After accepting the five vows at the Gnyat Khand, on the same evening, he left the city and began his sadhna. The entire citizen of Kshatriyakund, along with King Nandivardhan, bid him farewell with heavy hearts. The Lord went away.Lord Mahavir's sadhna focused solely on one subject: This body is not the real 'me'; the real 'me' is my soul. My soul is pure, enlightened, and shapeless. The body is merely a cover forced upon the soul.

The bondage of body with soul is not automatic; the root cause of such bondage is attachment (Raag) to worldly materialistic things, resulting in attracting karmas. The cure for getting rid of these karmas is to give up not only attachment and affection for materialistic things but also attachment and affection for the body. Such severance is possible only by living with oneself (i.e., with one's own soul). This was the crux of Lord Mahavir’s sadhna. He enjoyed being with himself in meditation for almost 21 hours every day. The remaining 3 hours were spent in traveling from one place to another, some days taking food, etc. After Lord Mahavir took initiation, he came into contact with various kinds of people. Some were respectful towards him, while some hated him.

However, the Lord was indifferent towards everyone. Because of such indifference, the glow emanating from his face made people address him as "Devarya,” meaning "respected divine being.”He showered compassion on everyone who came into his contact. Sometimes not only humans but even animals were fortunate enough to be recipients of his compassion. A well-known incident occurred. Lord Mahavir was traveling towards the "Swetvi” city. En route, the villagers warned him not to go by a particular route, which was a shortcut but also dangerous. There lived a terrible venomous snake that was able to throw poison even from its eyes at onlookers. So they requested the Lord to take the alternate route.

The Lord foresaw that if he went by that short route, it would be beneficial for the snake. So he ignored the warning and went ahead. The snake saw him and attempted to throw poison from its eyes at him. The Lord remained undisturbed. It tried again, but in vain. Angered, it then bit him with its teeth so that the poison would directly enter his body. However, even after that, nothing happened. So it became confused, and its anger subsided. Realizing that it was an appropriate time, the Lord addressed it and said, “Hey ChandKaushik! Be enlightened." The Lord purposefully addressed it by the name 'ChandKaushik,' which was its name in the previous life. The name made him contemplate deeply about his past lives, and in the process, he remembered everything. He realized the mistakes he committed in his previous life when he was an angry person throughout his life. Now he decided to improve, and his life took a complete U-turn, giving up violence completely.