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Jains, how you are different and what extra-ordinary traits of character you are supposed to have which you have to impart in exchange for what you get here. Just think:
The world was not built with random bricks of chance, A blind God is not destiny's Architect; There is a Conscious Power that has drawn the plan of life; There is a meaning in each curve and line.
Your ancestors were Tirthankara-s who in temporal life were generally kings, ministers, shreshthi-s scholars, and spiritual Masters: Mahavira, Bhadrabahu Kundakunda, Umaswami, Padalipta, Akalanka, Siddhasena, Samantbhadra, Yashovijaya Shrenika, Kumarpal, Vimalshah, Vastupal, Tejpal, Hemchandra, Hiravijaya are only a few of them. You have a tradition which delights in giving, in sharing, in renouncing; not in taking away and collecting and keeping for self only: you have virtues which aspire more to change & transform others than to subdue or kill them. Bahubali and Bharat Bharat and Sundari, Rajul and Rathnemi and several others have established your cultural past. Samyaktva and Syadvad, Aparigraha and Ahimsa translated as equality. multiplicity of view-points, voluntarv simplicity and nonviolence are your methods for harmony and peace, justice, order, family togetherness, loving neighbourliness, sharing and Co-operation, tolerance and forgiveness yet strength and virility are the qualities which you have inherited: invoke them and exchange. Never imitate cheap and external flourishings compromising your internal sterling traits. Above all, to thine ownself be true! You and the West have not come together to reject your parents in the houses for the Aged, to train your children in the stadia and arenas for the exhibition ot brute strength and money, to make your wives with bank-accounts separately held disrespectful, intolerant and even peevish when Illnesses, accidents, or misfortunes overtake you, your children and your aged parents, if any living with you. Always remember, you would not be what you are without your parents who are old now. You also will surely be old and if your children or
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