Introduction to Jaina Sadhna

Author(s): Sagarmal Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 72

Code of Conduct for a Jaina Monk : 65
this point of view, fulfilment of bodily needs has both value and importance, the body is means to liberation and therefore deserves care. But it must be noted that our attention should be fixed not on the vessel – the means, but on the shore -- the end to which it leads. As the vessel, body is a means and not an end. The recognition of physical and material values of life as means is at the core of Jainism and its entire spirituality. Here we have a line of demarcation indicating the difference between spiritualism and materialism.
in materialism, fulfilment of bodily needs and animal urges is an end in itself whereas in spiritualism it is only a means leading to the higher spiritual values. In Jainism both enjoyment and renunciation of worldly objects by an aspirant are needed for the cultivation of self restraint ( samyama ) and mental equanimity ( samatva ). The entire religious practices of Jainism aim at the development of an unruffled, unattached, dispassionate and peaceful life that is free from mental tensions and conflicts. The main issue is not the fulfilment or rejection of bodily needs but the establishment of peace in the life of individual as well as of society. Hence the fulfilment of bodily needs is welcomed to the extent to which it furthers this particular cause, but when it does not, it ought to be rejected. This view is beautifully presented in the Acārānga and Uttarādhyayana (32/100-107 ). They say, when the senses come into contact with their objects, then the concommitant sensations of pleasure or pain also arise. It is not, possible in actual life to effectively alienate senses from the experiences of their objects and thus to exclude sensations of pleasures and pains. Hence what we must renounce is not the sense experiences but attraction or repulsion to them invoked in the mind. Attractions and repulsions (mental tensions) are the effects of the involvement of the self in pleasant or unpleasant sense-objects; they cannot arise in