International Jain Conference 1985 3rd Conference

Author(s): Satish Jain, Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Ahimsa International

Page 140

evil or hear evil of others. If you will cast out evil thoughts about others, all are friendly.
There is no evil in the world. If it appears to be evil, it is due to the smoky or colored glasses that you are wearing on your heart or mind. You will find that if you think in the way that I have just told you, then naturally you will have respect and love for all, even for your enemies. They might think otherwise of you, but if you have thrashed out every evil thought within you for everybody, you will see with that angle of vision, which the Master gives you, that it is all the manifestation of God, then naturally, everybody will be beautiful. You will see this beauty even in your enemy. A perverted view is only on account of smoky glasses.
We must all learn to look within and not without. It is far easier to see a mote in another's eye than to see a beam in one's own. We must reform ourselves before we can reform others, but unfortunately we are always anxious to reform others. We should weed out all imperfections one by one self-introspection and this will bring peace all around. Love beautifies everything and if we learn to love everyone, all our imperfections can be washed away, especially by loving kind words. Kind words imbued with humility don't cost anything. If you have that attitude in life, I think ninety percent of your troubles will be avoided.
The place where fire burns becomes heated first and then transmits its heat to the atmosphere around. So it the case with fire or anger. An imagined or supposed wrong keeps rankling in the mind like a thorn. When one cannot bear its intensity, one bursts forth into flames of hatred and contempt (begins abusing right and left), loses his balance of mind, and like a canker keeps emitting a malign odor that virtually goes on polluting the atmosphere around. Most of the injuries and wrongs are the ontcome of our own process of thinking, and such thoughts breed countless others, multiplying in geometrical proportion. We can get out of this vicious circle only by changing our attitude towards life. Why sacrifice our natural equanimity for mere trifles, for passing bubbles and vapory nothings that are things of no consequence ? Instead of brooding over these supposed and imagined wrongs it would be better by far to contemplate on the higher aspects of life, the divinity within and the divinity without, for this world is verily of the dlvine and divinity resides therein.
You will gradually have greater control over your feelings and emotion, such as vanity, greed and lust, and develop instead virtues of humility, contentment, chastity and love. You will give up your habit of judging others and start adjusting yourself to their weaknesses and shortcomings, either by overlooking or affording constructive help to them. By this adjustment, you will bring much sunshine and happiness for yourself as well as for all those around you. If you think with a calm and cool mind, you will realize that most of us have not become perfect as yet.
52