Sramana 2000 10

SR No.: 525042
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shivprasad
Publisher: Parshvanath Vidhyashram Varanasi
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 204
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Sramana, & India
File Size: 9 MB

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equanimity or samatā. In jaina Ethics ends and means do not exist as something external to the moral agent; they are part and parcel of his own real nature. By means of sādhanā we can actualize what is potentially present in us. According to the Jaina view equanimity (samatā) is our real potential nature and sädhanā is nothing but practice of equanimity. The three-fold path of right knowledge, right attitude or belief and right conduct solely depends on the concept of equanimity (samatā) for their rightness. The three-fold path is only an application of equanimity in the three aspects of our consciousness. According to Jainism, equanimity should be a directive principle of the activities of knowing, feeling and willing.
What is the justification for saying that our essential nature or our aim of life is samatā or that samatā should be the directive principle of our life and what are the grounds for its justification : To answer these questions first of all we must understand human nature. By human nature we mean man's organic and psychological make-up. What do you mean by a living organism ? By living Organism we mean an organism that has the power to maintain its physiological equilibrium. In Biology this process is known as homeostasis, which is considered as an important quality of living organism. The second essential quality of a living organism is its capacity for adjustment to its environment. Whenever a living organism fails to maintain its physiological equilibrium and to adjust itself to its environment, it tends towards death. Death is nothing but an utter failure of this process of maintaining equilibrium. Thus we can say that where there is life there are efforts to avoid unequlibrium and to maintain equilibrium.
Psychologically nobody wants to live in a state of mental tension. We like relaxation and not tension, satisfaction and not anxiety; this shows that our psychological nature working in us is for mantal peace or mental equanimity or for the adjustment between these two poles of our personality, the ideal and the real. It is a fact that there are mental states such as emotional excitements, passions, anxieties and frustrations, but they do not form our essential nature because they do not exist for there own sake.Either they seek there satisfaction from some external objects or we want to get rid of these