Jainism Eternal and Universal Path for Enlightenment

Author(s): Narendra Bhandari
Publisher: Research Institute of Scientific Secrets from Indian Oriental Scriptures Ahmedabad

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Jainism : The Eternal and Universal path for Enlightenment
favourable conditions, architecture, catalysts and templates by which the molecules can get together fast to form complex large organic molecules and then living organisms and search for such routes from inanimate to animate are continuing. This hypothesis got a big boost by the experiment of Miller and Urey. In these experiments, when an electric discharge was passed in a mixture of simple life forming molecules like carbon di oxide, ammonia, water and methane etc, complex large molecules, like amino acids, proteins and similar building blocks of life were formed in a short time. This experiment however has not resulted in a living organism, howsoever simple and primitive. Although science has shown that matter (having mass M), which is corporeal and inert, can convert in to energy (E) (following the famous law E=Mc, where c is the velocity of light), which itself is incorporeal and capable of bringing in transformation in to matter and vice versa. It has however not answered the question "how does something as unconscious as matter can give rise to something as immaterial as consciousness”. Is life just an aggregation of chemical elements or it is something more? Can assemblage of material components spontaneously produce self conscious ego, aware of itself? In day to day experience we see that only life can give rise to life and it is impossible to produce life from non living matter. We will debate this question further in Chapter 2, but be as it may, let us first consider the universality of the path taken by nature.
Let us begin by debating criteria of a universally acceptable "religion". In terms of the foregoing discussion, the foremost condition is that a universal religion should preserve all species, enable every one to exist, and treat all, lower as well as higher species, as equals, allow living species to discover their true nature and improve their physical, mental and spiritual well being to enable them to evolve to a higher consciousness state. There are common requirement for accomplishing them, which should be inclusive, and not exclusive, meaning thereby that they should benefit all and not some selected forms of life. The principle for one and all to coexist involves non-violence towards each other, for them to discover their true nature involves search for truth; physical well being requires principle of sharing and equidistribution of resources and not amassing wealth by a selected few. These are the principles of non-violence, truth, (minimizing ones requirements or non-hoarding) and achorya (non stealing) as enunciated in Jainism. We can therefore call Jainism a universal religion. Thus we can see that whether one calls himself a Jain or not, most human beings follow these four principles of Jainism. Besides, these four principles, there is the fifth principle of proper sexual conduct i.e. celibacy or Brahmacharya, introduced by Mah?vir in 5th century B.C., a primary requirement for attaining enlightenment which we will discuss in Chapter 6.