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as preachers, teachers and guides, they give more importance to their role as sectarian administrators and monitors. As a consequence, the inbuilt flexibility of gradual progress to higher levels of spiritual attainments evident in Jain scriptures has stagnated into calcified stumps of hypocrisy.
What is required is that every individual should be free to choose the level of practices and the pace of his progress to higher levels. Theoretically, a Jain should necessarily be a follower of the five minor vows (Anuvrats), but it is not practically possible to adhere to these vows all at once or by birth. Even a devout individual gradually learns and moulds himself. The general masses merely take the vows as a ritual, without proper understanding. By doing so, they consider their religious duty to be over and go about their normal activities without any regulatory influence of religious codes. The alienation of normal worldly life from the spiritual or truly religious life is complete.
There are, indeed, difficulties in the practical application of austere religious codes in their ideal definition. The best way to overcome these difficulties is to remove the exacting and sanctimonious sectarian hurdles from the practical, utilitarian and humane path of gradual progress towards the ideal.
Based on the circumstances, an individual (or a group of individuals) should define the path he has the ability to follow. He should then formulate his own rules, based on the ideal, and follow them sincerely. When he comes across some hurdles, he should start thinking about solutions and alternatives. The accomplished but open-minded seniors could provide the needed help and guidance. The only essential in this process is that he should understand that flex
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