Mahavir was walking through the dense forest. The darkness was increasing making it quite eerie. His path was thorny. With single minded purpose he was moving on his thoughts beamed on his destination.
Mahavir’s loin got caught in a thorny bush. He made no attempt to free it. He walked on and lost it to the bush.
Now he was a naked man walking. He had no piece of cloth on his body or shoes in his feet. He was not even clear what place he was going to. Mahavir was focussed only on his spiritual destination.
He would stop at any place absent mindedly, be it forest, garden, temple, pasture or cremation ground. Physical realities did not matter. What mattered was the meditation he did at those stop overs.
In that manner travelling and meditating Mahavir reached Morag Sannivesh. There ‘Tapas Kulapati’ had his ashram. Kulapati had been an old time friend of King Siddhartha. He saw Mahavir go by and at once recognised him as Vardhman, the son of his late friend.
He came out and greeted Mahavir.
“Sage! You are welcome to my ashram. Please feel at home here. You can do your penance and meditation here without any disturbance. It is my wish to have you here for a few months.”
Mahavir accepted the invitation.
He was allotted hut in the ashram premises. Mahavir only concentrated on his penance and the meditation. The heat, rain or cold made no impression on him. He never cared to sweep or clean his hut. He infact cared for nothing else except meditation.
In a few weeks so much filth accumulated in the hut that it looked like a pigsty.
One day, Kulapati saw it and got shocked. He mildly rebuked his guest, “Sage! You must take care at least to keep your hut clean. It will help in your meditation.”
Mahavir ignored his advice.
Once it rained heavily. It poured down in buckets. Due to neglect Mahavir’s hut had become unsafe. It was on the verge of collapse. And the downpour played havoc with it. The roof leaked like a sieve.
Mahavir was too withdrawn to notice it.
The wet grass of the roof had become smelly and soft. In the morning some hungry cows barged in the hut and began to eat softened up grass. They pulled down the entire thatching with their horns and feasted on the grass.
Mahavir continued to meditate.
Kulapati was informed about it. In annoyed mood he walked to the ravaged hut and said to Mahavir, “Sage! In this world even lowly creatures tend and tidy up their nests, holes and dens every now and then. The dog sweeps the floor with its tail before curling down. But look here…you should have taken care of your hut. You are a person of royal origins. Remember? This time I will get the hut repaired. After that in future it will be your responsibility.”
Mahavir kept quiet.
Kulapati got the hut repaired. But Mahavir had no wish to linger there anymore. He thought that cleaning and tidying work will eat into his meditation time. He did not want even slightest diversion. He made up his mind to walkout.
At the time of the unannounced departure he made five resolves :
1. I shall not talk unless it is very urgent.
2. I won’t stay at unwelcome place.
3. I will dedicate most of my time to penance and mediation.
4. I will eat from my hand only.
5. I will not greet the family people.
Mahavir walked on and reached Asthik village. He went to the local temple and went into meditative mode. The temple priest saw him and got overawed.
He ran to the villagers and told them that a yogi sage was in meditative freeze in the temple.
Some prominent citizens of the village went to Mahavir and prayed, “O holy sage! This place is not fit for your meditation. This temple infact is haunted by a very cruel and merciless Yaksha named ‘Shoolpani’. Whoever stays in this temple for the night becomes the food of that Yaksha. Please notice the mountain of human carcasses behind this temple. It is the leftovers of that monster’s eating. Such heaps can be seen near the temples of this village. That also is his doing. That is why our village is called ‘Asthik’ which means that home of carcasses. You must stay in the village with some family or in some guest hut.”
Mahavir announced, “For me there is no difference between this temple or any house of the village. If I come with you to the village it would mean that I am a coward sage. A coward one can not carry on his spiritual quest. So, I must stay in this very temple. If I am true to my spiritual mission no Shoolpani or Super Shoolpani can harm me. If I am not true than I don’t deserve to live anyway.”
The village folk returned wondering if they would find that handsome sage alive in the morning. The evening fell and darkened into the night.
Mahavir began his meditation at an appropriate place. Then the stillness of the night was broken by a horrible monstrous laughter. It infact was a thunderous guffaw that made ordinary mortals tremble and creatures run into their holes.
But Mahavir meditated on.
The ghostly laughter indeed was Shoolpani who expected Mahavir to collapse frightened of his roarious guffaw. That failure drove Shoolpani mad.
The evil Yaksha transformed into an elephant and whipped Mahavir with its trunk. Mahavir was unmoved. The trunk lashes appeared like feather touches to him.
It enraged the Yaksha.
Then Shoolpani transformed into a dragon and it menacingly hissed at Mahavir. The sound of its hissing reverberated through the temple. It bit Mahavir at several places on his body. He took the attack with supreme stoicity and his body stayed still.
It amazed the demon Yaksha Shoolpani. He stared at Mahavir. It was obvious that Mahavir was no ordinary meditator but one of the very superior kind directly linked to para-powers. The demon’s ire began to cool down. Very soon he started regretting his attack. He realised that he shouldn’t have interfered with that true spiritualist who was engaged in some very sublime exercise.
Meanwhile, the deep meditation had brought Mahavir to the door of innerself world. Here contradictory thoughts began to ravage his mind. It was a stern test of his inner strength to sift off the elements of contradiction. His mind was a whirlwind of good and bad thoughts. As soon as his spiritual power siphoned off the bad elements his mind became peaceful and he progressed towards the second door.
At that level heavenly beauties and glow of the yellow metal tried to distract his attention. The atmosphere was full of enticing scents. Mahavir refused to be lured into those attractions. He kept his mind fixed on the next level entry.
He crossed the threshold of the third door. The inside scene was scary. It was full of dark valleys, hills that were really stacks of shaky rocks, dangerously wild and dense forest traps. Eerie sounding beasts and ghostly apparitions were making the atmosphere frightening. The ground below was carpetted with reptiles and scorpions. Terror striking sounds were filling the darkness with lethal dreadfulness.
But all those factors failed to intimidate Mahavir. He kept his mind pushing towards the next level door. He successfully covered the passage of fear and entered the fourth door.
There was divine light beyond. He could see the truth in elementary from. Enlightenment had dawned on him. His soul had forged a permanent link with Power Supreme. Mahavir had become Bhagwan Mahavir.
