Jain Tattva Parichay

Author(s): Ujjwala D Shah
Publisher: Veetrag Vani Prakashak

Page 7

My Sentiments In our daily life we have always seen that Dharma or religion, as it is commonly called, is a subject on which one hears many different, and at times, conflicting views. In fact most of us are vehemently putting forward our ideas and opinions about Dharma, God, rituals etc,
But it one sits back and tries to think about our ideas and opinions, one realises that most of them are acquired and accepted by us from others, without really going into its truthfulness or logical sources.
In every other walk of life we are always in search of the specialist 'or' technically expert person, to take care of our problems and needs. In matters of health, education, finance, business etc. we are always relying on the specialist in these fields. Even while buying a small item of household need we are so careful and critical about its price, quality etc.
But surprisingly in case of religion most of us are not so careful and analytical. We inherit certain principles and practices of the religion followed by our family and society with blind faith. And most of the time we do not understand the nature of real Dharma. At one time, I was also doing same thing.
In the year 1972, when we had visited Kumbhoj Bahubali, Acharya Samantbhadra instigated us to do Swadhyay. And in 1975 while we were on a pilgrimage, which was arranged by Pt. Babubhai Mehta as Dharma Chakra Yatra for three months, we had good fortune to listen to many scholars and understand many basic principles of Jainism. Thereafter I started serious study of our Jain philosophy.
For the first time in my life I realised that despite being well educated in the worldly matters and acquiring many degrees and gold medals in the field of medicine, I was really ignorant about the subject of religion. And my ego of being well educated was really shattered. I realised that this education is nothing or even worthless compared to the philosophy of Jainism. And so was the feeling of my husband Shri Dineshchandra who is also a tripple graduate.
Both of us were well settled in our respective profession/business. We were happily married having two little well behaved daughters. So in daily material life we were very happy, well settled and content. But once we were introduced to this great treasure of Jain philosophy we were really awakened from our so called contented life.
And to undertake deeper study of Jain philosophy both of us took voluntary retirement from our respective profession/business since August 1992. After that we started doing Swadhyay (self study) for nearly 8 to 10 hours daily.