Book Title: Jain Philosophy
Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Agamoday Samiti

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Page 316
________________ 287 people, was not of a nature to contribute to the eman tion of admiration of what may be called your "religion." Upon coming to this country and viewing you from higher and closer point of view, my first impression was in the nature of an agreeable surprise, I as a heathen, so-called, was received at the great Parliament of Religions, yours inculded, and by you espe cially in the spirit of that brotherly love which is one of the fundamental principles of the universal religion. This great welcoming spirit of brotherly love, of absolute tolerance, of illimitable fraternity, is the real expression of your national religion, in my impression, and differs in nothing from the spirit of my own religion, and therefore, I wonder why this spirit does not control in all directions. The spirit is true, it is universal, but its expression in dogmas and creeds and contending churches, seems in conflict with itself. How can narrowness, and bigotry, and limitations, and worldliness, and worship of mammon, and oppression and extortion, and enmity, and unbrotherly attitude and conduct, be natural expressions of the universal holy spirit of brotherly love ? Can you tell me, since I cannot enlighten myself ? If you say these expressions of outward signs mean nothing, I answer: Whence do they co:ne; whither do they tend, why do they have place; why have they not been banished ? If they mean nothing, they can have no mission, and are not the influences and children, and powers and Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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