Introduction to Jainism

Author(s): Rudi Jansma, Sneh Rani Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 85

KARMA
83
who takes the sins we have committed away from us, precisely because even our faults and failures will, even though we have to face their painful consequences, eventually result in what is best for us as a living soul. Such ideas about godhead are utterly contradictory of the Jain teachings. The wisest attitude and the best thing we can do for our soul is to evoke within ourselves a feeling of gratitude and accept whatever our karma presents to us with equanimity and wellgrounded hope. “Bless the karmic stimulus; be not afraid of it. Look to the essential divinity within. Remember that everything that happens is transient, and that you can learn from everything, and in learning you will grow - grow great, and from greatness pass into a larger sphere of greatness” says a modern theosophical writer."
Is karma unavoidable?
If you know that you have done something that was not right, it may be an additional psychological burden to know that you will have to face the consequences. Even if we regret, if we are absolutely sure we will never make the same mistake again, even if we go to our temples and churches to pray - what we have sown we ourselves will have to reap.
This is a harsh teaching. But is it true? It takes courage to accept that we have a lot to answer for that never can be reversed. Billions of people believe in forgiveness from heaven, in indulgence from their churches or their gods, and around the world we find people praying to their God or gods to make life run smoothly. Is karma just as absolute as “fate," with the only difference that the former is just and the latter arbitrary (at least in the modern view)? Should, for example, Muslims continue to believe that the terrible earthquakes, all their victims of war, and their daily humiliation by those who belong to other cultures, are the result of the Mercy of Allah, Who at the same time seems to pay no attention at all to their prayers?