Pratikraman: The Key That Resolves All Conflicts (Full Version) Pratikraman: The Key That Resolves All Conflicts | Page 108

[3] These Are Not Lord Mahavir’s Pratikramans 49 padakmanu, they will reply that it has to do with doing pratikraman, but not a single mistake gets cleansed. If, despite using soap and clean water, the stain on the cloth does not go away, is it because one used the wrong soap, or was there something wrong with the water, or is the one doing the washing at fault? Not even a single mistake is reduced. Why is that? One does so many pratikramans every day; you are aware of that, are you not? Have you gone to a maharaj to do pratikraman? Questioner: Yes, I have. (46) Dadashri: Despite doing padakmanu, why has not a single mistake been erased? It is because the pratikraman is done in the Maagdhi language. Even when a parrot says, ‘Ram has come…Ram has gone…’ even when the parrot speaks of moksha, etc., what good does it do for us? So to take the Lord’s name like a parrot is the same as doing pratikraman without the understanding. Mistakes can only be cleansed if pratikraman is done with the understanding. That is why I told the maharaj to conduct pratikraman in Gujarati. Only if people understand it will they realize that they are doing pratikraman, and that previously they did not do it correctly. Should there not be a benefit of doing pratikraman? One Attains According to the Goal Questioner: You said that during the time of the middle twenty-two Tirthankars, people used to do ‘shoot-on-sight’ pratikraman, they were aware from moment to moment, and they used to do pratikraman for both worldly happiness and moksha. Dadashri: No, not for that kind of happiness. Many did it to attain liberation, many had other intents and for some it was happiness. With this pratikraman, whatever one’s intent was, he derived the benefits accordingly.