Jain Journal 1977 07

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 19

JULY, 1977
Compassion for sufferers And indifference for wrong doers." -To a heavy-laden seeker, that Jainism In the Jaina opinion, was a faith of optimism, “Yes, life, death and rebirth bring misery Yet freedom therefrom is self-responsibility, By free will ye live as ye like, Trouble-stained or lotus-like, Thus by noble self-action Ye may hold soul aloof from body agitation.” -To an ascetic, the abstract conception Behind the workaday Jaina religion, “The soul is imperishable and pure, Attachment and aversion bind karmas that obscure Soul purity from beginningless time, Yet in one human lifetime The self-willed causes of body bondage Can be uprooted and the soul can take passage To liberation, the only end to the body curse, Immaterial forever, at the top of the universe." Also, at proper time and place the Lord said -That true spiritual effort was never wasted, --That scoffers were content in their body dwellings, Too young yet in spirit to seek spiritual things, ---That a devotee burned in adversity From carry-over karmas, not faulty philosophy, —That the thorn that had pierced His pilgrim heel Its soul neared now that it turned aside docile, -Even as He initiated His highest disciple Into the psychological principle That soul alone was cause of its body placement And karma, as effect, was only the instrument. All-knowing Lord! His glowing virtue Drew laks of persons to His retinue. He revived the classic four-fold order then, Monks and nuns, laymen and women. Head monk was Varadatta, head nun Yaksini Arya, Head lavman Nanda, head laywoman Mahasuvrata To guard against passions the world would arouse On His Order He laid the ancient Four Vows; Non-injury, truth, honesty and the non-possession That implied freedom from the body obsession.