Book Title: Jainism
Author(s): Herbert Warren
Publisher: Divine Knowledge Society

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Page 106
________________ 96 JAINISM Constantly looking with a lustful eye at women; also using medicine when weak. There are also other ways of partially transgressing the VOW. Although the wording here is applied to men, the same rules applied to women hold good; to be satisfied with one's own husband; avoiding other women's husbands, etc. FIFTH VOW (STIULA-PARIGRAHA-PARIMANA VRATA) Undertaking to limit one's possessions. It is the limitation of the desire to possess property. and hence of actual possession. If this desire is uncontrolled, it is limitless. To limit the desire is to partially control it. A person may possess without desiring to possess. It is the desire for things that are not ourselves that is meant, and not desire for kind-heartedness, wisdom, knowledge. The real self is different from the body, and from material things. The real self does not take on what belongs not to it, and does not give up what belongs to it by nature. The desire for possession is the false identification of the real self with material things and, as soon as this is realized, the person will begin to remove the desire, by limiting the quantity of his material possessions. To satisfy the desire for possession, we have to engage in some kind of activity not natural to the pure soul, and this activity is such that foreign energies and unnatural impelling forces are generated. By limiting the desire to possess, we get contentment and steadiness. Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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