Sadhvi Vishrut Vibha
Once, there lived an Acharya called Aasaadabhuti in Vatsbhumi. He had a number of disciples. Suddenly an epidemic broke out in the town. Due to this the disciples fell ill and many were on deathbed. The Acharya used to make them accept Santhaara. The Acharya expected that the disciples would return after death and tell him whether there was any heaven or not. Thus, years rolled on. Many of his disciples performed Santhaara, but nobody returned.
One day, Vinod, his favorite disciple was in the last stage of life. The Acharya repeated the same thing to him. Vinod died, but he too never appeared before the Acharya.The Acharya thus, became convinced that there was no rebirth or heaven. All his disciples died one by one, but no one came back. So he felt that whatever he had practiced was of no use. He lost his faith in religion and renounced the order.
Vinod, residing in heaven, came to know through his divine power that the Acharya had deviated from his monkhood. Vinod had great affection for his Acharya. He wanted to bring him back to the right path. To serve this purpose, Vinod created a village by his divine power. The Acharya, roaming, happened to come in the village and stayed there for six months. There, he neither felt hungry nor thirsty. He did not even realize, how six months passed away. After this period, the Acharya departed from that village. In order to test the stability of the Acharya in religion, Vinod created six boys and sent them to him.
The first child, named Prithvikaaya, came to the Acharya. The child was adorned with ornaments. Acharya thought, "I should take the ornaments so that I can lead a comfortable life." He forced the child to remove his ornaments and give these to him. The child said that he was under his refuge in that dense forest, so it was not proper on the part of the Acharya to do that. He further said that he had expected him to be his protector, but the savior had become the destroyer. But the Acharya snatched all the ornaments and hid them in his 'jholi' and murdered the child. In the same way the other five children named Apkaaya, Tejaskaaya, Vaayukaaya, Vanaspatikaaya and Traskaaya came to the Acharya. The Acharya repeated the same procedure with all of them. Having taken the ornaments, he proceeded.
Vinod, who was in heaven, learnt through his divine power about this sinful act and concluded that his Acharya had totally given up the path of monkhood. Now, Vinod wanted to test his right faith (Samyaktva). So he again created a number of devotees through his divine power. Suddenly, they appeared before the Acharya. They did Vandana and requested the Acharya to take alms. The Acharya refused to do so. But the devotees forced him to open the 'jholi'. They found ornaments in it. The devotees were bewildered at the sight. The Acharya was ashamed and proceeded ahead.
Suddenly, Vinod, riding on an elephant came to see his Acharya. Getting down from the elephant, he did Vandana and said, "How lucky I am to get this golden opportunity to see you. Please accept the alms from me." The Acharya said, "I am on fast today so I cannot take anything." Meanwhile one of the devotees pulled the jholi from the Acharya and tried to fill it with modakas.
Vinod with folded hands and the Guru's inner consciousness awakens.
Looking at the ornaments in the jholi, the devotee could not believe it. They recalled their past events and asked him, "What is this? These are our son's ornaments. Where are our sons? Have you killed them?" Hearing these questions the Acharya shivered with fear.
Now, Vinod came into his original form and folded both the hands and said to his Guru, "You are a great scholar of Jain Agamas. So it is not right on your part to think that there is no re-birth. You know that there is immense happiness in heaven. Bodies enjoy pleasure and become unaware of the passing time. This is the cause of my delay." Now, the inner consciousness of the Acharya awakened. He repented for his mistakes. He came back to his upaashraya and became firm in his religious path.
Many hurdles come in our way, but we should never lose faith under any circumstance. We should keep proceeding towards our goal with full confidence. Only then we shall definitely be successful.
