Book Title: Jainism and World Problems
Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Previous | Next

Page 159
________________ INTERNATIONAL PEACE 131 years of Christianity. Such facts bring out once for all the sociological truth as to the part played by Christianity in civilization. The progress of the more advanced states has not been caused by the creed. If that were the lifting factor, Abyssinia should be on the same plane with the leading European states. Once more, it is not Christianity that has civilized modern Europe, but the variously caused and conditioned progress of Europe that has civilized Christianity." I shall now turn to the Jaina view of things, and devote the rest of this article in working out the consequences of practising the principle of ahimsa in various departments of life and their effect on internal and external, i.e. national and international peace. (1) For the individual Jainism points out that the soul is a simple substance, as distinguished from a compound, which survives bodily death, because death only overtakes compound things, but not simple elements. It cannot therefore die out, and will have to reincarnate elsewhere. The organizing forces of the body are the energies which constitute its disposition or will. The will is constantly undergoing modificaiion in consequence of individual action, so that the future conditions of life will be controlled altogether by the kind of disposition one makes for oneself. There is no condition of embodied life that is not threatened with calamity and dea nor any that is free from misery and pain. But those who live on the principle of ahimsa soon succeed in destroying their animal nature, and thus become freed from the disposition that is the cause of reincarnation and suffering in the world The soul-nature is a thing that is purely divine, so that when one attains to the purity of his soul-nature one comes into the enjoyment of unlimited knowledge and happiness and power and immortality. It is, therefore, clearly to the advantage of the individual to practise Universal love. There is no other way of escaping from undesirable re-births, Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240