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Aptavani-2
situation once and for all.
True penance is one that you suffer and yet not let anyone
around you know of it. When you tell someone of your penance,
they will listen to you and sympathize with you. And by doing
so they take a cut in the ‘commission’ you gain from your
penance and they may even put you on the wrong path. So how
can you tell anyone of your penance? Who would give away a
commission to others without cause? The more sympathy you
get from others for your penance, the more penance you will
have to suffer. ‘We’ have not taken any sympathy from anyone.
If you take sympathy, you have to suffer more penance,
otherwise keep quiet and keep accumulating the penance within.
The heat of the penance is such that it will overflow, but then it
will simmer down. When the time comes, it will overflow for
sure. It is said that we need all four: Gnan, darshan, charitra and
tapa i.e. right knowledge, right vision, right conduct and penance
for moksha. True penance is that penance which comes to you
naturally. If you feel like eating potato fritters but you don’t get
them, then do penance that day!
Questioner : Dada why do you have calluses on the
soles of your feet?
Dadashri : They are from penance ‘we’ suffered in
search for the Soul. This penance was from a nail from the sole
of my shoe that has pierced through the inside of my shoe, I
would not take it out; I would continue wearing the shoes. It
was later that I discovered that I was on the wrong path; it was
the penance the Jains do. I used to believe that if the nail cut
through and affected the Soul, it meant that I had not attained
the soul and so I would continue to suffer that penance. But the
‘stains’ of that penance are still there. The stains of penance will
remain throughout the life. Later I understood that I was on the
wrong path and that the right penance was the penance that one
has to suffer internally.