JAINA Convention 1999 07 Philadelphia

Author(s): Federation of JAINA
Publisher: USA Federation of JAINA

Page 95

10th Biennial JAINA Convention
Guru had sensed the enlightenment. He went and stood by the eating monk, then invited all fasting monks to recognize that this monk, even without fasting, had attained enlightenment. He asked them to "bow to his feet'.
MONKHOOD
Under his guru's orders, he began to travel, meeting new people every day, seeing life in its diversity all over the country: its joys, its beauties, and its hardships. Jain monks travel only on foot and eat only what is offered by people that they meet on the way. Many times he and his fellow monks had to go without food.
He realized there was much to learn and understand from the vast reaches of wisdom and experience of mankind. Each journey was a poem, each step a rhyme. His fleeting feet covered vast grounds (30,000 miles). It was just a joy of wandering, a joy of living.
VOW OF SILENCE
For five years, he took a Vow of Silence (Maun), living on the mountains and the plains. He experienced the silence that stills the logic of the mind to awaken from within it the deepest intuition of the spirit. He heard an echo that rises from the heart, a different call that invited him to explore other attitudes and travel other paths with promise of adventure and thrill of unseen horizons.
PUBLIC SERVICE
When years of silence were over, his guru proclaimed him ready to go out into the world and speak. He started to speak before villages, schools, and prisoners in jail. He plunged into humanitarian work: raising resources and motivating people for earthquake, famine and flood relief, public and animal welfare. He worked with Gujarat's revered leader, Ravi Shankar Maharaj, National leader JayaPrakash Narayan, and mayors and governors. He founded the Divine Knowledge Society in Bombay on March 2, 1964 to coordinate and direct all his activities.
CHITRABHANU
He began writing. His books and poems stirred people His poem, "Maitri Bhavnu Pavitra Jharanu." written under the pen name Chitrabhanu, became very popular. His books reached abroad and aroused considerable interest in Jainism. In Bombay, he began to meet with foreigners interested in Jainism.
THE BIRLAS
The Birlas invited him to attend the second Spiritual Summit Conference to be held in April 1970 in Geneva. Traditionally, Jain monks do not travel by any vehicle. This restriction was intended to. avoid harm to animals in an age in which vehicles were drawn by animals. Respect for life in all its forms is the greatest of all Jain commandments. This meant that a Monk could not travel overseas.
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