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JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXVI, No. 3 January, 2002
Speech III
Speech by Swami Sarvalokānandaji Mahāraja
I feel myself blessed to be here on this auspicious occasion. At the outset, I pay my respectful homage to Lord Mahavir - the 24th teacher of Jain Faith.
We live in an age of consumerism. With the tremendous progress in Science and Technology and with easy availability of consumer goods in abundance our life-style has become easy and comfortable. With the click of a button we can do wonderful things which was not possible sometime ago. In the wake of advanced communication system and information technology the world has squeezed into a global village, There are tremendous development in Industry, Agriculture, HealthCare, Education and all other sectors. In the 21st century Genomeproject, gene-mapping, Gene-therapy etc. is going to be the greatest achievement in the Biotechnology. In spite of such development the present scenario of the world is so tragic, so painful and so heinous. Religious and political violence etc. have engulfed the whole world. Now-a-days corruption is ranıpant in all spheres. It has been proved that the scientific progress cannot elevate the humanity from animal level to higher level. The root cause of these maladies lies in the individual. The society cannot progress without the inner transformation of the individual. Man has to rise above the baser instinct and he has to realize his inherent potentiality for doing good and being good.
Here comes the role of religion and spirituality. Without this, the inner transformation cannot be achieved. It is nothing but manisestation of divinity that is already in us as preached by Swami Vivekananda. For this we need self-discipline and self-restraint. Bhagavan Mahavir has prescribed PANCHA MAHAVRATAS that will certainly lead the mankind from darkness to light.
The PANCHA MAHAVRATAS as preached by Bhagavan Mahavir are : AHIMSA
: the vow of non-injury to life, SATYAM
: the vow of truthfulness consisting in
speaking what is true as well as pleasant and good
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