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"He who is not defiled by pleasures just as a lotus grows on the water and yet is not immersed in it, him we call a Brahmin."*
According to the Jain teaching, the meaning of life reveals itself in expansion, in including all in one's love and wellwishing. The experience of liberation arises naturally from the moment one drops all concepts and biases. Then one feels the fullness and completeness of life, of one's own nature: ananta jñan, infinite wisdom; ananta darsan, infinite vision; ananta virya, infinite energy, and ananta ananda, infinite bliss.
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Wherever hypocrisy, prejudice, or discrimination had taken hold, Gurudev threw a light to expose the root causes of such attitudes and to help people remove them. He observed that those Jains who had not gone into the depth of Mahavir's teaching were sometimes speaking and acting in ways influenced by the caste system. They were not aware of how their minds had absorbed the cultural influence, but when they were put to the test, at times subtle biases surfaced.
At this time in Bhavnagar, in 1956, people from all walks of life were attending Gurudev's talks. One group, called the Bhavsars, were following the practices of Jainism. On the last day of the eight-day festival of forgiveness, even those who had not fasted during the seven previous days usually fasted and kept silence. That evening, Gurudev performed Samvatsiri Pratikraman, the 'stepping back from all kinds of unawareness,' as listed in the Kalpa Sutra which Gurudev recited in its entirety. At the end, there was kshamapana, the chance to forgive everyone, including oneself, and to ask others for forgiveness.
The next day, the people were planning to break the fast in a feast called Swāmi-Vatsalya, in celebration of affection for all
Jain Education International
*This story is quoted in The Jaina Path of Purification by Dr. Padmanabha. It is because of the emphasis on animal sacrifice and the caste system that Jains and Buddhists through the centuries have not accepted the authority of the Vedas, in which these practices are spelled out. However, they appreciate the beauty and wisdom expressed in the Upanishads, which form the basis for the Vedanta philosophy.
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