Muni Sumermal
Discourse On Coordination By Lord Mahaveer
Lord Mahaveer was born at the time when India was divided into small states. The entire social, religious, cultural and spiritual environment was polluted with differences on small issues. There were around 363 such small schools of thoughts each applying and imposing its own way of thinking. Each one wanted his own ideology to be implemented in order to achieve Moksha. Each one accused the other of being a cheat. The entire scenario was so weird that any one who provided a solution would be in trouble. In other words all suffered from superiority complex.
Republic State:
Lord Mahaveer took birth in a Republic state. In India, Vaishali Janpad was the first state to be republic, which was about 2600 years ago. Naumalli Naullivachvi and the King of Vaishali, Chetak, established this republic state. This was a unique experiment. It was like a challenge for people with individualistic approach, but for the masses, its usefulness was immense. Even the smaller states need not had to worry of being overpowered.
King Siddhartha was a recognized citizen of the Republic of Vaishali. Due to being a Republic, development of understanding each other’s views was inevitable. People started to resolve issues by dialogue. Prince Mahaveer was directly benefited from this. He from this environment learnt how to respect with patience the thoughts and ideas of others. Even at home, he spent time thinking why people quarrel over petty matters and fail to understand that individualism is the root cause of any problem.
Philosophy of Anekanta:
Everything became clear for Lord Mahaveer after attaining supreme knowledge. In spite of the Tirthankaras, knowing all their style of deliverance is different from each other. He in order to create an atmosphere of coordination started to preach the philosophy of Syadvada. He preached that any language is always spoken in a manner which is Sapeksh i.e. with example and not Nirpeksh i.e. neutral thus realizing the meaning of each sentence to avoid any confusion. One who dose not understand the inner meaning of any word remains aloof of the powers of language and starts to believe that all but his doings are right. This attitude creates a feeling of division. An elderly man is a father to a son, uncle to a nephew and a father in law to a son in law, all address him with different names, similarly any sentence in a language too has different aspects and the one who understands them will not indulge in unnecessary arguments.
He also preached that even in the world of materialism enforcement of individual thoughts are of no good.on the other hand to release oneself from tension and stress philosophy of self-realization and inner observation is most significant. Enforcement of ones thought creates mental stress and keeps one away from truth and solace. Lord Mahaveer calls this thought violence and preaches to stay away from it.
In his era, religious tolerance was very low and people were very adamant on their perspective. In spite of these difficult conditions, the search of truth for the disciples was of utmost importance. Lord Mahaveer preached the philosophy of self-examination thereby spreading realization and breaking enforcement of individual thoughts thus resulting in hermits, families and Bhikshu has to come to him for solutions to their problems. In spite of intolerance towards each other, a feeling of coordination started to arise.
Concept of Coordination:
Even after 26 centuries, Lord Mahaveer’s concept of coordination is of prime importance surly more now than what it was in his times. I hope that people will understand and inculcate his concepts to prevent themselves from misshapenness. Due to tensions among people a feeling of aloofness arises which in today’s time is very common and that is why we hear so many cases of families, societies and organizations disintegrating. Every person is bent on protecting its own interest and status. It is the time of enforcing ones thought on others. The only remedy of such serious and ill environment is accepting the ideology of Coordination.
Coordination has the power to keep people united. It is the prime aspect of non-violence, which connects people who are separated due to jealousy. It can be of immense help in search of eternal truth. It can dilute the stubborn nature into calm and peaceful mentality.
In the centenary year of Lord Mahaveer if we can adopt and implement the values of self-realization then separation can be prevented. With the blanket of coordination, we can erase the differences and let grow the tree of love and affection for the well-being of humanity. This will be the righteous way of celebrating Lord Mahaveer’s day of birth. Their can be no better way of paying homage to the Great Lord Mahaveer.