Panca Sutram: 5. Shant Sahavas Sutra

The disciple asked, “Oh Lord! I have a curiosity. I hope it will be fulfilled surely. How can I attain peaceful co-existence living in a group.

Everybody likes joy or happiness, but a man bereft of peace cannot attain that ever for a moment. Is it possible to have company or co-existence of a group and also peace?

The Guru told, “Oh Disciple! It is a fact that abhaavitatma practitioner can never attain peace even being alone and though living in a group also bhavitatma practitioner can never be restless.

The Disciple asked Oh Lord! I want to know who is bhavitatma.? Acharya replied “Oh Disciple, “The one who engrosses himself mentally with truth is bhavitatama”

Where ever there is a question of following/accepting the qualities of others being alone in a group, he needs others and where there is question of destruction of quality, he ignores others, that bhavitatma monk attains eternal peace.

The disciple said, “Oh Lord! I wish to know the reason for practitioner who aspires to achieve highest peace but he cannot achieve it.

Acharya Said “Oh Disciple! Didn’t you listen to the saying that ignorance is the highest sin of all the sins”?

It is said, “Among all the sins, anger etc, ignorance is very painful because of the cover of ignorance, a person cannot know what is for his good and what is for him bad”.

“Oh Lord! I wish to listen to you for getting rid from the ignorance. If it don’t bother you, please do explain me.

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The Guru said, “Oh Disciple! There are eleven causes of lack of peace peacelessness or restlessness:

1. The instinct or attitude of mutual doubt
2. The absolute state of mind.
3. Absence of mutual help.
4. The priority to the fulfillment of one's selfish instinct/interest.
5. The absence of equanimity.
6. The indifference attitude towards the discipline/rules.
7. The absence of dutifulness.
8. The absence of tolerance.
9. The absence of discipline and complete freedom.
10. Ignorance with regard to the system of discipline and disciplined.
11. Indiscretion.
    

Mutual doubt arises due to duality of views. Hence unity destroys and because of lack of unity, peace cannot be obtained there. The great powerful union of vrajjis was destroyed because of doubt.

The relativity is powerful sutra or doctrine of peace. Through that one perceives at the other unanimously. Where there is no mutual relativity, religious organization destroys for sure.

It is very true that in being close to soul, others are not required. But being physically close, our work cannot go on smoothly without mutuality and relativity.

Due to developed mutuality the development of helpfulness is possible. Where ever there is helpfulness, the mutual love naturally arises.

Wherever there is mutual love, selfish nature becomes subsidiary over there and where there is no selfishness, automatically the faith increases.

One person’s instinct of selfishness creates reaction in the minds of others to unimaginable extent.

The set of rules are different to attain the self interest/selfishness and selflessness.

The person who ignores all the relations and gives preference to achieve only his self -motives is considered as selfish.

Selfishness is influenced by moha or delusion. It closes the eyes and insanes the psyche and brings in oddity or dissimilarity or inequality in every step.

The priority of selfish intellect and oddity or dissimilarity-both are synonymous words. The absence of discretion is oddity and its presence i.e. discretion is equanimity.

The disciple asked, “Oh Lord! How to perceive equally both the followers, the one who is always active and the one who is very lazy! This is a great question.

When the master or acharya behaves equally or the same with both the active and lazy disciples, the enthusiasm of the active disciple decreases or lessens.

Acharya said, “Oh Disciple! The monk is neither a slave nor a master. So there should not be an utterance which produces oddity” and one should not blame for this.

“He imparted me knowledge so I will do his service” and “he did offered a service to me so I will impart knowledge to him”, one should never think in this way. But by understanding it to be one’s self- righteousness (Atma-dharma)one should render service and impart knowledge.

Look at the noble duty leaving the intelligence of give and take policy with the attitude of dutifulness. Equanimity will be practiced and as a result, the self- interest will be achieved on its own.

All types of support from monks is carried on the basis of icca samacari, so if anybody helps the others or not, depends and upon each individual.

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The main cause of break of mutual relations is fear and shame. One sadhak obeys the rules and the other neglects the same. One is disbeliever of obeying the rules and the other has an attitude of negligence toward the rules. The obedient one, feels shame at the behavior of the negligent sadhak The careless sadhak is scared of the obedient. Fear and hatred both breaks the inner-relationships in the future.

The advice of obedience cannot be given only with the feeling of hatred. So win the extended hatred through expanding love and advice in such a way that the less intelligent can win over his weakness.

All cannot understand through the same procedure. So apply through different procedures like delicacy, medium and harsh style.

It doesn’t matter if the division of food and daily activities is done or not but the raise of dissimilar intelligence level must be solved.

Two among the three persons are eating according to their wish and the third one is neglected. This kind of negligence is the clear cause of absence/lack of peaceful co-existence.

Three nuns are directed to be included in a particular task and the third one is kept aloof and not included in any task. This kind of discrimination is the clear cause of absence of peaceful co-existence.

The main mantra of peaceful co-existence is all the nuns/monks should eat together and work together.

A person experiences pain, when unequal distribution of load is given. This is the main cause of non- peaceful co-existence.

During illnesses particular monk/nun is taken care nicely and other one is ignored. The dissimilar behavior in rendering service is clear cause of non-peaceful co-existence.

On committing any mistake, some monks are scolded severely and few other monks are not told anything. This again is the clear cause of non-peaceful co-existence.

The monk, who distributes equal weight, renders service equally in the state of illness and threatens equally if any mistake is committed; such monks with pure code of conduct give birth to peaceful co-existence.

Discriminating - intellect produces/creates discrimination and indiscriminating intellect creates indiscrimination. Oddity (vishamt) lay doesn’t day in any work but it is produced by discriminating-intellect.

When indiscriminating intellect gets stable, then oddity /discriminating intellect does not originate. Equanimate-mind produce equanimities and odd-mind produce oddity.

The One who wants peaceful co-existence, he should judge the self internally and mentally through their pure feelings. He should nicely weight his mind himself through pure feeling and intuition.

All sorts of dissimilarity is caused by substance, time, space, and feeling. But monk having equanimity doesn’t experience dissimilarities in it.

When different groups of monks/nuns meet together, they shall maintain mutual amiable adjustment along themselves.

If there is gatherance of many group leaders in one place, they should use their discretion in rendering religious weight to their cooperants so that mal-adjustment doesn’t occur. If because of partiality, absolute decision is made, then it leads to mal-adjustment which is the cause of non-peaceful co-existence.

The group leader who doesn’t gets full co-operation from his/her followers, looking at this state, other group leaders should take only moderate service from his/her followers.

The company of the one, who fails in bearing the physical pain and sometimes even mental strain, proves to be restless, which means that because of their intolerance, they spread resentment in self, others and in the whole environment.

For the peaceful co-existence sometimes younger monk should tolerate the elder monk and vice-versa.

If one bcomes accidently, emotional or anger-passioned, then other monk should observe silence.

If spontaneously one can’t observe silence, then should hold the breath for a moment.

If this is also not possible then leave that place and for pacifying anger go and sit elsewhere.

Emotion of one person enhances the other’s anger or passion and in its absence he becomes restful or peaceful in a moment.

When the passionate person looks at other person being passionful, then the ego gets nourishment which leads to longevity.

When the emotion is not responded, he/she becomes peaceful or impassioned on its own with repentance. When the emotion is not responded, it becomes peaceful on its own with repentance.

One person again and again commits mistake due to laziness but when other alerts him/her, he becomes intolerant. Such a state is the great cause of non peaceful co-existence.

So monk who wishes deeply for peaceful co-existence should develop the power of tolerance.

Till the monk experiences maturity in self-experience, one should follow the experiences of the seniors because the company of undisciplined meditators generally proves to be the cause of restlessness.

Where the discipline is applied through psychological methods, indiscipline automatically doesn’t arise.

Passionately teaching strictly does not bring change in any one. With this approach the disobedient develops revengeful feelings and becomes reckless.

The one who succeeds in realizing the mistakes, to his followers in depth moderately, is the right teacher for bringing a change.

The efficient leader who succeeds to realize the consequences of the mistakes done by the followers, he really does the task of melting the iron and again remolding it with other iron.

The head should not use the term, ‘It is my order’, several times. If in some situations it is used, then there, maintenance of silence is beneficial for the followers.

The newly initialed monk/nun lacks discretion, he himself not only remains peaceless but makes others also peaceless. So such a way should be shown to them, that their discretion develops.

No more preaching but give only suggestions because preaching influences only gross mind or conscious mind.

The suggestology really influences the subtle mind astonishingly/strangely. So the learned monk/nun should treat the discretionless monk/nun with the suggestology method.

The best monk should through his entire humble efforts, cherishfully attains peaceful co-existence.