Ethnicity and Religious Heritage

Author(s): T U Mehta
Publisher: T U Mehta

Page 40

Jainism - A Goddess Creativity
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cosmologists that root cause of all effects is some where outside your own self. Jainism says you are own cause and your own effect and it is by your own effort and exertion that you can reap results which are good or bad. If there is an ultimate cause, that is within you and not outside you. You are, therefore, your own master, your own God. You are not survile or subservient to any outside agency. Finality is your own potential. As Brihad-Aranyaka Upnishad puts it, "whoever worships God as other than the self, thinking he is one and I am another knows not."
Even Bhagwadgita recognises this truth when the Lord says, "Iswarah Sarva Bhutānām Hrudeshe Arjuna tisthati" at: 276 HATATAGUIG fosfat"Oh, Arjuna, God resides in the heart of every being." Aristotal utterred a great truth when he said: "To be happy means to be self-sufficient". Salvation, according to Jain seers, is not a gift of capricious gods, but is to be won by earnest seeking and self discipline. Man, according to them is the sole and absolute master of his fate, but so long as his vision is clouded by ignorance resulting in