18
The Flawless Vision
pride, attachment and greed. No one wishes to possess any of
these. These are your archenemies. Despite knowing this, people
continue to nurture their faults and make them stronger. In not
being able to see your own faults, you continue to sustain them.
You see only a handful of your glaring, big mistakes.
The Gnani Confesses His Own Faults
When a mistake arises, I know what perpetuates it. At times,
a person would approach me and in the presence of other people,
ask me how I had the audacity to call myself a Gnani when I
could not even get rid of my habit of smoking a water pipe. I
would admit to him that it was an obvious weakness on my part,
which I had been aware of for a long time. If I were to tell him that
the Gnanis are impervious to everything worldly, the smoking pipe
would have immediately realized that it had been granted an
additional longevity of twenty years, because its master is kind
and would protect it in any way that he could. I am very shrewd
and have never protected any of my mistakes. Do people not
generally defend themselves?
Questioner: Yes, they do so vehemently.
Dadashri: One man was using snuff. I asked him whether
he really needed to do so. He said that there was nothing wrong
in using snuff. I told him that he had no idea that he was increasing
his addiction for snuff by another twenty years. How does that
happen? Any event that takes place occurs only after its end has
been decided. People lengthen the event even after its end has
been determined. What can one do when the living augment and
reduce things in this way? By protecting their mistakes, people
lengthen the duration of their mistakes. To defend something which
is wrong or to say ‘Don’t worry, nothing will effect me.’ is a terrible
mistake.