Pratikraman: The Key That Resolves All Conflicts (Full Version) Pratikraman: The Key That Resolves All Conflicts | Page 117

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Pratikraman
This is How History Was Created
Questioner: Why have Jains been asked to do
samvatsari (annual holy day when Jains repent for all their
wrongdoings through the year)? What is the history behind it?
Dadashri: Do pratikraman in whichever manner you
can. That is what it is. The Lord has said to ‘sweep’ every day;
‘For the liabilities and faults created in the night, do it in the
morning as well as at night, do it twice a day.’ The first thing He
said was to do ‘shoot-on-sight’ pratikraman.
So one will ask, ‘Sir, do I have to carry a ‘gun’ with me
all the time?’ The answer is, ‘Use the ‘gun’ in the morning for
wrong actions of the night and in the night for wrong actions of
the day.’ Then out of the thousands of people, two came up and
said, ‘Sir, what should we do? We are not able to do it at night
or in the morning.’ So the Lord told them to do pakshik
pratikraman (fortnightly pratikraman). For those who could
not do that either, the Lord said, ‘Do it quarterly.’ The Lord has
to show some way of doing it, does He not? Eventually, the
Lord had to go as far as to say, ‘At least do samvatsari (annual)
pratikraman.’ Do it on the day of samvatsari, at least. Do a
collective pratikraman and say, ‘I am asking for forgiveness
from everyone.’
Therefore, in this day and age, forget about the ‘shoot-
on-sight’ pratikraman; people cannot even manage to do
pratikraman at the end of the day, once a week or even once
a month. That is why it is done once a year, and that even
without the understanding. They wear new clothes and make a
fashion parade out of it. Therefore, no one actually does true
pratikraman and that is why the faults keep increasing. One
can only call it pratikraman if the faults decrease.
The world continues to exist because of atikraman and
it will end with pratikraman.
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