Class notes from 4/15/08

4/15/08

And arihant etc. are param mangal (chattari mangal- there are only 4 magals, arihant. Siddh, sadhu and kevli pannato- kevli dvara pranayelo dharm) By doing their bhakti, param mangal hota hai. Meaning of mangal- that which brings sukh and takes away dukh. Thus based on all the above reasons, arihants are mangal since we are able to get rid of dukh and bring sukh through them.

Manglacharan karne ka karan:

If some one were to ask as to why we did manglacharan at the start of the granth then the response would be that we did manglacharan first so as to ensure obstacle free completion of the granth. Additionally, manglacharan karne se gyan se vinay aata hai (ahankar nahi), shishtachar ka palan hota hai, naastikta ka parihar aur punya ka uparjan hota hai.

One question: We have seen several people from other religions that do not do manglacharan and yet they seem to complete their books without any obstacles- why is this so? People from other religions who write books have a lot of tivra moh and therefore have mithyatva kashay and write accordingly. If by doing such mangal, their moh becomes less, they wonʼt be able to write their books! When we write books, we want to write about vitrag and if we have tivra moh kashay, we wonʼt be able to write about vitrag. Therefore we need to do manglacharan to reduce our moh and write about vitrag.

Additionally, if someone were to believe the above reasoning, there still arises another question that even the ones that do not do such manglacharan seem to enjoy happiness and there seems to be no sorrow in their lives whereas we have seen unhappiness in the lives of people who do such manglacharan? What is the reasoning here?

We (jeev) have several types and several (in number) types of vishuddh nad sanklesh parinams built over past lives. When these karmas come into being (uday hota hai) , they cause some results. For example, someone who has built a lot of wealth (and karmas to support that) in the past lives, will appear to be wealthy in this life even when he does seem to put no effort in earning and there seems to be no debt. It oculd be opposite for someone who has built a lot of debt (and associatedkarmas) in the past lives. Such a person seems to be subject to debt even after making every effort to earn. But if we think objectively about it, then earning money is a cause of wealth and not of debt. Similarly, anyone who has built a lot of punya karma in the past seems to be able to be happy and successful even without doing such mangal. And the ones who have built pap karma in the past seem to be unhappy and unsuccessful even after doing such mangal. But again if we think objectively about it, doing such mangal is a cause of happiness only and not unhappiness. This way it is proved that doing manglacharan is mangal.

Then again there is a question as to why several devs who worship Jainism are not helping the ones who do mangal and not punishing the ones who do not do mangal. Hereʼs the response: for a jeev to feel sukh, dukh, the strongest and biggest reason is that jeevʼs own karmas. (So "karma ka uday" is "samarth karan" for the feeling of sukh - dukh.) It is based on that jeevʼs karma, that external factors become appropriately instrumental (bahya nimit). Therefore the jeevs that have pap karma ka uday, they donʼt get help from devs etc. and the ones that do have punya karma ka uday seem to get help and do not seem to get punished for wrong doing.

Additional notes:

Vikas Ji asked us to think about paap. Like if we kill somebody or if we do "chori" , we feel guilt of doing something bad.But do we really think that way and feel the guilt when we eat at night or eat "kandmul" etc.Also he asked us to think if we really believe that Arihant etc are the only 4 mangal.