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JAINISM AND WORLD PROBLEMS
being born of a virgin, performing many miracles, showing partiality to a section of mankind, and going up to heaven after resurrection. You are free to accept or reject it. There is no other alternative offered on a literal reading of the Bible, and if you reject even a single word of the Biblical narratives, the case for the historicity of Jesus' life becomes very shaky indeed, for the Gospels are the only authority we possess for the historical view. But from the practical point of view, you may ask, what is the advantage gained by seeking to accept thie historicity of the Biblical Jesus? How can you by following him obtain omniscience, immortality and bliss ? The Bible does not tell us how he obtained them—what things and practices he resorted to to acquire his spiritual powers ? No one can look for the host of angels to come down and stand by him in the hour of tribulation. We cannot imitate him even in inviting Herod to gloriíy ourselves by sacrificing children, by putting them to death. His life consists clearly in things which you and I cannot do. We want, my friend, a human model to take pattern aster. The Jain Tirthamkaras were human beings, who acquired, by their own merit, earned through succesive lives, 1. Omniscience, 2. Iminortality, 3. Bliss, 4. Infinite power and all the other divine qualities. We, too, may attain all these by fighting against our lower nature and the inimical forces which are in the way, inch by inch, step by step. Thus human conduct alone it is which will benefit us. Nobody's example or conduct will help us which is not human. You might read the Gospels over again and tell me how the supposed historical Jesus obtained the divine attributes and divinity, or give me his previous lives. I am sure if any one will try to do this, he will clearly perceive that he is not dealing with a human character at all but with an allegorical personification of the ideal of divinity and perfection. Jesus is not a man, but the personalization of the highest conception of divine Excellence. It is easy to say about any one that he obtained
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