Jainism

Author(s): Herbert Warren
Publisher: Divine Knowledge Society

Page 64

JAINISM Another way in which the factor of love upon which the rules of conduct must be based can be shown would be a desire for others to develop their spiritual nature. Whereas the way previously mentioned is simply a protecting of the bodily welfare, the way now meant is a desire to protect the soul.
Another way would be pity for one's own soul that it should have been so long, that is, for all time past, in the deluded and unclean state it was in before reaching the right attitude of mind. And as a consequence of this pity we should remain aloof from pains and pleasures, these being enemies to the blissful quality of the real self.
Another way or form of pity is love for others as the result of thought. Here the thought would be: I do not like pain or misery, and therefore others would not; so I shall endeavour to avoid inflicting pain upon them.
Another form of this quality is the refraining from injuring other living beings because you believe that you will thereby reach a pleasurable condition after death; but this form is only apparently a form of love.
And another form is where good comes as a result but not at the beginning. But if there is any feeling of revenge or hate, then it is not love or pity. If you vindictively tell a person something unpleasant in order to bring him to his senses, it is not love; but it is if there is no feeling of vindictiveness.
There are also two other forms of "daya," namely, the relative and absolute (vyavahara and nishchaya). That is the end of the subject of what the signs of the right attitude of mind are.