Jaina Philosophy

SR No.: 006901
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Virchand R Gandhi, Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: World Jain Confederation
Publication Year: 2009
Total Pages: 298
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 5 MB

Page 279

NOVNOMENNAIOON
The Jaina Philosophy The criterion of morality is the conscience, not, another man's but your own.
I do not mean that one should not take counsel of other men's consciences in arriving at right, conclusions, but I assert the very contrary, that one should do so. Not for the purpose of lessening the sense of responsibility, but for the confirmation of truth and right
This is the common practice of mankind, and so is that certain things are settled, because universal, or concrete conscience of mankind through ages, as made them so.
Having thus noticed some of the mistakes prevalent in respect to my people and our religion, history and morality, and conscious of doing scant justice to each matter, and also conscious of the purpose to be just and true, I must now close this lecture by expressing, as I may, my conception of the future that awaits us in this world, where the thought and the conduct of men make and mar their future. To me the outgrowth of religions, civilizations and Governments, are the expressions of human progress and development from one motherhood of law of nature, of man. We of India do not, arrogate to ourselves superiority and authority, noting as we do along the ages, the rise, decline and fall, of empires and civilizations, to lecture you for your faults or to condemn you for your failures. No. We in the old home of the great mother of the nations, the civilizations, the philosophies and the religions of the wide world, would extend to you the mothers' blessing, the home greeting, and express, not the hope only, but the firm belief, that when you shall have compassed all seas and all lands, and all methods, and have exhausted all resources and discoveries in literature, in art, in the sciences, and in the worship of God, you will by decrees, by slow, perhaps painful but sure progress, turn your faces and direct your steps toward
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