Jaina Gazette 1914

SR No.: 034888
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: J L Jaini, Ajitprasad
Publisher: Jaina Gazettee Office
Publication Year: 1914
Total Pages: 332
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 21 MB

Page 164

1914.] JAINA GAZETTE.
239 us as an inborn instinct to shun what is really believed by us to be immoral. The average man lives by this instinct and is timid of breaking through the bond of custom. It is only the bold man of genius who is a danger to the uneventful peace of society. It is only a Shakespeare, Shelley, or Goethe who sees through and beyond convention, and for whom ordinary morality is a shain and an obstruction to be brushed aside rather than anything else. Another man of genius may be more cautious, e. 9., Tennyson taught us to revere other people's devotion to forms; and Christ is said to have followed himself most of the Jewish rules of conduct, daily and periodical. Shelley or Shakespeare consider only selfregarding morality. Christ or Tennyson sympathise with its wider aspect. [ Of course all through I mean by morality, not only sexual morality but morality in its widest meaning, the sum total of the life-conduct of a man considered as an individual and as a member of society. So from every point of view what is inmoral is impossible. If a person is thoroughly convinced of the immorality FOR HIMSELF OR TERSELF of a thing, he or she will not do that thino. An author has said : the deepest passions live in the mind of man. The mind may be weak, shallow or ill-informed, and therefore one's conception of life may be distorted, narrow, prejudiced or mistaken. But if I convince you that a thing is wrong, I conquer your mind to that extent. Your goal, yourself can never never acquiesce in your doing that thing.
You may object-How can this be true, when I have a struggle, a daily struggle of wrong and right in my breast, when I know temptations assail me and I have to make an effort to keep myself from doing what I know not to be the right thing? The answer is : that the struggle is spurious. It has no reference to your innermost morality. It refers to your non-self-regarding morality; about which I must say a word now.
As self-regarding morality is based on our psychical nature so nou-self-regarding morality is based on our physical nature. One of the first and indisputable facis of man's life is, that he is gregarious. Man does not live alone. Is it not Bacon who tells us that a man who can live by himself is either'an angel or a beast. In either case he will belong to the two categories - to one of which we alas ! don't claim to belong, and to the other of which we don't desire to belong. Well