My friends⁩ and I visited Pujya Muni Shri Harshyashvijayji MS, disciple of Pujya Acharya Shri Vijay Kirtiyashsuriji MS, who is gracing my Sangh for Chaturmas this year.

The conversation with the Muni Bhagwant was extremely, extremely enlightening. Sharing excerpts of our confabulation here hoping that others will benefit too. I would heavily suggest reading and also reflecting on the following words of the Muni Bhagwant:

6th October 2023. 8.35 pm

‘What are your goals?’ We smile, look at each other, and then at Pujya Munishri, and giggle. ‘It’s a trick question!’ I complain. Do smart people not decide their goals well in advance?, he enquired.

‘You are about 20 now. Let’s be generous and assume you have 54 more years of your life left: one-third of which you will spend sleeping. You now have 36 years left. You will certainly spend another one-third working, assuming eight hours a day — although of course, this figure is way too less. You have 18 years remaining, of which, you will get married, engage in different activities, experience friction at home or outside, go through bad days.

How many years now remain with you to experience the sukh that you have laboured so hard for? Five to six at best? Is it reasonable to slog so much for a period so short, and for something that will send you to inferno for a minimum of 10,000 years?

On the other hand, if you were to do saadhna here (as a monk), you would not only experience happiness throughout this lifetime, but are also guaranteed happiness in the hereafter — a minimum of 10,000 years in devlok. Although of course, we have to bear in mind that Dharma ought to be done not for these comforts, as every sukh in the sansara after all is worth renouncing.

Forget afterlife, forget Moksh: even the happiness that we Sadhu Bhagwants experience every wakeful moment of our lives is so pure! Our life is free of stress, tension, unhappiness. Could the quality of mental peace in your lives ever match ours?

Does this make sense to you?’

We say, it does, but we don’t feel like acting on it. ‘Is this because of a shortcoming in our faith?’, he asks. I say, ‘Perhaps not lack of faith but…’ ‘We’re too distracted right now’, N said. To this, Bhagwant said, ‘It is indeed a matter of priorities. You feel that it’s fun to enjoy life right now, disregarding what the future holds for us. Gyani Bhagwants know what life will be 50 years hence, which is why they have warned us well in advance! All of this is simple mathematics, you need to start taking life seriously and let go of the imagination that life is something you can easily waste away.

When I was in school, I was so fond of cricket that I watched a cricket match and went down to play even during my Board examinations! But consequently when I joined my father’s work I lost my long-nurtured interest in cricket as my focus had entirely shifted to work. Similarly, when your focus changes, you too will easily begin to let go of things you think are important. Instead of suffering much worse at a later point, why not voluntarily accept discomfort as and when it comes?

N asks, ‘You’d mentioned in the sermon that we have previously taken Diksha infinite times, but those were all wasted away. Is it because we did not observe the monastic conduct appropriately in those births?’

‘We may have in fact observed the best monastic conduct! But we could not make any of these Dikshas fruitful because all these times, we thought of renouncing materialistic comforts and taking Diksha only so that we may get far superior materialistic comforts in the next births. If we are to understand that worldly comforts are dangerous and turn away from them, then even this one diksha will be immensely fruitful.’

N said, ‘Why then should we even pursue the sukh of Moksh? Isn’t that sukh too, after all?’ ‘Is the pleasure derived from drinking milk the same as the pleasure derived from drinking alcohol? Would you compare the two? The joy offered by things material is radically different from the joy of Moksh. There are four ways in which the sukh of Moksh is different from the sukh of the sansara!’, Munishri explained.

‘Firstly, the sukh of sansara is always dependent. Worldly happiness necessarily comes along with a dependence on things and people. Today most of you have never-ending needs: “I want this, I want that. I need shoes from this brand, a phone from this company, food only of this quality…” You talk of becoming independent, but are in fact more dependent than ever! In fact, you swell with pride when you say, ‘I can never live without these things.’ Aren’t these double standards? Only and only the sukh of Moksh is truly and completely independent of everything and everyone! Once we rid ourselves of the dependence on the body, we attain the independent bliss of Moksh.

Secondly, the sukh of sansara is always declining. Let’s say, for instance, what is your favourite food?’ ‘Pizza’, N says. ‘Say you take the first bite of a pizza. Compare that with the joy you experience while taking the second. Now compare the latter to the joy felt while indulging in the third! Does your happiness remain constant with every bite?’ We reply in the negative. ‘You must have also studied the law of Diminishing Marginal Utility in Economics. The same applies here in case of all the sukh of the sansara. The sukh which you attain on obtaining any materialistic comfort, gradually begins to decline, propelling their self to want for more, and thus feel unhappy. This, however, is not the case with Moksh. The sukh here never sees or will see any reduction in happiness.

There are two other differences, which we shall examine hereafter…’