Jain Digest 2016 08

SR No.: 527140
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Federation of JAINA
Publisher: USA Federation of JAINA
Publication Year: 2016
Total Pages: 44
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, USA_Jain Digest, & USA
File Size: 6 MB

Page 18

Practicing Jain Principles By Prakhar Bhandari, Vritika Patni, Vritika Parikh,
and Dhara Shah
Jain
Prakhar Bhandari is a student at the University of Pennsylvania pursuing a BSE and MSE in Computer Science with minors in Mathematics and Engineering Entrepreneurship. Prakhar enjoys playing tennis, cooking, taking pictures, and reading science fiction. Prakhar is a president of HJA (Hindu Jain Association), that is affiliated with YJA - Young Jains of America.
As a college student in the US, one their perspective. The key lesson here is that even though
has to deal with a variety of unique none of them had absolute truth and were saying different situations that most of us have not experienced before. One things, there is still something that can be learned from each meets people from different religions, people from different of them. countries, people who study and are passionate about vastly different things than oneself - hence the amount of I have tried to apply this perspective during my years at information to take in during college can be overwhelming. college. At an institution of higher learning, everyone brings There is always some activity or event that is going on and their own viewpoint and there is no shortage of things to do, or people to meet. It can has their own unique be overwhelming to try to process all of the new information perspective on ideas about and learning that one can pick up.
the world. Even among my Jain friends, we would frequently have debate and discussion on topics The most interesting thing about this was that for the first time, I realized that there was no one right answer and that there was no one absolute solution that anyone had. I was forced to think about what I really believed in, but more importantly, why I believed in it. I was a college student and my purpose in life right now was to learn.
I had discussions with my Jain friends about their world views, philosophy, life, the future, and other things. This
introduced me to many different schools of thought and With this in mind, I have found applying the Jain principle ideas within Jainism. I remember one time I was discussing of Anekantvad to be particularly useful throughout my the topic of fate versus free will with my Jain friends and the college experience. First, let me give some context about argument was that in Jainism, we believed in the concept Anekantvad. It means "many-sidedness, and represents the of omniscience. People with omniscience, or kevalis, have multiplicity of viewpoints. The classic Jain parable of the absolute knowledge of everything - past, present and blind men and the elephant aptly illustrates this. In this story, future. So, if someone can know everything I will ever do an elephant had arrived at town and six blind men went to in the future, do I have any choice in deciding what I want go see what an elephant looked like, by feeling different to do? If someone knows that I will reach for a pencil in parts of the elephant's body. The blind man who felt the tail three minutes or that I will go for a walk at 6:07PM in the said that the elephant was like a rope, the man who felt the evening, does that mean I have any choice or free will in leg said the elephant was like a pillar, the man who felt the doing that? After lengthy discussion, we all came to different trunk said the elephant was like a tree branch, and so on. The moral of the story is that even though they were all saying different things, they were all correct. All of them had some part of the truth, yet no one had absolute truth, since they all had some limitations in
The Truth
Just Ahead