Aspect of Jainology Part 2 Pandita Bechardas Doshi

Author(s): M A Dhaky, Sagarmal Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 418

JAINA RELIGION-ITS PLEA, PRACTICE AND PROSPECTS A. S. Gopani
Religion and State are equally essential for the total progress of the society. While State looks after and provides the external or material needs of man's life just as it creates conditions and climate which facilitate Religion to operate, the Religion, in turn, organises, shapes, and nourishes man's internal or spiritual life. The State currently has acquired extra usefulness and importance since the entire. mankind is madly persuing after material prosperity. But a time may come when the State can be wholly dispensed with as the man would either function under the dictates of his intuition or in accordance with the mandates he receives from the front-ranking leaders possessing genuine spiritual learnings. The most exalted goal for any society, according to Jainis:n, can only be the "spiritual excellence". The religion which shapes the man from within is coeval with the existence of the "world" itself.
The meaning of "religion" is comprehensive. It is in fact the religion that keeps the whole world well-knit and saves it from disintegrating. It secures peace and happiness here and emancipation from all fetters hereafter. It is concerned not merely with life after death it indeed has much to do with the life that is lived here and now. On the operative side, it includes various types of disciplines and duties towards family, society, nation and the country as is inherent in the concept of the fourfold Sangha-organisation in Jainism. Only the supreme spiritual knowledge and its fullest expression can be the summum bonum of any human being's life. As this aim is to be attained in the existence as a human being and as this body is the only vehicle for that purpose, its efficiency is to be maintained as far as possible and the social set-up as well as the cultural environment should be such as would conduce or contribute to the fulfilment of this aim.
To a question why must one do good to others, a materialist has no logical reply. He will simply say (and finish with it) that the tendency is ingrained in human nature. But the spiritualist's thinking on that point is decisive and clear. To him the world is the manifest form of an all-pervasive God; that there is unity. everywhere; and eternal happiness as well as internal bliss follows from realising this unified identity which in turn is realised by wiping out personal ego. This attitude makes it inevitable for everyone to leave aside his own self-centeredness and place other's good above his own. This philosophical attitude is also advocated by some Western thinkers among whom Kant and Greene are prominent. The problem of morality and immorality should be thought of and decided from