________________
242
THE JAINA GAZETTE carry out; he should avoid practices the bad results of which are seen all around us, gambling, crime, etc., and those the bad results of which can be known by thinking; his expenses should be in proportion to his income; he should respect the parents ; he should not speak words which unnecessarily cause ill feeling in the mind of another; should maintain those who are dependent upon him; he should appreciate (though he may not be able to follow) the conduct of the wise, i.e. the spiritually superior; he should keep the company of only good persons; he should study the philosophy every day; he should be critical regarding beliefs, philosophy, religion, and should solve and reconcile the questions and doubts arising out of the critical attitude; he should have all his energies directed for virtue. One of the experiences which has to be passed through in the process of development is the feeling that this whole embodied life is a misery; this is followed by a desire to remove the worst or life-long degree of the four passions already mentioned, and when this is actually removed or controlled the right attitude of mind towards life and the universe comes out, there will be right belief. We are then in the fourth out of a classification of fourteen stages of development, and in this fourth stage we are not liable to generate karmas which will cause us to be reborn in hell, or as an animal, or in low class human society.
The special rules are for the layman who is exercising a middle degree of control over the sense-pleasures, the mind, and the next less intense degree of the abovementioned passions. If the person exercises full control he is not a layman he is a monk. These special rules are choices of courses of conduct, choices requiring the exercise of much care in making them and in undertaking to follow them. Choice implies that the person shas before him several ways of conduct, and that he picks out one from among them. As the layman exercising a middle degree of self-control is a person with a right attitude of mind (samyaktva), his selection will be a proper one. It necessitates the exercise of judgment and discrimination, and doing this is not following the path of least resistance but, as
distinguished from leading a life where no such choice is made, Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
