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JAINISM
241 of this finest matter or karma, and by removing that which is already combined with the soul. If we wish to do this we must know how, and it is the firm conviction of the Jains that only the omniscient can tell us. Believing it possible would be right belief, knowing what to do would be right knowledge, and doing it would be right action. The rules are divided into those for beginners and those for the more spiritually advanced; that is to say rules for laymen and rules for monks. These rules are not commands. Deity in the Jain doctrines does not mean issuing laws which must be obeyed, nor does it mean creating worlds. It means the highest ideal state which we keep before the mind with the object of ultimately attaining it as seen in the person of Mahavira and in others. The rules for laymen consist of ordinary and of special ones. The ordinary rules lead to right belief. There are four states of mind which prevent right belief. They are anger, pride, deceitfulness, and greed of an intense degree, anger for instance which would make us feel that in all our life we could never forgive some particular person. Right belief comes out when this intense degree of these passions does not rise, but is controlled by the mind when felt to be rising.
The ordinary rules are some thirty-five in number; they form the first step which a person desiring to make some spiritual progress should adopt. The practice of these rules is the way to commence working out the karmas, and the practice must be accompanied always by an internal state of fellowfeeling for other living beings, love, sympathy, pity, and compassion. All living beings are social, and the ultimate object of these rules as far as they are social is that we may be able to do some good to the people around us. To mention a few of these rules, the person should follow some clean business and do it honourably; the business should not be that of a butcher, fisherman, brewer, gun maker, or anything which involves wholesale destruction of life. He should marry; he should give up eating meat and drinking alcoholic liquors; he should not undertake more than his strength will allow him to Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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