Acharya Mahaprajna
However, while Mahavira's philosophy remained confined to the soul, it remained confined to the internal-self. The philosophy of socialism remained limited to externalities, remained confined only to the social environment. Both could not be synthesized. That is why the objective was not achieved fully.
If these had moved together, there would have been a change of the inner self. The body is not one's own. And, as a consequence, the external environment would have changed in a systematic way. With the realization that wealth, prosperity and the like do not belong to the individual, perhaps, a new world would have been born. But this did not happen. Both these were not integrated. Whereas socialism imposed the principle of 'this is not mine' with the authority to punish, the principle of Mahavira got acceptance on the basis of a change of the heart. The latter received its acceptance at the religious level but was not adopted by the social system. If both these changes had taken place in a synthesized manner, it would have given rise to a new world system.
Poverty and unemployment were not eradicated mainly because while there is a social system, a system of the State, a judicial system but no intrinsic change has been achieved. Had there been an inner-change as well, perhaps the problem of poverty could have been solved. Mahavira had given a lot of importance to compassion and kindness. A truly social being is one who possesses compassion, who likes to equate his own perception with that of others and treats others like he would treat himself. If this principle of compassion were achieved, then a colossal amount of money spent on destructive weapons would be spent for the good of mankind.
