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CALABARREGENSTERNEN
JAINA CONVENTION 2017
Fundamentally thinking a true Real Time Pratikraman will happen - when you ask for forgivance the moment you realize you did something wrong like hurt someone's feeling, told a lie, cheated in filing income tax, hit an animal while driving, sprayed chemicals to kill insects, had a lusty feeling watching a Beauty Pageant etc. etc. If you make this practice of the spontaneous Pratikraman, it will become your second nature and will lead to minimization of your sinful
acts.
Article:
We have been doing a traditional Sanvatsari Pratikraman in our area for more than 30 years. More than 100 persons participate from the age of seven to 80. For more than three hours all participants sit patiently even though they understand very little. The older people do Pratikraman because they were raised with this tradition in India. Some of them look forward to the excitement of 'Zankara rav sara' or the kausagga of 161 navkars which gives them opportunity to be challenged and apply some mental technique. Some adults do understand Atichaar Sutra which is in Gujarati. However, majority of the items and situations mentioned in that Sutra were very relevant to the Indian agricultural economy which existed a centaury ago but makes little sense in today's world. Most of the urban population would not understand most of the instances described therein. When it comes to youngsters - who are educated in English medium, they come and sit respectfully with inquisitive gaze in their eyes. I admire their patience for sitting-occasionally standing with a charavlo, without understanding a single word.
Even for the people who understand meanings of some sutras, there is very little relevance for activities like 'Muhapatti Padilehan' and most of the Atichar items mentioned belonged to agricultural society of 19th century. They have little relevance even in India in today's life of the 21st century, let alone western countries. As a result, the Pratikraman becomes analogous to reading a cook book recipe in French or Latin where you don't understand most of the words, let alone following the recipe instructions. Consequently, you stay hungry in spite of reading the recipe over and over again.
In order to make the Pratrikraman more meaningful and relevant to our today's life we started an experiment in Modern Pratikraman which has two primary objectives; 1) each participant must understand what is being said and 2) they must participate actively and experience the real essence of the Pratikraman by doing what the Sutra says not just recite. This process is structured with the following criteria in mind.
We speak and conduct the whole Pratikraman in a current spoken language English or Gujarati depending on the participants.
We concentrate on the key principles and explain them in a manner which makes relevant to our today's life.
Each participant must understand the objective of each activity and be given an opportunity to
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