Book Title: Positive Non Violence
Author(s): Kanhaiyalal Lodha, Dalpatsingh Baya
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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Page 166
________________ 6. 7. To hate the sinner happens because we feel bad and harbour animosity towards them. This is not proper. We must hate the sin and not the sinner. The hate must be directed towards bad qualities and not to the bad person. No body likes to be bad and even then if he behaves badly, it is because he is not aware of the bad results that would eventually come to him sooner or later. Otherwise who will be so ignorant to imbibe the poison of bad qualities knowing them to hurt him only? To hate the ignorant is also ignorance. If an infant spoils his clothes by defecating in them he needs to be helped sympathetically and not hated or rebuked. Therefore the efforts of the learned must be directed at obliterating the sins and not the sinners. The wise and the learned do not harbour any aversion or anger towards any living being how-so-ever bad his deeds may be. When there is no anger in the heart, there remains no need for forgiveness also. Forgiveness is needed only when one feels bad about something. The best situation is when the need for forgiveness just does not arise. This situation can come about when we forgive all the living beings beforehand for all their known and unknown flaws and faults and forger all feelings of animosity towards them and establish a feeling of friendship with them. The question is raised that why should the criminals and sinners not be considered as punishable? Why should there be no feeling of aversion towards them? In reply we will have to say that in the entire human race there would not be even one person who would be completely flawless from birth. The reason is that birth itself is a result of attachment, which is the breeding ground for all flaws. Therefore, everybody is flawed right from birth onwards. No one's past is flawless. Flawlessness is a result of long and arduous spiritual practice and everyone is capable of attaining this state with spiritual practice. No worldly creature is free from some flaw or the other; therefore, if we were to punish the flawed persons, every one of us will have to be punished. If Positive Non-Violence Jain Education International For Personal & Private Use Only 93 www.jainelibrary.org

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