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AINA CONVENTION 2011
"Live and Help Live"
Live And Help Live Shri Charukeerthi Bhattaraka Panditacharyavarya Maha Swamiji
Bhattarakji was designated as religious head of the Main Mutt Moodbidri in 1999. He received a post graduate degree in Economics and honorary doctorates. Swamiji is involved in cultural, social and religious activities, has received many awards and represented Jainism in national and international conferences. Knowledge of the differences of souls is important to understanding their happiness, misery and relationships. Souls do not need relationships with other souls and real happiness comes only by getting rid of it. Practice of aparigraha fosters the principle of live and help live.
Discernment of the Difference of Souls in the World The profound answer Bhagwaan Lord Mahaveera Swami gave in response to the question of Ganadhara: Being born as humans, we have to discern the difference among souls. One who has got this discernment is the wise one. By knowing the difference among souls, one can know their states of being, that is, their happiness and misery. Only upon understanding that one's own happiness and misery are the same as the happiness and misery of all souls, one gets to understand that one should not cause injury to other beings. A lot of difference is seen among souls. This difference proceeds from kind or nature. Difference of nature can be seen among humans, as well as among other animals. It can be seen among amphibians like crocodiles, and also among frogs, cocks, serpents, cows, buffalo, goats and sheep. No one would agree to see the humankind as just one kind. Even if the law states that all humans are of one kind, society wouldn't concur with it. There is difference of kind in rice, wheat and other cereals and pulses. Difference of kind can be seen among vegetables, fruits and flowers also. Difference of kind is to be detected among plants, trees, creepers and grass. Man-made things also have their differences in kind. Except man- made things, difference of souls and difference of kind are natural use for this difference. Instrumental actions (dravya karma), emotional actions (bhava karma) and physical
actions (shareera karma) of souls are the cause for the difference. These are the vice and virtue of souls. We deny all this though we witness to it all along life. We have to make out ourselves as ignorant as long as we do not see the difference among souls. To get rid of ignorance it is necessary to discern the difference of souls. One becomes an ideal house-holder by knowing the difference among souls, understanding the cause of their happiness and misery and such things. Man ought to know the parameters of a happy life. We see relationship occurring between one soul and another-like husband and wife, father and mother, children and grandchildren, and servants. As love, hatred and such sensibilities occur among relatives, friends and foes, and also in our dealings with animals, man gets into such relationships. This relationship is not limited to just one birth. Relationship proceeds right from the beginning, from time immemorial. Tendency for relationships has no break whatsoever. From experience we see that relationships occur by means of marriage, herd instinct, seclusion,mutual help, love, infatuation, hatred, rivalry, happiness, misery, pleasure and so on. This culture of relationship is not of recent origin. It comes from the very beginning. No one gets to understand this. Therefore people take it that relationships are accidental and happiness and misery accrue from them. The ignorant souls are not on to reality. Souls get to relate to other souls by virtue of their ingrained virtue and vice. We get to relate to virtuous souls by virtue of our
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