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Jainism: The Cosmic Vision
crucifixion, Jesus forgave them who sent him to the cross, because they did not know what they were doing. That is why he said while showing the importance of forgiveness, "When you are going to offer ablation if you remember there is an enmity between you and your brother, return and compromise with him."
This means that if the heart is full of animosity, no religious rite will be fruitful. The Jain religion fully expounds the virtue of forgiveness. It brings us a number of virtues at once. Forgiveness is said to be the seed-plot of all virtues. If forgiveness enters, greediness disappears. With forgiveness comes renouncement, simplicity, modesty, contentment and control over the mind and sense-organs. If all these virtues are present, forgiveness can be practised.
Forgiveness means being a Jain monk (nirgrantha), free from all ties, unknotting all ties. "Ksha (2) means a knot and ma (1) means 'to destroy'. Life today is caught up in a number of knots. Between father and son, there are differences of opinion. Between Guru and disciple, there are disputes. Between husband and wife, there are misunderstandings. Between friends, there are broils. Between master and servant, there is ill feeling. Between neighbours, there are quarrels. Love is absent in the relations between near ones. Forgiveness unites broken hearts. There are knots of arrogance and there are knots of enmity. There are obsessions and differences of opinion. Man becomes a victim of strange mental diseases. In a sugarcane where there is a knot, there is no juice. this is why relations between persons have become dry and uninteresting. Forgiveness vitalizes them. During the period covering the Tirthankaras from the second to the twenty-third, life was
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