Ahimsa the Ultimate Winner

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

Page 74

Controlling one's multiple desires makes for the moulding into a balanced disciplined, rational and harmonious personality. Such a human being radiates strong will power, deep tranquility, inspiring equanimity and adorable truthfulness. There is no room in the Jain art of living for greed, rivalry, anger, hatred and hostility.
A famous philosopher has said “Many a time the thought has crossed my mind that some day the civilization would come to end not by an atom bomb or famine or any such happening but by man's misuse of his intellect and loss of his self control in the midst of the tensions of our growingly artificial and superficial civilization'.
The Jain art of living is, thus, in the first place, “a discovery of one's own inner-self” – a process of cementing one's strengths and eliminating one's weaknesses. Gurudev Chitrabhanu has beautifully summed it up in the phrase: “The Miracle is you”. Don't look for crutches or support of others. If there is darkness, do not curse it but light a candle to let light glow around you.
In a charming poem, English poet John Lennon has reflected the core concept of the Jain art of living:
You can wear a mask and paint your face, You can call yourselves the human race, You can wear a collar and a tie, One thing you cannot hide Is when you are crippled inside. You can go to a church and sing a rhyme; You can judge me by the colour of my skin; You can live a lie till you die, One thing you cannot hide
Is when you are crippled inside.
In one word, the Jain art of living concentrates first on putting your own soul and inner being in order before preaching others or finding faults with them.
Ahimsa: The Ultimate Winner
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