________________
A CALL TO ACTION
- DR. MICHAEL TOBIAS
Atul Shah interviewed Dr. Michael Tobias and here are his suggestions for the international Jain community.
Q. The role of women in India has been very traditional - looking after the home and the family. This role is changing in the west, and many women are now having professional careers. How can we best encourage and motivate Jain women to take a greater role in community affairs?
Q. You have travelled all over the world and met many Jains. What do you think are our strengths as a community?
Ecology means housecleaning - and Jain homes are immaculate. Hence the ecological principles I have been espousing, I have detected in the Jain household and in their relationships to nature and other human beings. The Jains maintain the balance between giving and taking. Throughout the Jain community, I see a constant inclination to giving, a selflessness that is unique. The world needs such individuals and communities more urgently than ever before.
Jain scriptures have always promoted equality between the sexes. However, in many parts of the world today. women are being oppressed at an alarming rate. So Jains should provide an example and provide women with a platform to become politicians, lawyers, advocates, judges, scientists, etc. and it is up to the men to support them. It is up to the husbands to provide a setting where their wives can experience liberation and dignity.
Q. Do you think that our significant material success in business and the professions will lead to our downfall as a community?
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Q. Jains have generally refrained from direct political action e.g. they rarely conduct public campaigns against cruelty to animals. What are your suggestions on how the Jain community can bring about greater awareness and practice of Ahimsa?
I do not think that wealth per se need violate the basic tenets of Jainism. However, the accumulation of wealth untempered upsets the whole balance to which I was just referring. To maintain a dynamic ecological balance, in business or in professional life demands this give and take. The more you take, the more you must give back. Jains have elevated giving to a very high level but this has traditionally been directed to temple building. The Terapanthi Jains led by Acharya Tulsi are an exception. They believe that money needs to be spent in caring and socially viable ways. Concern for womens' rights, the study of nonviolence, the active participation in animal rights issues, in child and health care are things that the Terapanthi have been advocating in India. Hence Jain businessmen need to recognise that their wealth and accumulation violates the fundamentals of their faith unless they give it back to just causes which encourage greater harmony between all living beings.
We know that charitra (right conduct) has been cited by many Jain scholars and sages as the key to unlocking our liberation. In fact, it has been stated repeatedly that right knowledge and belief without right conduct are essentially useless. Right knowledge and right belief by itself can never liberate, but right conduct by itself can liberate. This tells us that political activism and animal rights initiatives were right in Mahavira's time and are more right than ever before in our time. Mahavira himself reminds us in the Acharanga Sutra that we must not only practice non-violence and love to all creation but
also actively prevent harm to living beings. This is a message that falls right into the lap of Greenpeace, of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), of Compassion in World Farming. I think the true practice of Ahimsa in this day and age requires Jains to: - engage in political campaigning
and marches to parliament; actively boycott against certain
goods and practices; - to present radical declarations of
sustainability to world leaders; - establish Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO's); - set up schools and communities
such as so passionately advocated
by Satish Kumar; - actively help rural communities
to develop self-reliance and independence:
In sum, Jains should actively engage in efforts to reinvigorate the world. I keep arguing that we are not yet human beings. We are still labouring in dark
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lain Salle . lul. Sentember 1999
