Jainism and World Problems

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

Page 63

NEED FOR THE JAINA DOCTRINE
Europe there are something like 30,000,000 unemployed. They are not only out of work to-day; but they will become also a danger to society, since they cannot marry and help society by reducing the number of unmarried girls. They may even take to undesirable modes of livelihood, unless provided for.
When we understand religion correctly, we shall realize that the aim of life is not to dissipate our chance of entering into life eternal which has been placed within our reach by the human birth, but to seek the strait gate and the narrow path that leads to Life Eternal and the Joy of Gods. Machinery is intended to provide comforts for the body, but was it not said with reference to the body that the flesh is the enemy of the soul? Religion demands a life of selfdenial, and not one of excessive ease and comforts that pamper the body and deprive the soul of the nourishment that it requires for its 'growth.' For is it not the law that he who shall lose his life shall find it; and he who shall find his life, that is to say, joy in the life of the flesh, shall lose it? If you are seeking to enter in at the strait gate and the narrow path you shall have to shun the wide gate and the broad highway of machine-made luxuries for the flesh. The religious ideal, truly, is the narrowing down of this wide gate and the broad highway by placing limitations on the demands of the flesh, and disciplining it betimes. think the case is well put when it is said:
"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."-Romans, viii. 18. Divinity and Godhood, that is Immortal Life, Fullness of Knowledge, Fullness of Happiness and Infinite Power, are the reward of the soul that treats the flesh as its enemy. Does not this make it clear that the procuring of too much comfort and luxury for the body is the ruination of the soul? If so, then stop in your mad rush for mechaniza.
55