ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 04

Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

Page 472

permanency in transitoriness, all moral distinction between the anti-thesis of bondage and liberation, punya and papa, heaven and hell, pleasure and plain will be blurred. Belief, for example, in the metaphysical view that the nature of things is absolutely transitory would make it impossible to carry on any financial transaction, or to explain the fact of memory, or to have any relation like that of husband and wife. This brings out the importance of right knowledge.
The Third Dimension of Supra-morality
Another characteristic of Jain view of life, which shares with other system of India, is too distinguished between the practical path and transcendental morality. What we call as good is only a path and not the goal. Good leads to favourable circumstances but not to liberation. Bad leads to unfavourable circumstances, which means that good should be preferred to bad. But in both the cases, the attachment is there. Both of them have to be abandoned in favour of a life of pure consciousness. The consciousness is neither good nor bad. It is knowledge. Simple and pure. Good and bad lose their importance at that transcendental stage. In practical terms, it means that one should not entertain any idea of superiority while performing a good action.
Secular Society
Another characteristic if Jain view of life is that they accept all social institutions and rules which do not come in contradiction to his right attitude and observance of vows. This makes one socially acceptable in spite of his own way of spiritual life.
Necessary Evils
As the Jains are known for their devotion to non-violence, it may be pointed out that a Jain householder has his own limitations. He has to share the responsibilities towards his family of earning livelihood and procuring necessities of life for them, as also to defend himself and his country from the offenders. For fulfilling his responsibilities towards his family, he has to adopt a profession. He has to be careful that he chooses a profession in which there is the least violence. In spite of this, it is not possible to avoid every kind of violence. Such a violence, which is involved in his profession, is accepted evil for him. Similarly, one has to be careful that while performing the daily routine of a householder like cooking. He takes maximum precaution against violence but still he is bound to commit certain violence. Which is the second necessary evil? As regards the right of self-defence, a householder has never to be offensive but as he has to defend himself, the violence involved in such a situation is the third necessary evil.
All the above necessary evils cannot be a householder but he can certainly avoid intentional violence, which means he should not commit violence for the sake of fun or satisfying his intense passions. Thus, he can lead a worldly life and still start journey towards spiritualism.
Relevance of Jain Way of Life
From what has been said above, we can safely conclude that Jain way of life leads to a civilized society on the collective level and a peaceful life at the individual level. It would be relevant to analyse as to how this way of life can universally solve the problems of human life. Conclusion
It may be noted here that through the rules of conduct as prescribed by Jainism and recorded by us appear to be too elaborate and sometimes even superfluous, yet basic idea behind these rules is that of self-realization. When there is a feeling-realization of the true nature of the self and when one is completely lost in the bliss self-meditation, the observance of all the moral rules becomes spontaneous, coming from within and not being an imposition from without. The problems of human life arise out of various factors, which can be classified under the following board heads:
o Scarcity
o Injustice
o Ignorance
o Selfishness
Scarcity
In spite of the great strides of science and technology we know that humanity suffers from scarcity. Science tries to solve this problem in its own way by inventing tools for increasing production, by importing means of comforts and luxuries, and by developing new means of fighting against the
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STUDY NOTES version 4.0