Ahimsa the Ultimate Winner

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

Page 96

"He prayeth best who loveth best Both man and bird and beast He prayeth well who loveth well All things great and small."
Humanity has come to abhor wars because so many human lives have been lost. And yet we go on killing millions of animals, birds and fishes in slaughterhouses mercilessly everyday - simply to fill our dinner plates.
Compassion must be universally applied and not selectively only towards fellow human beings. The benevolence should extend to the humblest living creature. The daily war of humans on animals must stop.
Vegetarianism provides a viable healthy and sober answer, which world citizens can practice by simply controlling and curbing the "animal instinct” in them.
At the surface, Jain religion may appear rather austere, strict and rigid in the definition and practice of non-violence. However, it provides a rational, ethical and judicious approach considering how the violent ego in humans has brought the entire universe to the brink of environmental disaster. Jain philosophy appeals to human beings to give a lead in building a non-violent fabric of life.
After all to quote Aristotle “Of all animals, man has the largest brain in proportion to his size."
What human kind needs to grasp is the overall perspective for life. Clare Rosenfield - a scholarly American Jain says in a very thoughtful observation:
"The vegetarian way of life is not only a way of removing ourselves from supporting the machines of violence and the mentality of callousness towards helpless creature, but it has also been able to give us a new and fresh outlook on life. I feel one with creation; I feel a deep kinship with the beings with which / share the
Ahimsa: The Ultimate Winner
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