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Our costly and artificial systems of Education and Government also seem to be open to the same objection mostly. Well have the Conquerors of pain and ignorance (the Jinas) prohibited frivolous talk, jests, pranks, stories of sex, crime, political gossip, etc., etc., as Pramáda (carelessness) leading to entanglement in Samsára (mundane life), and obscuring the real qualities of the soul. As it is impossible to improve upon that wonderful gem of Jaina Sacred Literature, the Jaina Bible, I have purposely quoted at length, in the Introduction, from Saint Umasvami's Tattvártha Sútra, as it gives the eternal, patent remedies and procedure for lessening and removing human ills.
It is a very long process to show the application of these remedies to our many and complex needs of every-day life; and it is obviously impossible to indicate their application to individual needs. But the remedies are these, and every man and woman, knowing his or her own faults and frailties, needs and desires, can easily find guidance after studying these general rules of right human conduct. The test of the pudding is in the eating thereof; and the test of the value of these teachings is when a man follows them and finds that they cure his weakness and sorrow and give him peace, power, calmness, a noble delight in his own work and life, and joyous co-operation and brotherly service in his relations with his neighbours and living beings generally. In one word, these teachings instil into one an insight of his being a chip of the eternal Omniscience and Omnipotence which we call GOD, and at the same time excite him into an easy, almost instinctive, realisation of his being a happy member of the Universal Fraternity of all Living Beings.
Whatever is correct in this volume, is due to the grace of the Títhamkaras and the kindness of my devoted friends at Lucknow ; but whatever is a mistake in matter and manner is entirely due to my unworthiness and laziness, i. e., to my Pramáda.
INDORE, NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1927.
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