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THE MYSTERIES OF MIND
The brain is the most important part of the living body. It has two parts, the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere controls the right hand and right hemisphere controls the left hand. The former controls the whole of the right-hand part of the body and the latter the entire left-hand part of the body. Each part of the body and its activities are controlled by that part of the brain which is situated in its opposite part.
The material world is a combination of opposites. Why should we, therefore, think our opposite numbers to be our enemies? Friendliness is a compromise between mutually opposed entities or forces or a synthesis of opposites. If we thought friendliness to consist only in behaving nicely and in working together, we will confine it into very narrow limits. In such a case only few people will be friends and the ideal of friendliness towards all remain an empty ideal. The positive aspect of friendliness consists in not being unfriendly towards those also who differ from us in opinion as well as in conduct. This will encourage in us an unlimited attitude of friendliness and we will be friendly noi only towards septient beings but towards insentient beings also.
The success of democracy depends upon effective opposition. A democratic government will not be able to function successfully without the opposition. Government without an effective opposition will become wayward and autocratic. The opposition remains watchful of what the government does.
Thesis and antithesis, the positive and the negative, are essential characteristics not only of the material world but also of the spiritual world. Mahāvīra's doctrine of anekāntavāda is not a mere intellectual proposition. It is a doctrine of practical synthesis. In the course of his self-exertion, when he was trying to attain a state of ahimsa, he came to feel a sense of friendliness towards all and realized that he had no enemies. The feeling of enmity is the result of false consciousness which makes the mind inhibited with a single idea or point of view. He, therefore, propounded the doctrine of the many-pointedness of truth and insisted on the need for synthesis in our relations with others.
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