Bondage and Freedom

Author(s): Chitrabhanu
Publisher: Divine Knowledge Society

Page 85

This brings us to the third pillar of JainismAparigraha-Nonacquisition.
Has it not been said, “It is easy to free oneself from iron chains but not from the attachments of the heart?”
What are these "attachments of the heart?" Things that you desire so much that you spend all your energy in acquiring them and when you have acquired them, you get so attached to them that their loss would render your life most unhappy. The principle of nonacquisition, teaches us not to give too much importance to acquiring worldly things-a house, a car, all kinds of comfort, and not to value them so much that their loss would mean the end of the world for us. Every man needs things to make life comfortable. Jainism does not enjoin a layman to renounce everything—that is only for the Sadhu, the ascetic. But Jainism does enjoin that even a layman should set a certain limit to his desires-his wants—so that he does not keep on acquiring and accumulating and in the process denying others of their needs.
The ideal is to cut his requirements to the bare minimum.
This nonacquisition or nonpossession should extend even to attachments to human beings-to our dear ones. It would be unnatural for a parent not to
76