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o More recently, I visited another Jain family in North
America. While talking about food preferences and what I will not eat, they very plainly and openly told me that they
eat meat all the time, as do their children. I was shocked. Please note that these are not just stray incidents. They are happening more and more and in many cities and towns in North America, UK, and maybe in India as well. Now you decide: is this behavior consistent with ahimsa?
DONATIONS TO JAIN CHARITIES BY UNETHICAL BUISNESS-PEOPLE AND MEAT TRADERS: IS THIS ACCEPTABLE?
Temple building—this is in full frenzy in India as well as in other places wherever Jains live. Every day elaborate panchkalyanaks and other celebrations have become common; each costs large sums of money. As we plan and build larger and ever grander temples, the need for more money grows. The question is this: should Jains question the sources of that money? The real truth is that many times, they don't. They want money and it is not generally the recipient's business where that money came from. He is concerned only to raise funds. Here are a few examples: o For a long time, in India, some Jains traded in opium,
tobacco, and other similar commodities. The reason was simple. Such commodities provided huge profits and thus very quickly they became quite rich. Many of these traders, in their minds, consistently separated their life style and religious practices from their ways of earning money. To them, the two were not the same. Now: what to do with those huge sums of money? Of course, only temple building would buy them name, fame and likely a reserved place in heaven. So, most probably, some of the temples in India (I don't know how many but I do suspect) might have been built with such kinds of funds. In one specific case, I did read a mention of this in a Jain magazine by a
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An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide
