$JES 904 Compendium of Jainism (Jain Academic Bowl Manual 3rd Edition)

Author(s): JAINA Education Committee
Publisher: JAINA Education Committee

Page 241

RITUALS
Consider the merits of forgiveness forbearance
This soul's root cause of anger is the belief that his happiness or unhappiness depends on someone else or the material things. He forgets that the happiness or unhappiness occurs because of him only. One looks within his own pure soul and experiences its true nature and stays within his right faith, then it is known as supreme forbearance.
02. Märdava - Humility
The softness of heart and humble polite feelings towards all living beings humility and external conduct is called Märdava. One gets pride passion due to the association of things or people and he feels dejected when there is dissociation. In both these things, there is no softness of modesty. Failure is the mother of anger and the success is the mother of pride passion. Pride should be differentiated from self-respect, which is not arrogance.
D06- Paryushan and Das Lakshana Parva
For the cultivation of this quality, one should not feel egoistical because of his superiority pertaining to race, family, beauty, prosperity, intellect, knowledge, achievement, and exertion.
Jainism believes that all the souls are equal whether he is a human being or maybe he is in the lowest form of life Nigod. If every soul is same then there is no reason for one to believe that he is either important or superior. This way there is no reason for one to have pride passion. Shrimad Räjchandra said that if there was no pride passion then the human beings can have liberation instantly.
03. Ärjava - Straightforwardness
The purity of mental makeup - unity of thought, speech, and action is called Ärjava or straightforwardness. Person with the straightforwardness attribute lives his life in a simple way. Whatever he has in his mind, he has the same in his speech. Person with the deceitful nature thinks something and speaks something else and acts all together differently.
Strong person takes anger as a mean of achieving his goal. With anger, he likes to show his strength and suppress others and gets his work done. Weak person takes the help of deceit to achieve his goal. For the cultivation of quality of straightforwardness, one should cease to be deceitful.
04. Shaucha - Contenment
Lack of greed is contentment. Greed is a desire to possess and is the one of the root causes of all sins. It is as dangerous as anger for the spiritual welfare of a person. It is the strongest vice and the last one to be conquered, persisting almost to the end of the spiritual path of purification. With eradication of greed, the soul is practically passionless. Contentment is the highest and purest of all the virtues.
05. Satya Truthfulness
Truthfulness means saying what is beneficial and refraining from harsh words, back biting, derogatory language, etc. Hiding of truth for saving some one's life is excusable. To speak the truth one has to know the truth. Speech is the modification of the matter particles while the truth is the virtue of the pure soul. Partial vow of truthfulness, complete vow of truthfulness, restriction of speech and control of spoken words are four levels described in the scripture. All these four things have relationship with the speech.
Anuvrata
Partial vow of truthfulness means not to indulge in gross lies
Mahä vrata
Complete vow of truthfulness means only to speak truth and not to tell even a subtle lie.
Bhäshä Samiti
Vachan Gupti
Restriction of speech means to speak only if it is absolutely necessary and to speak with sweetness and not to use harshness, and not to exaggerate the truth Control of spoken words means not to speak at all
Compendium of Jainism - 2015
Page 241 of 398