Essence of Jainism

Author(s): Jyoti Prasad Jain
Publisher: Shuchita Publication Varanasi

Page 41

always justify the means. Good cannot come out of evil. Violence cannot pave the way for peace and happiness.
According to Mahavira faith, every living being is endowed with a soul. All souls are alike and possess inherent goodness in them. Every one of them can attain the highest spiritual perfection, although it is dependent on the conditions of its bodily existence and on the environments it Ands itself placed in; still in however limited a degree or however slowly, it can always aspire to and achieve the supreme spiritual evolution. If men come to realize this noble community of interest among all living beings they are sure to love one another and also sub-human life.
The path to this spiritual evolution, as practised and propagated by lord Mahavira, consists in a harmonious combination of right faith, right knowledge and right conduct. The last chiefly consists in ahimsa or non-violence, truthfulness, honesty, celibacy
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