Ahimsa the Ultimate Winner

Author(s): N P Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 39

At this time of the crisis of human spirit, Mahavir's ever-abiding teachings assume contemporary relevance for today and tomorrow for the entire humanity transforming barriers of caste, creed, colour, sex or region.
Mahavir first practiced and then preached. Born in a royal family surrounded by limitless trappings of luxuries, his life path was charted out to rule and dominate. And yet he chose to renounce the kingdom of power, desires and ego to seek keys of the true kingdom of life - where compassion and tolerance, renunciation and non-possession, relativity of thinking and action, non-attachment and non-violence became the tools to shape inter-humanity dealings as well as the approach of co-existence and co-prosperity with the natural environment and other life forms.
Mahavir's greatest contribution was to articulate with much greater clarity, comprehension and thrust an all-comprehensive and wider ranging definition of Ahimsa (non-violence). Behind this enlarged and integrated vision of Ahimsa was the spiritual urge to transform the concepts of 'Oneness of all creation' and 'Live and let live' into life ethics. Mahavir elucidated the principles of Jainism in their most fundamental and encompassing compassionate parameters.
He incessantly preached that Ahimsa needs to be practiced in thought, action and expression. Practicing non-violence needs courage or conviction and resolute pursuit. It is by no means easy. It may be relatively easier to curb physical violence but it is far more difficult to control violent and hurting expression and even much more to eradicate from one's mind violent instincts. Synthesizing practice of non-violence together in thought, deed and speech is a challenging task both for individuals as well as societies. Without achieving this coordination, the search for the culture of non-violence would remain elusive.
Mahavir observed: “There is nothing so small and subtle as the atom nor
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