What can one say about mother’s love? No words are ever enough to describe the unconditional and selfless love of a mother towards her child. Why does a mother love her child to this extent? Is it because the child is extremely deserving, earns a lot of money, has great educational qualifications or several gold medals to his credit? No! But despite this, a mother loves her child dearly.
A child could be absolutely undeserving, helpless, mindless and yet there would be no change in the mother’s affection towards him. Her kindness and love for the child would continue to flow unabated. Similarly, a devotee also calls out to the Lord saying, “I am undeserving, I am contemptible, I am foolish, I am helpless. Forget being able to offer something, I am not even capable of accepting anything. And yet, despite all this, Lord’s benevolence continues to drench me incessantly”.
The only condition though is that just like a child’s world revolves around his mother, similarly for a devotee, the world should comprise of only the Lord. Should something happen to the child, he has only one person to go to, only one name to call upon and that is his mother. Similarly, even a devotee can call upon the Neminath Bhagwan, cry from the bottom of his heart and weave every fiber of his being with the supreme soul. Such devout devotees are always fortunate recipients of Lord’s amity and compassion.Imagine the beatitude of such a devotee, imagine his bliss!
No worldly anxiety, no relations with the world, only a deep serenity filling up his life! So that we can also experience such bliss and soak ourselves in the supreme Neminath Bhagwan’s kindness, presented here is his biography. As we go through the account of his past lives, let us build such an everlasting association with him which enables us to effortlessly relinquish all our other worldly relations…
Once a soul achieves right belief, right knowledge and right conduct (3 jewels), it is thereafter that its reincarnations are counted. And after achieving the 3 jewels, even if it has to take some births and die some deaths, it will eventually be liberated for sure.
Despite having to co-exist with infinite other souls in a single body (i.e. a nigod jeev), the soul of the savior of all the three planes of existence (heaven, hell and the mortal world), that is, the supreme soul of Arihant Lord distinguishes itself from the other souls. This is because even while in Nigod, the Lord’s soul amply exhibits its quality of being addicted to the well-being and upliftment of others. Just like a diamond of the caliber of Kohinoor would outshine the surrounding coal in a coal mine, similarly with the grace of Guru (religious teacher), the Lord’s soul sparkles amidst infinite souls once it achieves the trinity of right belief, knowledge and conduct. When the Lord’s soul is 3 incarnations away from salvation, its desire of being a good samaritan for each and every soul and its desire for inspiring every soul to join the four fold Jain order reaches the zenith at which point the soul attracts the ‘Tirthankar naam karma’ which will bear fruit in the final incarnation of that soul making him a Tirthankar in that incarnation. As a befitting result of such noble desires and qualities, that soul becomes Tirthankar in its final incarnation and becomes the savior of several souls. Just like being with the Tirthankar and listening to him saves us from the relentless cycle of birth and death, knowing and understanding a Tirthankar’s biography and his journey towards salvation is also instrumental in our spiritual progress. Let us also aim to achieve the trio of right belief, knowledge and conduct and eventually liberation, by internalizing Neminath Bhagwan’s journey to salvation.
The number of past lives recounted in the biography of any Tirthankar begins after attainment of Right Belief (or samyak darshan) until attainment of salvation. For example, the 13 lives of Lord Adeshwar or the 27 lives of Lord Mahavir Swami. Similarly, Neminath Bhagwan’s soul had to take 9 lives after attaining right belief until the time he got liberated. Of these 9, 5 were that of a human being and the other 4 were that of a celestial being. In each of these 9 lives, there is an incredible underlying story of the pure love of Rajul and Neminath Bhagwan.
These 9 lives are listed below. Click on them to learn more.
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