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Jain Society of Greater Detroit
PRATISHTHA MAHOTSAV JUNE 27-JULY 6 1998
BARNIVA
If the negative conditions are not changed, then they can persist and when unchecked, a lifetime can pass. After many years of unchecked, non-vigilant life, one becomes chronically A-G-E-D with Anger, Greed, Ego, and Deceit. These are all different forms of violence. This visible and invisible violence fossilizes us and makes us incapable of development.
The person who is willing to change the habits of the mind and negative attitudes bas to start practicing ahimsa as practiced by Bhagvan Mahavir. The process of photography explains ahimsa.
As a photograph has a two-way process, a negative and a positive, nonviolence also is expressed in two aspects: to do and not to do, commission and omission. The first is karuna:, a commitment to loving compassion, a feeling of equality with all life. And the second is abimsa: not to barm, not to kill. There is no room for violence, himsa, when we are filled with love. Love is understanding life and as we love our life, we love the life in others.
Negatives in Comparisons
In knowing the depth of nonviolence, ahimsa, we will not compare everything and everyone. And thus we will see the deeper meaning of life in everyone. For many, the old babit of comparison is natural because the mind is trained and conditioned to compare, but with this additional insight of ahimsa, we stop to think and a deeper truth may dawn upon us that each individual is different and unique. Even in twins, each is unique.
Why do even religious groups fight? Because they also compare. By comparing, they concentrate on a superficial level and not on the essence. Relativity of thinking shows that the learning from a teacher can be true in its times if each generation interprets the words in the context of the time, space and culture that is present for the generation.
Those who impose their belief on others, expecting others to accept their truth are nurturing a subtle seed of violence which in time will grow into a tree of even more similar seeds, and then more trees in turn, becoming a vicious cycle of violence.
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