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the Niśithabhasya that, “Knowledge leads to salvation, the body leads to knowledge and food leads to (the nutrition of) body.” The body is a vessel that ferries a person to the shore of eternal bliss. From this point of view, fulfillment of bodily needs has both value and importance. The body is means to liberation and therefore deserves care. But it must be noted that our attention should be fixed not on the vessel - the means, but on the shore - the end to which it leads. As the vessel, body is a means and not an end. The recognition of physical and material values of life as means is at the core of Jainism and its entire spirituality. Here we have a line of demarcation indicating the difference between spiritualism and materialism.
In materialism, fulfillment of bodily needs and animal urges is an end in itself whereas in spiritualism it is only a means leading to the higher spiritual values. In Jainism both enjoyment and renunciation of worldly objects by an aspirant are needed for the cultivation of self restraint (Samyama) and mental equanimity (Samatva). The entire religious practices of Jainism aim at the development of an unruffled, unattached, dispassionate and peaceful life that is free from mental tensions and conflicts. The main issue is not the fulfillment or rejection of bodily needs but the establishment of peace in the life of individual as well as of society. Hence the fulfillment of bodily needs is welcomed to the extent to which it furthers this particular cause, but when it does not, it ought to be rejected. This view is beautifully presented in the Ācārānga and Uttarādhyayana (32/100-107).
They say when the senses come into contact with their objects, then the concomitant sensations of pleasure or pain also arise. It is not possible in actual life to effectively alienate senses from the experiences of their objects and thus to exclude sensations of pleasures and pains. Hence what we must renounce is not the sense experiences but attraction or repulsion to them invoked in the mind. Attractions and
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