JAINA Convention 2017 07 Edison NJ

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

Page 86

JAINA CONVENTION 2017
This is their belief. However, nothing of that kind is possible. Therefore, do not wait for miracles to happen. Do not be under the illusion that though you have entertained a faulty cause, some prayer will save you from its unfavourable effects. Instead, pray for strength so that you do not give in to the wrong causes. Only then will you be saved from their harmful and unpleasant effects. If you wish to see beneficial effects, then practise the right cause. Understanding this law is right knowledge, its acceptance is right faith, and living accordingly is right conduct. This trinity alone is dharma, the path of liberation.
Dharma is Freedom from Desires
A clear understanding of the relation between cause and effect leads one to the path of liberation. Enthusiasm towards pursuing the right causes and aligning one's conduct accordingly is the true path and its effect is liberation - a state of desirelessness. Liberation is being free from desires, living in contentment. It is living in the present, in the now.
Desire is the way to worldliness. As the desire arises, your sight moves away from the goal of liberation, to worldliness, and then you get bound in the cycles of birth and death. Thus, becoming free from desires and staying content is true dharma.
However, under the spell of delusion, you make dharma also a means to fulfil your desires. You may have faith in dharma, you may enthusiastically practise a lot of rituals; nevertheless, you do so considering dharma as a cause to attain comfortable living, and not as the cause for annihilating your karmas. This has been your habit life after life. Even if you try to renounce the world, the desires remain and keep creating obstacles.
Sometimes, you amass wealth with the belief that it will bring happiness. At other times you make status your means to gain happiness, and now you are making religious practises your means to achieve happiness. The basic math remains the same. You are not enjoying what you are doing in the present. Your joy lies in the fruits you will get in the future. You have no interest in what you are doing, or in dharma; you are only interested in dreaming that 'by doing this, I will get that', and when you feel your dreams may not be fulfilled, then even the enthusiasm for performing dharma ebbs away.
True Religiousness
One who performs rituals with the aim of attaining something in the future is not truly religious. He pushes his goal of freedom, peace, purity in the future. While for the true follower of dharma, every moment is an experience of freedom because he does not entertain desires or insist upon their fulfilment. He meditates because he is experiencing peace 'in' meditation, and not in order to attain peace 'from' meditation. He offers charity because it is in the offer