॥ શ્રી સ્વામિનારાયણો વિજયતે ॥

ભગવાન સ્વામિનારાયણનાં

॥ વચનામૃત ॥

Gadhada I-44: A Red-hot Branding Iron; A Dagli

Summary

1. Characteristics of one who as total affection for God:

1. He has an unbroken remembrance of God.
2. If he harbours thoughts other than those of God, then he experiences misery equivalent to being branded on the forehead by a red-hot branding iron.

2. Only by keeping profound association with the Satpurush can one develop intense love for God.
3. If one has a dagli sewn by a tailor and he believes the tailor is his father and the tailor’s wife is his mother, he would be considered foolish. Similarly, the jiva has obtained a dagli in the form of the physical body in 8.4 million life forms. A person who believes the body to be his true self and believes the parents of that body to be his own parents is called a fool.
4. As long as a person believes the body to be his true self, his entire understanding is totally useless.
5. As long as he continues to harbour vanity of his caste or āshram, he will never imbibe the virtues of a sadhu.
6. After discarding the feelings of I-ness and my-ness for the body and its relations, believing one’s ātmā to be brahmarup, and after forsaking all worldly desires, if a person worships God while observing swadharma, he should be known as a sādhu. No distance remains between Purushottam Bhagwān and a person who has cultivated such qualities of a sādhu.