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Bhagwan Mahāvīra
Real Sacrifice
He is a great maker of sacrifices, who gives up inflicting injury to all living beings; who abandons practising falsehood, stealing, indulgence; who bids fare well to women, ego, and deceit; who nurtures no hopes; who cherishes no love for the body; and who ultimately rejects all sorts of wickednesses such as the above. There is no need of all-consuming fire in the performance of a sacrifice. If there is any need of this type, it is one of the fire in the form of penances.
It is not necessary to make a sacrificial hole. The soul itself is that. A wooden ladle also is out of place here. The mental, verbal and physical activity is the ladle here. Why is burning the fuel required? Burn, instead, the Karmic fuel. Such a sacrifice in the form of self-control is peace-giving and is a real sacrifice praised by the sages.
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Purity
The importance of external purity and the holy water as a means to achieve it had increased so much in those days that people believed they became extremely pure by taking bath in and with such waters. As a matter of fact, internal purity and external purity have nothing to do with each other. Bhagwan Mahavira has also explained the true nature of purity which is as this.
Religion is a real reservoir. Celibacy is a holy place or thing that affords tranquility of mind. Taking bath here in the holy water of celibacy makes the soul pure and quiet. By saying that it is non-sense to believe that purity is attainable by taking bath in holy waters, Mahavira has clearly stated in other words that if emancipation can be secured by taking bath in the morning and evening, the aquatic animals will be the first to get it.
"A New concept of Happiness"
It is true that people believed that the cause underlying the religious performances such as the sacrifice and worship etc, was to add to the prosperity of the people. Besides material pleasures, the belief that there was something as the presence of spiritual bliss and attainability of it was current in the forest-dwelling sages. But the voice of these forest-dwelling sages had not reached the ears of the common man. The theory of the spiritual happiness was someting of a mystical secret. Moreover, sages only were the authors and custodians of this belief. But Bhagwan Mahavira thought it proper to acquaint the public of it. Therefore, instead of keeping it as a guarded secret, Mahavira made it public and propagated it amongst people.
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