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HOW MAY MAN MASTER FEAR?
(religion) both. A spirit of contentment must dwell at all times in the heart of man if he is to tread the path that leads to bliss.
In addition to these ideals special stress was laid, in education, on the need for the practising of ahimsa, that is universal love, without which you can never hope to turn your enemies into friends. Ahimsa is really the true policy for nations; for it is the only thing that inflicts no wound, and heals up all sores of all kinds whatsoever.
Now, the stage of education was the first ashrama of life. The word ashrama means a stage. Life was divided into four stages, namely, studentship, or the age of study, the householder's life, retirement and world flight, called sannyasa.
The first of these stages is really the foundation of morality and love; for it is the time when character is built and convictions formed. If the student emerges from his alma mater with evil convictions and inclinations filling his heart, his future is ugly and he is a menace to the society and the world. Emphasis was, therefore, laid on the kinds of ideals that were to be allowed to enter his mind during that period, and his preceptors took every care that he did not value the goods of this world and that of the other in a wrong manner. When he left for his home, on the completion of his education, he was a model of goodness and virtue and enlightenment. He had no superstitions to warp his judgment; but understood his religion and the soul nature in the scientific way. His being was thus a force that was, in the fullness of time, to be released for the good of all the world. The greatest thing about him was that he understood clearly that it was better to die in saving another than to sacrifice even a worm to prolong his own life.
When he married and settled down in life, he entered the second ashrama or stage of life. Here at the very outset he was impressed with the need for the practising of religion in the most impressive of ways. In the Jaina
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