Introduction to Jainism and its Culture

Author(s): Balbhadra Jain
Publisher: Kundkund Gyanpith Indore

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convenience there is, the more is the happiness. They also believe that the more wealth and material conveniences a person has the happier he is. Indeed, it is their belief but is it true as well that the wealthier a person is, the happier he is? If we make a realistic survey it will be revealed that the wealthier a person is, the more disturbed he is. Rockefeller is or was once considered to be one of the richest persons in the world. Many of his grandchildren have renounced the princely grandeur and retired to different places leading a reclusive life. One of his grand-daughters, Marianna, lives in a remote village in California on a small plot of land and grows and sells vegetables. In an interview she accepted that she took to this life-style of her on volition and was absolutely contented. She felt tethered to various demands of ostentatious living earlier but now she was independent and could breathe under the open sky.
This is not just one isolated instance of Rockefeller's grand children squirming under the weight of the tomb of mundane things. It is common to many young people, from many affluent European countries, fed up of the physical wealth and roaming all around in search of peace and happiness. Many get deluded and take to heroin, marijuana, cannabis, LSD, and other such addictive drugs in their quest for peace and happiness. The fact is that they are tired of the abundance of physical comforts and its enjoyments, but the irony is that they have chosen the wrong path. The have never earnestly tried to know what is happiness? Happiness devoid of peace is no happiness. In fact, true happiness is that which entails peace, permanence and independence.
We enjoy material things with sense organs and mind and believe it to be happiness. If we get things appealing to and cherished by sense organs and mind we derive pleasure. However, if we do not get desired things we feel sorry. Desires and ambitions haunt us incessantly. If our desires and ambitions are fulfilled we are happy. If they are not fulfilled we are sorry. This has become our accepted belief.
When we analyze the sensual pleasures, we come to the conclusion that first of all there is no happiness in things of comfort or material things. Secondly, it is impossible to satiate desires. Desires are limitless and material things are limited. Before a single desire is satiated many more arise. This wheel of rising desires is ever moving. It continues to drive the wheel of craving and sorrow. When the desire
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