Page 97 - Faith Personified

concentration while exercising this – all are an integral
part of the religious outlook.

6) The major cause of regret and sorrow should be the

misdeeds of the past that resulted in the accumulation
of inauspicious karmas and not the incapability to fast
which is the result of those karmas. O Lord! I would
have tickled my tastebuds, surely, would have
obstructed other people from fasting, would have

committed the sins of dislike and hatred towards
penance, would have insulted and ignored those who
fast, would have succumbed to the dreadful pleasures

of the senses. As a result, I am facing such distractions
in my path of penance. Arre! How evil is my soul
which has become prey to such misconduct and
thoughts.” Thus remorsefully condemning your
misdeeds is a sign of glowing religious outlook.

Q. Is such a religious outlook enough to take you to the
heights of non-attachment and omniscience?

Ans. While eating the rice in which the other fasting saints
had spat, Kurgadu Muni might have thought,

“Arre! Such dreadful sins I must have committed in the past!

I despise this body which has made the soul a slave of food
and drinks. It is this temporary body which engaged the soul
in misconduct and misthought. If we feel hurt and insulted,
it’s the body that feels and not the soul. Just to please this

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