1.12 Stop! Think! Live and Help Others Live

Chennai 2009: Non-violence, Compassion and Instrumentality - A Jaina Perspective

Non-violence, Compassion and Instrumentality A Jaina Perspective Seminar organized by the Department of Jainology of the University of Madras, 13 and 14 February 2009 Chennai, India

 13.02.2009

Stop! Think! Live and Help Others Live

Why is the earth round? I’m sure all of us have our definitions and understanding with regard to it, but I believe that the earth is round so as to remind us time and again that what goes comes back. If you are good only good will happen to you, and vice versa.

How can someone be good in this bad, bad world of materialistic need and greed?? The world I believe is what you make it. It was never this bad, ask your parents’ n they will tell you how easy and less taxing it was in their days, but today making a livelihood is not a child’s play.

In the run for materialistic needs and progress we are forgetting our main purpose, the purpose of this janam [life] which is to unburden our souls, to attain inner peace and finally nirvana.

In Jainism we believe that the soul is indestructible, which means we have been traveling all these years to attain something that the others have attained way earlier in past lives. We have to understand the reason for this birth, the golden religion that we have got and ways to attain our main goal in life.

The least we can do and the most important in our religion is nonviolence. All the others will fall in place. Violence gives birth to all the other sins in the world. Violence is not restricted to the physical; it can be verbal and mental. Although the ideal of nonviolence is universal, Indian religions in general, and Jainism, in particular, consider it to be the foundation of the entire code of ethics. Hinduism as well as Jainism has the edict: AHIMSA PARAMO DHARMAH - nonviolence is the supreme virtue (DHARM).

In Jainism, nonviolence is not limited to refraining from mental, verbal and physical injury to human beings; it included all the other living beings on this earth as basic as every microscopic organisms.

Nonviolence is most essentially misunderstood. What is ahiṁsā paramo dharma?? What is non violence?? Killing others….no….it is killing yourself. When you think of killing or hurting anybody, even before you do it, even before you plan to do it, the thought of it has already killed somebody. Somebody for whom you have been giving this life, this janam and there is nothing in this world without it. Still trying to figure it out, that innocent being is your Soul. You have taken it away far from its main goal of nirvana. I will repeat this: non-violence is preventing yourself from killing your soul.
When we intend to hurt or harm others, we give birth to sins such as anger, pride, deception and greed. Thus we always commit violence of the self in the process.

In today’s fast track world we have an answer for all, we can find everything, we have everything but still there a search for peace, inner happiness, something that we have lost years ago, that we had let go in the run for power. Morals and spiritual values including virtues such as nonviolence and truth can lead to genuine peace. However, to a large extent, these virtues are ignored on account of the glitter of materialism fueled by greed and the desire to get ahead of others.

No doubt, scientific and technological advances have made human life, especially for those with material means, quite pleasant. Nevertheless, most people on earth have no peace of mind. In spiritual terms, one can say that we are living for the satisfaction of our animal instincts only. We do talk of higher moral, social and spiritual values but we fail to realize that material progress alone can take us far from our real goal, the goal of inner peace.

“All humans are equal.” We have heard that a million times in our religion, in all the other religions too, in politics, in our books and so on, but I would like to add that all humans are equal irrespective of the money tag they carry.

A man who is already burdened with money and its side effects is getting lot more importance than he requires by today’s society. He definitely deserves it, how easy is it to earn in this competitive world?? Who knows better than all of you, but why are we making life more difficult for those who are struggling to make ends meet. I have heard this really nice saying that I could like to share with you “if a rich man gives time for social service he is looked unto with lots of admiration, after all he takes time out from his busy schedule for it, but if a not so rich man was doing social service then we could without a second thought say that he has nothing to do, so (bechara) he is giving all his time” the fact is that the rich man is doing all this for is personal benefits whereas the other is doing it with true intentions of lighting the burden on his soul and he surely is doing so but all of us are adding another baggage to our not so clean souls.

Money is always related to all the sins of the world. Is it money or is it the attitude we carry towards it?? Money brings a lot with it, good obviously, but all the bad what we think comes is what we invite, is what we create. It is very wrongly said that money brings the worries we give birth to it.

A daughter in law who brings all the expensive gifts is already good in the eyes of the family. She does not have to try hard; money has already done that for her. She can get away with all; but what does someone who is rich in values but not so rich in terms of money do….?? All her efforts to please the family fall flat. Do we realize the pain she undergoes with all the treatment she gets? Do values have no say in our lives then why do we try hard to inculcate all this in our kids? Is this not violence?

Peoples' feelings are hurt by discrimination based on religion, race or social status. Thus it is violence. Untruth (falsehood), stealing and possessiveness (greed) involve mental and sometimes physical violence of self and others. Thus the virtues of truth, non-stealing, chastity and non-possessiveness are integral parts of nonviolence.

Violence in the name of religion is the biggest of all. This a short story I would like to share with you, which could put light on the most gruesome crime we make hiding behind the curtains of religion. A Jain family of 3 sons happily married ….or so we believe. They had all the Jain values inculcated in them and so the daughters in law of the house decided to fast for eight days for parushan (this fast is known to clean your soul). The daughters in law started their fast, and the first few days were easy, as, according to our society, they are meant to do household chores no matter what. As the days passed their mother in law decided to have a grand celebration in the pretext of the great fast her daughters in law where doing. Obviously this would let the world know that she was blessed with great daughters in law. One of the daughters however in laws did not come from a rich family and she was more worried about how her family could meet the grand celebration, as the other daughters in law came from very rich families. All her days of fast were lost in agony and pain and torture that her mother in law gave her for not getting the gold necklace. The family of the daughter in law also did not sleep in peace. The fast which was meant for the purification of soul only added on more burdens.

Are we so bound with the family and religious rituals that we can’t see somebody’s pain? Are we blind or are we just keeping our eyes closed???

Favoritism is one of the plagues of our lives. We commit a lot of violence under its name. If a particular student is in the favorite list she gets away with so much, well lucky for her, but do we realize what the others around who are experiencing this favoritism to one leads the others into grief, agony and also leads them to commit other sinful crimes like manipulation. Giving birth to such situation where we force somebody into grief is also violence.

Double standards are another form of violence most commonly spread in the society. This needs our important and immediate attention. All of us here take out time for some rituals everyday be it pooja or samaik or anything as mere reciting gods name before we start our day. All of us are aware of the deadly sins but are we aware of a human being in our house living with us whom we hurt day in and out - it could be our wife our husband, our parents our sibling or your household maid.

Not helping the needy is also violence. Giving a small amount of money to the needy, may be your maid or your driver, is far more difficult than spending lakhs on a place where your name meets fame. We forget that the maid is more in need of it than that name board put in your felicitation. Obviously how will the world know about your good deeds? After all the good we do is to show it to the world, right??

How many times have we curbed our desire to do something for the happiness of others? Can you avoid your outing for the sake of your sick mother at home? Hurting your parents is also violence.

Women are the target of this violence more than anybody else. Under the name of daughter she is looked down on, as a wife she is expected to kill her dreams and serve her family, as a mother compromises with the kids and so on, but I want to bring to your notice sadly that all this is done by women only. It is the mother in law who can’t see the pain of her daughter in law, it is the sister in law who creates the tension, it is the women those jealousy has no bounds and gives birth to violence is some form or other. The easiest way is to blame the society but we forget that we have made it.

Why are we not happy when we see somebody else happy?? Why we are not contended with what we have. Jainism says that we get what is in our karma then why are we so bothered about others.

When the youngsters see all this happening in the name of religion they start hating it. They start detaching themselves from the religion which is not very good news for us because they are the future and if they hate what belongs to them we have failed miserably as parents, as humans most importantly.

If today we decided to do something as simple as not hurting someone close to us …we will be a better human being who is to start of purification of our soul.

We have done enough for the external beautification of our soul (our body) it is indeed destructible, let’s start living for the inner soul. Stop for this very moment here and think what we can do to make our souls beautiful. Let’s unburden it, drop all the extra baggage …

let the soul live free and help others live.