Jainism and World Problems

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 60

JAINISM AND WORLD PROBLEMS
impress your mind with the need for the study of the undercurrent now; the surface view of the scriptural text you have studied for centuries and have set yourself at variance with the rest of humanity and also with concrete nature as science has laid it bare. To me it has seemed certain that once the Undercurrent of Religious thought is properly and adequately studied we shall become reconciled with one another and the opposition of natural sciences will be got over. To be sure, materialism has not yet arrived at a proper estimate of the Soul nature ; but that is because the attention has been engaged on the wrong issue, and never once have the proper issuies been raised. Once the Soul nature is studied by science from the standpoint of higher Psychology, the religious Truths will become manifest and the laws govern. ing the spirit substance easily understood. The study of Religion, in the scientific way, would thus lead us to harinony and goodwill all round; and it has seemed to me there is no other way to remove our religious differences. We shall then readily find that a real brotherhood of man is established at the same time, without any effort on our part ; for those who have the same religion, and the true understanding of the higher Ideals find themselves irresistibly drawn, by unbreakable bonds of love, to those who, with their co-operation, are calculated to help in their realization. This is quite natural. Here Jainism will help you materially; since the undercurrent of rational thought in the various religions is only the Jaina Doctrine in every case. This disposes of the second, the fifth and the sixth of our subjects.
I now turn to the question relating to trade depression, and shall deal with the problem of the unemployed at the same time. Now both these problems are the out. come of over industrialisation, and displacement of men hy machinery. No doubt, for a time which may extend to a few centuries, the effect of machinery and over industrialisation