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PUBLISHER'S NOTE
More and more people all over the world are realizing that the answer to present problems of violence and environmental degradation is to be found in a morality which replaces greed with contentment, hate with tolerance, and killing with reverence for life. There are many enlightened and eminent scientists, intellectuals and religious leaders who are talking in this alternative positive language. At the common man's level also, awareness to the dangers of violence is growing. Ahimsa way of life as propagated by Jains, provides an effective solution to these and many other problems.
In the modern commercialized world, with religion getting separated from daily life, killing has increased many-fold and sensitivity to life, whether animal or human, has declined in proportion. The need, therefore, is that this trend should be reversed and man should be made more humane not only in relation to man but also for other living creatures.
Violence grows from acquisitiveness. Jainism does not subscribe to forced poverty but suggests that wants should be minimized voluntarily and there should be no grabbing at any level. Many economic systems today are based only on promoting wants rather than curbing them. This is having disastrous results. One of them is that we are exhausting the non-replenishable resources of this world; another is that material goods and money are becoming the measures of man. Internationally, this spirit is leading to regional and world conflicts.
Another malady of our age is general intolerance. While science has been a great boon both in promoting material prosperity and rationalism, it has made our thinking, even in areas other than science, extremely definitive. The result is that those who do not agree
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