________________
spiritual pursuits. Spiritual development certainly thrives in a favourable atmosphere, but it is not totally dependant on favourable circumstances at the mundane level.
To seek harmony and goodwill in one's area of activity is an intrinsic part of ahimsa. This avoidance of offending others and transgressing their territories culminates in the right practice of ahimsa. Thus, the ahimsa way of life is nothing but a natural discipline of beatitude at the mundane level and that of eternal bliss at spiritual level.
BALANCE/EQUANIMITY
A human being is very weak, but also strong. Sometimes his strength becomes his biggest weakness and sometimes his weakness becomes his greatest strength. In fact, his uniqueness lies in this ambivalence. This adaptability makes him the most efficient creature in nature.
Nature has made man highly adaptable, physically as well as mentally. Moreover, it has equipped man with a mind with infinite capacity and scope. He turns weakness into strength, which at a point again becomes his weakness. Lovehate, greed-altruism, anger-equanimity, are some strange bipolar feelings which meet at their extremities or peak. When one peaks the other is born. Extreme love turns into (and also invites) hatred, and vice versa. That appears to b. the reason for avoiding extremes of both.
The meaning of purity, in Jain or absolute terms, is not just embracing the mundane good; it is to be free of good and bad alike, or nullifying bad with good exactly. Vitaraag (free of attachment) necessarily includes Vitadvesh (free of aversion). In psychological terms, it means absence of sorrow in adverse conditions and absence of happiness in
146
AHIMSA: THE SCIENCE OF PEACE Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
