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THE MESSAGE OF JAINISM
21 it does so in order to produce favourable Karma and to secure thereby latent happiness.
And moreover both these kinds of actions, those of negavtive self-denial and of positive benefaction, the individual performs, urged by certain forces in its own natural disposition, which from part of its conscience. I mean those emotions of sympathy and compassion which make us place ourselves in the situation of a suffering creature and suffer with it. And we feel its suffering all the more, especially when we have reason to feel ourselves responsible for its outcome. Such is our reaction in the case of a butterfly rushing into the light we allowed to burn uncovered in our carelessness, or in the case of a bird which was starved in its cage through our forgetfulness. No less affecting is the case of a helpless deer which we killed with our own hands in a fit of huntsman's Zeal. How sick and miserable does the woeful sight of its mutilated body make us then! It is that universal sentiment which Hemchandra, the great Acharya and teacher of King Kumarapala of Gujarat, has expressed in that oft-quoted stanza (Yoga. sastra, II. 20):
आत्मवत्सर्वभूतेषु सुखदुःखे प्रियाप्रिये। चिन्तयन्नात्मनोऽनिष्टां हिंसामन्यस्य नाचरेत् ॥
“In happiness or suffering, in joy or grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self. We should, therefore, refrain from inflicting upon others such injury as would appear undesirable to us, if inflicted upon ourselves."
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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