________________ SAMVAR PREVENTION OF KARMA 175 staying on the right path and for eradicating the bondage of Karma.) If we come across any hardship or discomfort, we try to avert the same. For instance, if the weather is warm, we may turn on fan or resort to air conditioning. If it is cold, we may resort to heating. Similarly, if there are mosquitoes, gnats, etc. we may spray insecticides in order to annihilate them. We are thus used to lead a comfortable life. We hardly care to remember that resorting to such devices for the sake of our comfort would hurt insects and other minute living beings. But the approach of a spiritual aspirant would be different. In tropical countries like India summers are warm but not unbearable, while winters are not too cold. A spiritual aspirant would therefore willingly face that weather and would not resort to air conditioning or heating. In U.S. and other countries in the temperate zone it may not be possible to survive in winter without some heating device. As such, he may have to resort to heating. His approach would thus be to avoid, to the extent possible, the measures that would cause violence. When necessary, he would resort to relatively innocent means for avoiding discomfort. If there are too many mosquitoes, for instance, he may try to avert their impact by a mosquito net or by fixing screens across the windows, but would not spray insecticides. If such innocent means are not available, the spiritual aspirant would rather bear the hardships instead of resorting to violent devices. This may seem a little intriguing in this age, when we are used to making life very comfortable. The primary objective of the spiritual pursuit is, however, to prevent the Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org
