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Jainism and Freedom of Mankind
harmony with nature whilst recognising the fact that all living beings want to live and all want happiness." This recognition is the key to the Jaina code of conduct.
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Acaranga Sutra mentions that "He who knows his own happiness and pains, knows others happiness and pains and he who knows others' feelings knows his own feelings. This is the way one must compare himself with others. He who has obtained this knowledge would not wish to live after killing other living beings."
Thus, Jainism has gone some way towards providing an answer to happiness. When practised, the truth of ahimsa spells real and eternal peace, as well as peaceful co-existence and freedom.
Here, one should note that Jaina ahimsa is neither negative nor passive. Our ahimsa is compassion and charity but it is tolerance and equanimity. Jainism is not a religion which closes its eyes towards the problems of the world and ignores other forms of life. Indeed, the first scripture Acaränga Sutra preaches the importance of helping others to live and to be happy: being free and freeing others. This freedom may be the freedom from the clutches of greed and misery... from the cycle of birth and death, but it is. still freedom, it is nirvana.
Let us turn to Emma lazurus' famous inscription on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I hope the lamp of enlightened faith, knowledge and conduct will also guide us through darkness and despair.
Jain Education International
As we are standing on the threshold of inter-religious harmony and brotherhood, let us resolve to work towards this common goal of creating a society which is based on non-violence (ahimsa) and peace with dignity. This is the True freedom. It is the freedom which reaches the common man on the face of this globe, and which not only comes in the form of bread and
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