Acharya Umaswati
09.08 Mārgāchyavannīrjarārtham Parishodhavyāh Parishahāh
Audio: Sanskrit: मार्गाsच्यवननिर्जरार्थ परिसो ढव्याः परिषहाः।
Hindi: मार्ग से च्युत न होने और कर्मो को क्षय करने के लिए जो कष्ट सहने योग्य हो वो परिषह है।
09.08
English: Parishah consists of bearing hardships for the sake of staying on the right path and for eradicating the bondage of Karma.
If we come across any hardship or discomfort, we try to avert the same. For instance, if the weather is warm, we may turn on fan or resort to air conditioning. If it is cold, we may resort to heating. Similarly, if there are mosquitoes, gnats, etc. we may spray insecticides in order to annihilate them. We are thus used to lead a comfortable life. We hardly care to remember that resorting to such devices for the sake of our comfort would hurt insects and other minute living beings.
But the approach of a spiritual aspirant would be different. In tropical countries like India summers are warm but not unbearable, while winters are not too cold. A spiritual aspirant would therefore willingly face that weather and would not resort to air conditioning or heating. In U.S. and other countries in the temperate zone it may not be possible to survive in winter without some heating device. As such, he may have to resort to heating. His approach would thus be to avoid, to the extent possible, the measures that would cause violence. When necessary, he would resort to relatively innocent means for avoiding discomfort. If there are too many mosquitoes, for instance, he may try to avert their impact by a mosquito net or by fixing screens across the windows, but would not spray insecticides.
If such innocent means are not available, the spiritual aspirant would rather bear the hardships instead of resorting to violent devices. This may seem a little intriguing in this age, when we are used to making life very comfortable. The primary objective of the spiritual pursuit is, however, to prevent the acquisition of new Karma. For that purpose, the aspirant needs to avoid violence to the utmost possible extent. His objective would be to stay away from the bodily concerns. That is possible only if he ignores what happens to the body. Moreover, staying tuned to soul can reduce the impact of hardships and discomforts. In fact, the impact thereof can be neutralized, if one stays completely tuned that way. Moreover, a spiritual aspirant should remain aware that hardships arise as the consequence of Karma and need to be borne with patience.
