Adhyatmagyan Praveshika - Book Summary

Here's a comprehensive summary of the Jain text "Adhyatmagyan Praveshika" by Atmanandji Maharaj, based on the provided pages:

Book Title: Adhyatmagyan Praveshika (Introduction to Spiritual Knowledge) Author: Atmanandji Maharaj Publisher: Shrimad Rajchandra Sadhna Kendra Koba (Managed by Shri Sadbhut Seva Sadhna Kendra)

Overall Purpose:

The book is designed as an introductory guide for those seeking spiritual knowledge, particularly within the Jain tradition. It aims to provide a foundational understanding of key spiritual concepts in a simple, question-and-answer format. The ultimate goal is to ignite a deeper interest in studying the works of great saints and acharyas, leading the reader towards self-realization and spiritual liberation (Moksha).

Key Themes and Chapters Summarized:

Manushya Bhav (Human Existence):
- Definition: Human existence is a temporary lease for the soul, which has been transmigrating through the cycle of birth and death for a long time, to inhabit a physical body with five senses and a mind.
- Excellence of Human Birth: It's considered excellent because it provides a unique opportunity for the soul to attain true discrimination and understanding.
- Causality of Welfare: Not all human souls achieve welfare. Welfare is attained by those who, through righteous effort, strive to understand their true nature with the guidance of a true Guru and scriptures. Those who succumb to laziness, slander, violence, and other negative tendencies will not attain welfare.
- Consequences of Not Attaining Welfare: Such individuals become engulfed in worries and afflictions in this life, remain restless due to greed until death, and suffer greatly in future lives.
- Rarity of Human Birth: Human birth is considered rare and precious, like a wish-fulfilling gem. This is evident from the vast numbers of beings in lower life forms compared to humans, as well as the insights from scriptures and the teachings of saints.
- Reasons for Rarity: The soul's progress is most evident in humans, as seen in scientific and artistic advancements. This human form is also a result of immense accumulated merit from previous virtuous actions.
- Goal of Human Birth: The ultimate purpose is to achieve complete knowledge and bliss, which is Moksha. This highest purpose can only be accomplished in a human life.
- How to Make Human Birth Successful: The path to success involves seeking a true Guru and associating with them, studying scriptures, practicing good conduct, and cultivating virtues like contentment, simplicity, truthfulness, and compassion. Constant remembrance of the qualities of Gurus and the divine, along with cultivating a pure and focused mind, is crucial.
The Nature and Attainment of Happiness:
- Definition of Happiness: Happiness is generally defined as the experience derived from sensory pleasures, but this is not true happiness.
- Why Sensory Happiness is Not True: It is fleeting, temporary, and dependent on external factors. The association with desired objects is not permanent and changes according to destiny. When these associations end, individuals experience sorrow.
- The Illusion of Happiness: Even when desired objects are constantly available, individuals do not experience true happiness but merely imagine themselves to be happy. As soon as one desire is fulfilled, another arises, keeping the soul in a state of agitation.
- Inability to Discern True Happiness: Those who have never experienced spiritual bliss mistake sensory pleasure for true happiness. In old age and at the time of death, when sensory pleasures cease, individuals experience helplessness and profound sorrow.
- The Nature of True Happiness: True happiness is described as unique, spiritual, independent of external objects, incomparable, infinite, and without increase or decrease.
- Benefit of This Understanding: Recognizing this leads to turning towards the path of eternal happiness and ultimately attaining it.
- Experiencing True Happiness: The beginning of eternal happiness is seen in the gradual development of spiritual qualities like forgiveness, contentment, simplicity, and truthfulness. When these qualities are present, joy and peace are experienced.
- Achieving This Happiness: This happiness can be attained in this era through personal effort, scripture, logic, and self-experience. The practical path involves:
  - Seeking and constantly associating with a true Guru.
  - If a Guru is not accessible, seeking spiritual company, studying scriptures, and discerning one's true nature.
  - Living a virtuous life free from addiction, with peace, contentment, simplicity, humility, helpfulness, and compassion.
  - Constantly remembering the qualities of Gurus and the divine.
  - Meditating on the pure, blissful, and indivisible nature of the soul.
- Key Principles for Attainment: True spiritual happiness can be achieved through faith, consistent practice, detachment, spiritual company, and unwavering resolve.
The Ideal Householder (Sadgrhasth):
- Definition: A householder who follows the path of righteousness.
- Following Righteousness: This involves being truthful in dealings, seeking refuge in true deities, Gurus, and dharma, and striving to know one's true self.
- Life's Principles: Such a householder strives for dharma, wealth, desire, and liberation harmoniously, prioritizing righteous means of earning and just desires.
- Daily Religious Practices: Dedicating time to devotion, scripture study, and contemplation of truth. Also, practicing charity to deserving individuals and seeking the company of good people.
- Household and Earning: Fostering family prosperity, showing forgiveness, cultivating humility, maintaining cleanliness, adhering to duties, and prioritizing health. Practicing honesty in business dealings and keeping promises. Encouraging virtuous literature and arts, and offering hospitality.
- Qualities of an Intelligent Householder: Devotion to God (Jina), respect for Gurus, affection for virtuous beings, charitable giving, study of spiritual truths, adherence to vows, and maintaining pure faith.
- Discipline of a Householder: Adhering to the twelve vows (five minor vows, three quality vows, and four training vows) and progressing through eleven stages of discipline.
- Ultimate Fruit: The ultimate outcome of upholding householder duties with increasing interest in self-control is the attainment of the monastic path and liberation.
Charity (Daan Dharma):
- Definition: Giving away one's wealth and possessions for the welfare of oneself and others.
- Benefits of Charity: Reduces greed, increases worthiness, accumulates merit, and enables spiritual practitioners to progress in their practices.
- Societal Welfare: Charity used for worthy causes contributes to societal progress, supporting institutions like orphanages, schools, hospitals, and homes for the elderly.
- Types of Charity: Primarily five types: food, knowledge, medicine, fearlessness (not causing fear), and shelter for renunciates.
- Qualities of a Donor: Faith, contentment, devotion, knowledge, detachment, forgiveness, and strength.
- Who to Give To: Charity should be given to deserving individuals who are earnest in their pursuit of knowledge and self-control.
- How to Give: With devotion, humility, and with things that aid the growth of knowledge and self-control.
- Giving When No Deserving Person is Found: Even in such cases, charity should be given out of compassion to the poor, hungry, thirsty, or those suffering from other afflictions.
- The Best Charity: The best charity is the charity of knowledge (Gyan Daan), also called Dharma Daan.
- Why Knowledge Charity is Best: While other charities provide temporary happiness, the charity of knowledge leads to eternal bliss and permanent liberation from the cycle of birth and death.
- Who Can Give Knowledge Charity: True Gurus and saints who possess ultimate spiritual knowledge and virtuous conduct.
- Glory of Charity: Charity, when performed with understanding, brings welfare in this world and the next, and can lead to Moksha.
The Nature of the Guru:
- Types of Gurus: Three main types:
  1. Excellent (like a raft): Those who are liberated themselves and help others to be liberated.
  2. Mediocre (like paper): Those who accumulate merit but cannot liberate themselves or others.
  3. Inferior (like a stone): Those who are themselves bound and cause their followers to be bound.
- What is a True Guru (Sadguru): A great soul qualified to provide specific guidance in spiritual practice to seekers.
- Qualities of a Sadguru: Self-knowledge (self-realization), equanimity, non-attachment to a fixed abode, inspiring teachings about the self, and profound knowledge of the essence of all scriptures.
- Sadguru vs. True Person: While there are similarities, the status of a Sadguru is higher. A true person can be achieved through self-identification, but becoming a Sadguru requires additional qualities.
- Incomplete Qualities: The fewer the qualities a person possesses, the lesser their status as a Sadguru.
- Attaining Knowledge Without a Guru: Knowledge cannot be attained without the guidance of a Sadguru. While some may attain it through past-life practices, they have always had a Sadguru in their previous lives.
- How a Sadguru is Helpful:
  - They have direct experience of the spiritual path.
  - They possess comprehensive knowledge of the path to liberation.
  - Their profound and experienced words dispel the darkness of ignorance and doubts.
  - Their very presence, character, and teachings inspire and guide the disciple.
- What to Do if a Sadguru is Not Found: Continue the sincere search for truth, associate with seekers, and practice dharma. Seek out Gurus during pilgrimages, as they often reside in secluded places.
- Why Worship a Sadguru: Worshipping a Sadguru aligns one's consciousness with theirs, fosters the perception of their virtues, eradicates misguided conduct, and leads to self-realization.
- The Importance of Sadguru's Grace: The text emphasizes that the Guru's grace is indispensable for spiritual progress.
Introduction to Scriptures:
- What are Scriptures: The words of great souls who have attained spiritual knowledge and bliss. The original source is the Omniscient Lord.
- The Essence of Scriptures: Scriptures primarily aim to establish peace and describe all experiences within the context of this ultimate peace.
- Equality of Knowledge: The knowledge of enlightened beings and the Omniscient Lord is considered true knowledge. While the Omniscient Lord's knowledge is perfect and direct, and an enlightened being's knowledge may be limited and indirect, both offer teachings of non-attachment and truth.
- Which Scriptures to Study: Those that preach non-attachment, increase dispassion and detachment, do not promote sectarianism or debate, clearly establish truths with evidence, are free from internal contradictions, preach pure self-knowledge and good conduct, and explain how to overcome faults.
- How to Study Scriptures: Read and understand them, ask knowledgeable individuals for clarification, reflect on their meaning, take notes, and recite and teach them.
- Taking a Vow for Study: Regular, systematic study with spiritual company is beneficial. True welfare comes from understanding and believing the core principles of dharma, which leads to discernment.
- Fruit of Scriptural Study: Studying scriptures, especially with the guidance of a Sadguru or spiritual company, yields great results in a short time. When a Guru is unavailable, scriptures serve as an essential guide and support, keeping the mind focused on the spiritual path. They reveal truths, resolve doubts, and guide the seeker towards Moksha.
True Knowledge and True Faith:
- True Knowledge: Understanding objects as they truly are.
- True Faith: Holding the same conviction about these truths.
- Raga-Mixed Knowledge is Ignorance: If knowledge of worldly objects leads to attachment, it is considered ignorance (Kajnan) rather than true knowledge.
- Knowledge of the Self: True knowledge is only achieved when one understands the self as distinct from the body and other material objects, through the guidance of a Sadguru. This involves discerning the self from non-self, the real from the unreal.
- Practice for True Knowledge: Reducing attachment to the body and increasing focus on the self through constant contemplation of truth.
- A True Sign of Knowledge: The cessation of outward-directed mental tendencies, a genuine decrease in worldly attachment, and the ability to perceive truth as it is. When virtues manifest in the soul, it indicates that knowledge has dawned.
- Knowledge Leading to Renunciation: Knowledge that doesn't lead to detachment from worldly tendencies and their outcomes is considered ignorance. True understanding involves developing renunciation alongside contemplation.
Good Conduct (Sadachar):
- Definition: Conduct that is aligned with excellent virtues and thoughts, and that is conducive to attaining the true "Self." It is also known as general ethics or righteousness.
- Practical Aspects: Avoiding deceit, false accusations, dishonesty in dealings, fraud, gambling, meat-eating, alcohol consumption, associating with prostitutes, hunting (intentional violence), major theft, and adultery. Adhering to government laws and paying taxes honestly.
- Ethics and Merit: Practicing general ethics cultivates worthiness, which, under the guidance of a Sadguru, can lead to the manifestation of spiritual qualities.
- Importance of Ethics: Without such ethical grounding, true dharma cannot manifest.
- The Householder's Perspective: A householder seeking spiritual liberation must first establish the root of unwavering ethical conduct within themselves; otherwise, teachings will be fruitless. Justice and righteousness in all aspects of life, including financial dealings, are essential.
- Cultivating Steadfastness in Good Conduct: Developing politeness, virtuousness, good intentions, courage, and promptness in performing good deeds.
Penance and its Worship (Tap and its Worship):
- Definition of Tap: Restraining desires.
- Types of Tap: Twelve types: six external (fasting, moderate eating, abstaining from certain foods, solitary dwelling, physical hardship) and six internal (penance/atonement, humility, serving the sick, self-study, meditation, and renunciation of possessions/possessiveness).
- Emphasis on Self-Study (Swadhyaya): While all types of penance are valuable, self-study offers the greatest benefit with minimal hardship. It leads to knowledge of the self, bondage, the path to liberation, Moksha, and what is to be accepted or rejected.
- Importance of Other Taps: All types of penance are to be practiced according to one's capacity. However, internal penance has a direct connection to the soul's state, and external penance is supportive of internal penance.
- Significance of Tap: True faith, true knowledge, true conduct, and true penance are the four pillars leading to Moksha. Penance is a crucial aspect of the path to liberation.
- How to Perform Tap for Welfare: Penance should not be performed with arrogance, for show, or for worldly recognition. The true purpose is to forget the past and remain absorbed in the eternal truth, understanding what is appropriate and inappropriate. Without this underlying intention, practices like chanting, penance, and meditation are ineffective.
Samadhi Death (Peaceful Death):
- Definition: Samadhi Death is the act of carrying manifested self-knowledge and other spiritual attainments with one into the next life through conscious effort at the time of death.
- Who Attains Samadhi Death: Only enlightened individuals can achieve true Samadhi Death.
- Devout Remembrance of God: A death preceded by devout remembrance of God is called Sugati Maran (a good rebirth), where the individual carries virtuous impressions but not necessarily fully manifested spiritual knowledge.
- Types of Death:
  - Pandit-Pandit Maran: Attained by the Tirthankaras (Arhants).
  - Pandit Maran: Attained by those with self-knowledge and self-control.
  - Bal-Pandit Maran: Attained by those with right faith but not necessarily full spiritual knowledge or self-control.
  - Bal Maran: Attained by those with faith in worldly religious practices but not spiritual realization.
  - Bal-Bal Maran: Attained by those completely averse to spirituality.
- When to Undertake Sallekhana: At the time of extreme old age, incurable illness, famine, or severe calamities, when death seems imminent, one may renounce the body for the protection of dharma. This practice is called Sallekhana.
- Procedure of Samadhi Death through Sallekhana: The process involves weakening passions and the physical body. It requires renouncing affection, enmity, attachments, and possessions. It involves forgiving all faults and asking for forgiveness. Ideally, one should join the company of monks and take monastic vows. If that's not possible, one should remain in a designated place, gradually abstaining from food and water, and finally all types of food. A portion of wealth should be designated for religious activities, and the rest distributed wisely. One should remember the divine and Gurus, and request loved ones to read spiritual texts when their chanting stops. This practice requires patience, determination, endurance, and courage.
- Fruit of Samadhi Death: Death is the true test of a practitioner. If Samadhi Death is not achieved, the sadhana is considered largely unsuccessful. Samadhi Death allows the carrying forward of the "three jewels" (right faith, right knowledge, right conduct) to the next life, leading to a good rebirth and eventual liberation. Therefore, preparation and constant effort towards it are essential.

The book concludes with a quote from Shrimad Rajchandra, emphasizing the importance of following any path that leads to the destruction of worldly impurities, regardless of religious affiliation. It is a foundational text for aspiring spiritual seekers within the Jain tradition, offering practical guidance and essential knowledge for their journey.