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DISCUSSION AND EVALUATION OF ABOVE EXPERIMENT
The above experiment did not focus on all aspects of ahimsa e.g. walking with shoes is violent and results in the killing of insects. This was not prohibited in the experiment. However, it focused on some aspects such as anger, gossiping and provided positive techniques e.g. observing ‘mauna' (silence) for an hour a day. At the end of the experiment, participants cannot claim that they will never be violent for the rest of their life. What they can claim is that they have experienced a taste of non-violence and can make their own judgment as to its usefulness in their own everyday life. They may decide to continue it and develop their own experiments, which include other aspects of ahimsa, and thereby experience its higher richness.
THE YOUNG JAINS PROJECT
We started this project three years ago when we launched our first experiment with anger'. We have since conducted several experiments all of which are given in the appendix. They included principles like aparigraha, asteya, tapas, satya, and of course ahimsa. Instructions were sent to our members through our newsletter and a follow up meeting to discuss the results of the experiments was held. On average about fifteen people attempted the experiment to varying levels of seriousness and we have collected some of the questionnaires which they completed. We found that the experiments were at times ambiguous and there is scope for refinement and improvement through experience.
The method of the experiments was designed by us. There is scope for improvement in these methods, but the ones shown in this booklet are a reasonable first step. When
AHIMSA: THE SCIENCE OF PEACE 171
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