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All want to live and are the same in nature as I am. When I have no power to endow a creature with life, how can I make any claim to deprive it of its right to live. To live and let live is Maitribhava.
It is a craving for pleasure that drives one to own or possess both things and persons. It colours the outlook and makes us selfish, but can we really be the owners ? What did we bring with us when we were born ? What shall we carry with us when we die ? Leave aside riches, land and relations, even this body held so dear, will be left behind. It is a sense of deep attachment which makes us hold on to things and persons creating an illusion of ownership. If selfishness dominated the mind, it is bound to create ill will and rasentment all around when pleasures of life will be gained by depriving others of their right to enjoy life by fair means or foul. Why do we do so, when span of life is short and all relations are transient ? Besides, to gain happiness which we so Reenly desire, right way is to show concern for others and to share our happiness with them. As we give, so shall we receive is the law. If we cause sufferings in lust for pleasure, we shall certainly invite on us, unhappiness; may be, in course of time. As I desire happiness, so do all ohters. Happiness shared is happiness increased. To cause misery to any one is to invite it to visit us. It recoils on us in a compounded way.
Being good to others earns merits and hurting others earns demerits. It sets into motion a chain reaction that may span many births.
All religions preach brotherhood of man, but Jainism goes futher and asks that friendliness must from the basis for our conduct towards all living beings without exceptions. It advises not to perceive enmity in any relationship as the origin of enmity lies not in others but in our own past karmas.
Really, how else we shall view the living beings around us unaware as we are, of what bonds we had formed with them in innumerable past lives? When relations get formed and dissolved in conformity with law of karmas, it is not impossible that a wife at present, might have been a mother in some past birth. Likewise, a son could be a father or an enemy could be a friend. Even what are insects or creatures now could be, in some past lives, related to us in some way, may be intimately, as a father or a mother or a brother. A veil of ignorance prevents us from knowing the truth. It can be even stranger than what we dare to imagine.
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