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- VII. THE JAINA AND THE NON-JAINA INDIAN ETHICAL DOCTRINES
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Guru who has realised the self. The Katha Upanişad opines that the path of realisation is as difficult to traverse as the edge of a razor, consequently one should learn it from those who are on the lofty pedestal of unitive experience.2 It need not be asserted that the Bhagavad-Gitā illustrates the significance of the Guru who may lead the aspirant from the state of delusion to that of dispassion. Jainism also has not blinked the imperativeness of Guru for moving on the path of mystical realisation. The Ācārya is the Guru in the veritable sense. We have already reckoned with the characteristics of the Acārya, so they need not be repeated here. The Bhāyapāhuda says that the Ātman should be meditated upon after knowing it from the Guru.3
INCENTIVES TO SPIRITUAL LIFE; In the Upanisads and the BhagavadGitā we may discern certain incentives which prompt man to strive for immortality. First, the incentive of being struck by the impermanence of worldly opulences may be seen when Naciketas rejects the offer of mundane things and pleasures-cattle and elephants, gold and horses, sons and grandsons with long life, wealth, kingdom and all sorts of pleasureson being asked by the god of death. He declares that these transitory things wear away the glory of the senses and even a long life is insufficient to make something out of them with the consequence that dissatisfaction prevails. Again, he disapproves the desire for a lengthy duration of life of sensual pleasures when he has come into the presence of ageless immortals. In the Brhadāranyakopanişad Maitreyī prefers immortality to the possession of the whole earth full of wealth, since riches are incapable of bestowing eternal life upon her. The Maitri Upanişad portryas the mutable nature of the world. According to it, the gnats and mosquitoes, the grass and the trees grow and decay. There is the drying up of great oceans, the falling away of mountain peaks, the deviation of the fixed pole-star, the submergence of the earth, the departure of the gods from their station. In such a world as this, what is the good of enjoyment of desires ? In a similar spirit the Gitā tells us that sensual pleasures are the sources of sorrow; they have a beginning and an end and do not last for ever; hence the wise man
1 Mu. Up. I. 2. 12. 2 Ka. Up. I. 3. 14. 3 Bhāva. Pa. 64. 4 Ka. Up. I. 1. 23 to 27. 5 Ibid. I. 1. 28. 6 Br. Up. II. 4. 2. ? Mai. Up. I. 4. (Translation vide 'The Principal Upanişads”).
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