथों की
On a Day of Remembrance
You lived a life of
immense challenges, yet you were anchored in a singular, higher purpose; and
you did not merely speak of it. You attained it.
More than that, you
shared the path.
You made it clear: this is not reserved for a few. With right discernment, it
is attainable.
You also reminded that
this path is not new. It is ancient. Timeless. Walked by infinite seekers
before.
Today, on your death
anniversary, the world will remember you. There will be talks, tributes,
reflections. Your life will be celebrated, your achievements admired, your
words repeated.
It will be a grand
remembrance.
But what about me?
Am I truly inspired or
just emotionally moved for a moment?
Do I deeply believe in what you attained or do I admire it from a distance?
Do I want transformation or am I satisfied with appreciation?
Will I limit myself to
praising you?
Will I convince myself that attending today’s events is enough for now?
If I say your goal is
the highest, then is it truly “my“ goal as well?
If it is my goal, does
it not have to reflect in how I spend my time, my energy, my attention?
A person who wants
wealth structures life around it. Everything else (food, rest, routine) supports
that goal.
If liberation, truth,
or self-realization is my declared goal, is it treated the same way?
Or is it given leftover space after everything else is done?
Learning about you does
matter. Praising you has its place.
But WHAT NEXT?
Do I keep repeating
this cycle… Inspiration, Admiration, Participation; and then return unchanged?
Is this subtle
satisfaction enough for me?
If yes, I should accept it honestly.
But if I truly want to
walk the path you walked, then I cannot stop at reverence.
I must reorganize my
life.
Otherwise, this day
becomes one more ritual where I celebrate your life and quietly postpone my
own.
Underlying reminder
for myself:
If inspiration does
not convert into direction,
and direction into discipline,
then inspiration slowly and unknowingly can become sedation.
ના કોઈની પ્રતીક્ષા
ના કોઈનો અભાવ છે
કદાચ આશ્ચર્ય લાગે
પણ! આવો જ કંઈક સ્વભાવ છે
ના કોઈ માટે દાંભિક લાગણીઓ
ના કોઈ પ્રત્યે તણાવ છે
બની શકે સમજવું મુશ્કેલ
પણ! આવો જ કંઈક સ્વભાવ છે
ના કોઈ એવી રોમાંચક ખુશી
ના ક્યાંય કોઈ ઘાવ છે
આ બધું વિચિત્ર લાગી શકે
પણ! આવો જ કંઈક સ્વભાવ છે
જિંદગી ધીમી ગતિએ જાય છે
એવું લાગે હવે ઠેરાવ છે
તમે મને ગાંડો કહી શકો
પણ! હવે આવો જ કંઈક સ્વભાવ છે
Atmabhranti sam rog nahi, Sadguru vaidya sujaan;
Guruajna sam pathya nahi, aushadh vichar dhyan.
- Verse 129, Shri Atmasiddhi Shaastra by Shrimad Rajchandra
Atmabhranti (Self-delusion) is described as the gravest of all diseases. This delusion is not merely intellectual error; it is existential misidentification. To consider the body as the Self, or to believe that body and soul are one, is the fundamental distortion.
Since beginningless time, this misidentification has persisted. It has resulted in continuous karmic association. This condition is not imposed externally; the soul itself is the locus of this bondage. However, this does not imply a conscious starting point i.e. ignorance itself is beginningless. Yet, whatever it is, it is and the state is experienced by the soul today / now.
Anyhow, the disease is deep-rooted, persistent, and self-sustained.
The verse then presents the Sadguru (the Enlightened Master) as an expert physician. This analogy is structurally precise: one who has directly experienced the Self is not operating on belief, but on realization, and therefore can indicate the path to liberation with clarity.
However, even the most capable physician remains ineffective for me unless I, as the patient:
Accept that I am diseased
Trust the diagnosis and the guide
Follow the prescribed discipline
This raises a critical question:
Do I truly accept that I am in a state of delusion?
Or has this condition become so normalized over infinite time that it no longer appears as a disease?
If delusion is not acknowledged as a disease, then even in the presence of a Sadguru, the possibility of healing does not arise. The Sadguru can indicate, explain, and guide, but unless I recognize myself as the one afflicted, the process of healing does not begin.
Let me assume, for a moment, that this acceptance arises:
That delusion is indeed a disease
That there exists an Enlightened Being who has transcended it
That such a Being can guide the path to liberation
What follows from this?
The verse provides a direct answer:
“Guruajna sam pathya nahi” : There is no regimen like the instructions of the Sadguru
“Aushadh vichar dhyan” : The medicine is contemplation and meditation
This introduces two measurable indicators of sincerity:
Do I actually follow the instructions of the Sadguru?
Do I engage in Vichar (contemplation) and Dhyan (meditative awareness)?
Without these, acceptance remains conceptual; not transformative.
This leads to another necessary inquiry:
What are the core instructions of the Sadguru?
Across time, past, present, and future, the realized beings articulate a consistent path. This is also affirmed in Verse 36 of Atmasiddhi Shaastra: there is only one path to the supreme truth across time.
Distilled to essentials, the instructions can be understood as:
Reduction of Raag (attachment) and Dvesh (aversion)
Not suppression, but understanding and gradual dissolution.
Recognition of the true identity as the Self (soul)
Distinct from body, mind, and transient states.
Cultivation of the witnessing stance (saakshi bhaav)
At the absolute level, the soul is knower-seer.
At the practical level, this must be progressively realized; not prematurely assumed.
Sustained inward orientation (antarmukhta)
Not a necessary withdrawal from action, but withdrawal from identification.
These are not independent steps; they are interdependent dimensions of the same effort (purusharth).
Now, the medicine:
Vichar (Contemplation)
Observing thoughts, tendencies, and reactions with clarity, without reinforcing attachment or aversion.
Dhyan (Meditation)
In Jain understanding, this includes both:
disciplined practice
and the eventual state of steady awareness
Meditation is not merely a passive experience; it is cultivated through right effort and right understanding.
At deeper examination, Vichar and Dhyan are not separate processes. They converge.
Sustained contemplation refines awareness.
Refined awareness stabilizes into meditative absorption.
This confluence weakens delusion.
If I claim:
The world does not bind me, but my attachment does
Delusion is a disease
The Sadguru is a true guide
Then the only valid verification is:
Do I reduce Raag-Dvesh in real situations?
Do I remain aware of the Self amidst activity?
Do I consistently engage in contemplation and meditation?
If not, then the acceptance, alas, is theoretical.
Atmabhranti is not an abstract concept. It is the operative condition of embodied existence.
The Sadguru provides the diagnosis, the regimen, and the medicine, but the walking of the path is non-transferable.
It demands sustained purusharth: a continuous effort to remain aware, to abide in saakshi bhaav, and to prevent identification with thoughts, words, and actions. This requires, especially in the beginning, a deliberate and repeated training of the mind; an ongoing discipline to loosen craving and aversion at their point of origin.
The path is singular, consistent across time, and experiential in nature.
Liberation is not granted. It is realized through the dissolution of delusion.
In continuation with the previous blog (https://so-what-dilip.blogspot.com/2026/03/12-infinite-journey-continues.html)....
Having seen that the Soul, from the empirical standpoint, functions as the doer (karta) and consumer (bhokta), a fundamental question becomes unavoidable:
If this cycle of doing and experiencing has continued since beginningless time,
does it ever end?
And if it does:
What exactly ends, and what remains?
The earlier understanding makes one thing clear:
Bondage is not accidental.
It is structured, continuous, and self-sustained through identification with arising states.
If that is so, then liberation cannot be an event of chance, grace, or external intervention.
It must be a precise reversal of the very mechanism that sustains bondage.
At this point, the 5th and 6th propositions of the Soul become relevant:
The Soul is Liberation (Moksha)
The Soul is the Path to Liberation
This requires careful understanding.
Liberation is not something the Soul becomes.
Nor is it something newly produced.
The Soul, in its intrinsic nature, is already free from all karmic attributes.
What is called bondage is the association with karmic modifications.
What is called liberation is the complete cessation of that association.
Therefore, the question is no longer philosophical.
It becomes immediate and practical:
If the Soul is already pure in its nature,
What sustains the impurity in experience?
And more importantly,
What exactly must change NOW for that to dissolve?
The inevitable change is the complete cessation of karma.
But the difficulty is evident:
If both good (shubh) and bad (ashubh) karmas are constantly being attracted and accumulated,
and if this accumulation has continued from beginningless time,
how does one ever become free?
And further...
how long would such a process take?
At first glance, the task appears immeasurable.
However, a critical insight must be understood:
Just as karmas bear fruits for the soul,
the cessation of karmas is also a real and effective process.
Yes, infinite time has been spent in shubh and ashubh states.
But transcendence need not operate on the same axis as accumulation.
Accumulation is gradual.
Cessation, once and when rightly initiated, could be transformational.
(This is elaborated further down below)
Karma does not bind randomly.
Its principal causes are:
Attachment
Aversion
Indulgence
Likes and dislikes
Ignorance (fundamental misidentification)
These are not superficial tendencies.
They are the core knots that sustain karmic continuity.
As long as identification persists, bondage persists.
The weakening of these knots begins with:
Awareness
Inner alertness
Remaining established as a conscious knower
With sustained practice, this evolves into:
A state where the individual increasingly abides as the witness of all experiences.
This shift is critical.
Because karma binds not due to action alone,
but due to identification with action and experience.
As witnessing stabilizes, identification weakens.
As identification weakens, bondage loosens.
This is not theoretical.
It is a functional shift in the mode of being.
Yet, a serious doubt arises:
If the karmic accumulation is of beginningless time (anant kaal),
then even gradual weakening appears insufficient.
The process seems extremely slow, tedious, and disproportionate to the scale of bondage.
This doubt is valid, but incomplete.
A profound analogy given in Shri Atmasiddhi Shaastra by revered Shrimad Rajchandra ji resolves this:
A dream may span millions of years,
yet it disappears instantly upon awakening.
Similarly,
delusion of beginningless time
dissolves immediately upon the emergence of Right Vision (Samyak Darshan).
This is the turning point.
The process is not merely gradual erosion.
It includes a discontinuous shift.
Effort is required and is mandatory, but its direction must be precise.
This effort includes:
Study of scriptures
Contemplation and understanding
Devotion
Austerities
Ethical and disciplined living
However, all of this, by itself, is still within the domain of Knowledge (Gyaan), not necessarily Right Knowledge (Samyak Gyaan).
The transformation happens through one decisive factor:
Right Vision (Samyak Darshan)
The moment Right Vision arises:
Knowledge becomes Right Knowledge
Devotion becomes Right Devotion
Conduct becomes Right Conduct
Without this, even noble and virtuous actions remain within the domain of Shubh Karma.
Shubh Karma refines outer experience, worldly comforts, path to the beneficial inclination.
It does not directly terminate bondage.
Therefore, the instruction is not to abandon action.
Actions may and should continue.
But simultaneously, there must be:
A continuous weaving of awareness
An uninterrupted inner orientation toward the witnessing self
This sustained awareness creates the condition
for the emergence of Right Vision.
And this is the decisive statement:
Samyak Darshan is the gateway to liberation.
It is not symbolic.
It is functional.
It marks the transition from:
Identification → Observation
Bondage → Dissolution
Knowledge → Right Knowledge
Liberation (Moksha) is not a place.
It is not a destination in space or time.
It is the state of Purity of the Self.
As stated in Shri Atmasiddhi Shaastra:
“Moksh Kahyo Nij Shuddhata, Te Paame Te Panth…”
Liberation is one’s own pure nature;
the path is that which leads to its realization.
This journey is not limited to a doctrine, a community, or a belief system.
It is the most fundamental journey of the soul:
From identification
To awareness
From awareness
To Right Vision
From Right Vision
To complete freedom
The soul, bound since beginningless time,
continues its journey across infinite cycles.
But the same soul,
upon right understanding and right vision,
is capable of complete freedom.
The question, therefore, is no longer about time.
It is about clarity.
And that clarity, once seen, Transforms everything.
“I am Mahavir’s past,
and Mahavir is my future.”
These words are not symbolic. They point to a profound truth about the nature of the soul.
What Mahavir became is not a miracle reserved for one being; it is the potential of every soul.
At the core, the soul is Pure. Eternal, conscious, and inherently free.
Yet, in its journey through beginningless time, it becomes covered with layers of karma; subtle, self-bound, and deeply ingrained.
Mahavir did not become something new.
He realized what he truly was.
He saw “Mahavir” not as an identity, but as a paryay; a temporary state.
His focus was not on the name, the body, or the role; but on the soul beyond all of it.
And through that unwavering clarity, he became free.
But this did not happen suddenly.
The journey was long.
The path was not straight.
The obstacles were many.
So what made the difference?
Determination.
A clear, irreversible decision (Nirnay).
Mahavir recognized a truth:
That remaining “potentially pure” is not enough.
The goal is to become actually pure.
A pure soul does not fluctuate.
It does not depend on circumstances.
It exists in a state of infinite knowledge, perception, bliss, and energy; and not for a moment, but forever (Endlessly).
Born as Vardhaman, even he carried karmic baggage; just like I do.
But somewhere, across many past lives, a shift had already occurred.
A deep inner awakening had begun.
The journey of cleansing had started long before his final birth.
And in that final life, his purusharth (intense, conscious effort) aligned perfectly with his nirnay (firm inner conviction).
That alignment changed everything.
From renunciation to omniscience, milestones came and passed.
But Mahavir was never attached to milestones.
His destination was clear: complete liberation from all karmic bondage.
And he attained it.
He did not merely preach philosophy.
He shared experience.
He revealed a simple yet uncompromising truth:
There are only two directions in this beginningless existence:
To remain entangled in karmic bondage; endlessly cycling through birth and death
Or to free oneself completely; and exist forever in a state of pure, formless liberation
No body.
No karma.
No dependency.
Only the soul, in its absolute nature; Experiencing infinite bliss, infinitely, without interruption.
Today, as I celebrate "Mahavir Janma Kalyanak", a deeper question arises:
Why do I remember Mahavir?
Is it celebration?
Reverence?
Tradition?
And / Or do I strongly want to correct others who mention "Mahavir Jayanti"
OR
Is it a reminder?
If I only celebrate Mahavir, but do not walk the path he revealed,
then I remain where I am; rotating within merit and demerit, pleasure and pain.
But if I remember him with the intent to become what he became,
then remembrance becomes transformation.
Mahavir is not someone to be worshipped from a distance.
He is a possibility to be realized.
“I am Mahavir’s past”—
because in his past, like my today's state, he had a karmic baggage.
“Mahavir is my future”—
because the same soul, when awakened, purified, and freed,
must arrive at that very state.
So today is not just a celebration.
It is a moment of honest introspection.
Am I merely remembering?
Or am I preparing?
The path is not for a day.
It is not for a ritual.
It is not for appearance.
It is a constant awareness; a continuous purusharth.
To remember Mahavir is to remember my own highest possibility.
And to live that remembrance,
until it becomes my reality.
The Infinite Journey continues...
Understanding Doership and Experience
In the immediate previous blog (https://so-what-dilip.blogspot.com/2026/03/11-infinite-journey.html), the focus was on the core principle that the Soul is the Knower since infinity (beginningless time) and that it has an association with Karma.
Due to this association, from the empirical standpoint, the Soul has been continuously identifying the “self” with karma and thereby slipping into the zone of doership in an almost uninterrupted manner.
Since the Soul is involved in this association and experiences the effects of Karma through its states, another perspective opens up. This connects to the 3rd and 4th propositions out of the six fundamental propositions of the Soul.
The Six Propositions:
Soul exists
Soul is permanent (no beginning and no end)
Soul is the Doer
Soul is the Experiencer (Bhogta)
Soul is Liberation
Soul is the path to Liberation
The first 2 were largely covered in the previous one with regards to the "real identity" and the "infinite journey"
Let's ponder over 3 and 4 here.
3. The Soul is the Doer
All substances undergo modifications (Paryay).
Every substance is known along with its states.
The Soul too undergoes modifications; even at the most subtle level, such as thoughts, inclinations, and internal movements.
From this perspective, it is called a doer. However, this doership is understood in three distinct ways:
a. From the Absolute Standpoint (Nischay):
The Soul is the doer only of its own intrinsic modifications — its pure knowing and seeing nature.
b. From the Empirical Standpoint (Vyavahār Naya):
In relation to karmic association, the Soul is said to be the doer of karmic actions.
c. From the Conventional Standpoint (Upchār):
The Soul is said to be the doer of external activities like building, creating, acting in the world.
4. The Soul is the Consumer (Bhogta)
Every action has a result. This is evident.
From poison comes the result of poison
From sugar comes sweetness
Just as touching fire inevitably leads to burning, in the same way, inner states such as anger, attachment, and aversion give rise to corresponding results.
These results are experienced.
Thus, from the empirical standpoint, the Soul, being associated with these states, is also called the consumer (bhokta).
The Turning Point in the Journey:
Having understood these two propositions, the journey now presents two clear directions:
I. Continuing in Bondage
The Soul, being eternal and beginningless, continues its journey with karmic accumulation; both merit (shubh) and demerit (ashubh).
This cycle has been ongoing since infinity.
II. Moving Towards Liberation
The other path is to consciously move towards cleansing karmic bondage, allowing the intrinsic purity (shuddh swaroop) of the Soul to manifest fully.
Liberation is not something newly created; it is the complete revelation of what already is.
A crucial shift in understanding:
Even now, from the empirical standpoint, the Soul continues as Karta (doer) and Bhokta (consumer).
However, if there arises a true inner intent for freedom, then effort must shift towards:
👉 Remaining in pure knowing (upayog)
👉 Observing every arising state without identification
Guiding Insight from Shri AtmaSiddhi Shastra composed by Shrimad Rajchandra ji.
Karta bhokta karm no,
Vibhaav varte jyaay,
Vrutti vahe nij bhaav ma,
Thayo akarta tyaay.
Where the Soul abides in its own nature, it is no longer the doer.
Understanding Karma in Real Time:
Karma will continue to rise (uday).
Situations will unfold.
Thoughts will arise.
These are outcomes of past associations.
However, an important precision:
👉 The Soul is responsible for its current inner state (bhaav)
👉 The unfolding of events is governed by karmic fruition
The Subtle Trap:
If I respond with:
“I will tolerate this”
“I will act positively”
Even then, subtle doership persists.
Good responses → Shubh karma
Negative responses → Ashubh karma
In both cases, bondage continues.
The Shift from Doing to Knowing:
The core effort is ->
Witness every occurrence
Witness every thought
Witness even the response
Not suppressing, not internally reacting or getting involved/attached with the external reaction, but knowing
Key Principle:
Kriya te karm
(Action is karma)
Upyog e dharm
(Pure awareness is dharma)
Parinaame bandh
(Bondage depends on inner state)
What Then is True Effort?
To ensure:
Actions may continue at the body level
But internally, awareness remains steady
Attachment and aversion gradually dissolve
Only then does karmic accumulation begin to reduce.
The Final Clarity:
The choice is subtle but absolute.
Continue accumulating karma (even refined, even “good”)
OR
Move towards dissolution of karma
The second requires ->
Right vision
Right understanding
Right inner state
End Note:
Liberation is not an achievement in time.
It is the complete uncovering of the Soul’s true nature, free from all karmic coverings.
The journey has been infinite.
But the direction can change. And it can happen NOW.
