Jain Gazette 1920 06

Author(s): Jagnanderlal Jaini, Ajit Prasada, C S Mallinath Jain
Publisher: Jaina Gazette Office

Page 15

WHAT IS JAINISM.
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nature as peaceful and happy. For this we require pure thought activities unsullied by passion and meditation on the pure nature of the soul and its qualities. The supreme means of attaining purity is concentration of the soul on itself or self-realisation. The lower or subsidiary means of securing the purity of the soul are to be found in the different means of drawing our attention to its qualities. Those who are of the highest order of souls, the saints, go about naked and devote themselves solely to concentration of their minds on the pure nature of the soul, while those who : are lay men follow different ways and means: (1) Worship of pure souls by means of meditation on the idols of the great souls: who have liberated themselves from the meshes of 'karmic' body: through that process and in that posture of the body. Such idols: are really emblematic of hero or ideal worship. Just as the image in stone or other material of a king or any other great man stand-- ing in a public park is an object of great respect and veneration and helps one to recollect their character, so the images of the great Tirthankars who have freed themselves from the trammels of 'karma', earthly attachments, are also objects of honour and worship and serve to remind us of the pure qualities of their sublime souls. Jaina laymen therefore set up in their temples such images of heroes or ideal men and perform before them daily worship as a means of purifying thoughts and feelings; (2) read. ing of pure books; (3) attendance on the true leaders to right path ; (4) devoting every morning, noon and evening to meditation on the pure soul; (5) practical self control, i. e., control of mind and the appetites by habits of temperance and self-denial or abstinence from intoxicants and narcotics, flesh eating and impure food and drink of all kinds. Touching upon the great question of a vegetable dietary for men, the learned speaker here gave copious quotations from European Doctors who have described the evil effects of meat diet upon the human constitution, physical and mental, incidentally dwelling on the question of the transmigration of the soul. He said that as the soul existed before it took up its abode in its present body, it will exist in future in other habitation as might be determined by its good or bad actions and according to the affinities of the "karmic matter which it draws unto itself by its thoughts and activities. So by performance of our duties in life to ourselves