Page 26 - Vedanta Sandesh_Aug 2020

Jivanmukta

If a woman enters our Ashram we will hack

her to pieces with a sword so declared a Tibetan Lama to me once.

The lama was probably exaggerating, yet his words point to their
deep seated desire not to get mixed up with worldly affairs which

tend to cause violent mental agitations. Compared with the mod-

erns who mingle freely with lustful women every day and yet claim

to be leading a life of unadulterated Brahmacharya, the ancients,
it would seem, were neither so saintly nor so self-restrained. What

silly, good-for-nothing cowards were those ancients ! abject slaves

to their senses ! superstitious idiots ! How ridiculous! They had to

retreat to lonely forests to preserve their Brahmacharya ! Whatever
be the notion of our moderns about their forefathers, the Buddhist

lamas still retreat into such solitudes even today. They do not be-

lieve it possible to be wedded to worldly life and yet be ascetic.

Swayambhoonatham is a lovely solitary place so occupied by Bud-

dhist monks. It is situated to the west of Khatmandu, One day I

went there for darshan in the company of some devotees from the

capital. That lonely, peaceful hermitage, standing on the top of a
small hill, captivated my heart completely. There I saw several

beautiful temples dedicated to the five Pandavas, etc. In the chief

temple there is a light kept burning day and night and it is never

suffered to go out. At the temple we met the chief lama and had a
conversation with him. We were told that the temple had been in

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