Jain Study Center NC Raleigh 1997 11 YJA Regional Convention

Author(s): Jain Study Center NC Raleigh
Publisher: USA Jain Study Center NC Raleigh

Page 96

From a little girl to physician: One life struggle of Practicing Jain religion (A letter to my mother)
By Jina Shah Dear Mom:
I have been away from home for a number of years now, pursuing my studies and career. I want to share some reflections with you that are hard to say.
I want to thank you for teaching me how cruelty to any living being is cruelty to myself, to my best nature. You knew just how to bring this potentially philosophically complicated idea to its simple core, when you asked me "How would you feel if a big animal ate you?". My 7 year old mind understood this and felt right to be vegetarian.
You encouraged me to learn about other religions, to go to Bible School. I appreciate your openmindedness. I was proud of your tenacity when the church ladies came to our home to try to convert you to Christianity. I remember watching you talk about karma and the balance in the universe. The Christian women, realizing you were too firm in your beliefs to become Christian, eventually admitted defeat.
I always felt out of place socially, because of my personality, and perhaps because of being Indian, Jain, strongly believing in ideas that my friends had no exposure to. Until the day that you came to our Girl Scout troop meeting, dressed in your sari, to talk about Indian culture. All the girls were my best friends that day.
You went to work during my grade school and junior high days. Dad concocted lunch: cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, chutney and green pea soup, along with the pasta-o mush that all the kids ate. I felt like a normal kid when I ate pizza and ice cream and drank liters of cola... at birthday parties, and when we went out to eat on weekends.
Things got a little harder when we went to India, and I took a vow at Palitana not to eat eggs for a year. My friend threw a surprise birthday party, including an egg-containing cake. I ate some, because I didn't want to offend people or defend my beliefs, and because it was appetizing.
You never ate eggs Mom nor the soy burgers and hot dogs that Nick (younger brother) and I ate. You thought they looked too much like meat, and that you'd be tempted to eat the real thing. I haven't yet slipped down that slope, though I do eat the soy stuff.
My idea in stopping the eggs (at least ideally, was to discipline myself, just for the same reason as I did ekasana, ayembil and upvas. I didn't quite understand the traditional Jain view of eggs containing potential life, as it seemed to me that the eggs were not fertilized. However, I thought I should control my eating, and might as well start with an item considered unJain.
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