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JAINISM IN MODERN TIMES
We humans, the best of His creation, are imperfect and not everlasting. We are born, we grow, live and die. Birth is an event of rejoicing as death is that of gloom and dismay. At birth we thank
TAN'S achievements in the realm
of technology are almost baffling. So baffling indead are they, being so proliferative in character, that the human mind itself is assailed with doubts whether it is man himself who is the creator and destroyer of all life or is he merely an instrument. Curiously enough this spell of doubt does not last long. A certain realisation dawns upon him inspite of lurking scepticism that howsoever clever he might be in shaping and reshaping fluid and solid matter to raise his living standards, he remains in the final analysis, an impotent entity, in the face of even a puny challenge, hurled at him by nature, to thwart his resolutions. Despits this, man goes on advancing by dint of his prowess, ingeniousness, his art and craft. This advancement, however, is mundane. There is a saying: "Man does not live by bread alone". What does man want besides his crust of bread which symbolically means his material well-being? Mentally man will
For a western, toned up in a reli
be sick if he neglects his soul, his religious philosophy which lays stress on life affirmation, it is no easy matter for gion, his God. him to reach the roots of an oriental philosophy like Jainism, which origi. nates with life negation and tends to flow down into the shoreless oceans of Nirwana. If he does he would either accept it and discard his own beliefs
Jain Education International
• Wilfried Noelle, Ph. D. Hony. Profeessor
God and at death we do say "they will be done" but invariably we are left in a perplexed state of mind. We humans philosophise differently about death, the ultimate end because we follow different religions and we interpret everything, both blessing and disasters, according to the teachings of the religions we are initiated into from birth or the religion of our adoption.
In this article we discuss some of the tenets of Jainism, and their short or long range influence on the mind of man. The writer in the course of his stay in India came into contact with many followers of this religion, who held with him many religious discourses. This led him to study this religion. at some length. Jainism he would say is one religion which claims to have thrashed the problems of life and death in no dogmatic but in quite a rational way although that scope was not exhausted fully.
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