________________
DHARMA IN PRACTICE
103
temptation or sustained attacks of scepticism, especially when not directly made. The company of people given to gambling, debauchery, and the like is the most dangerous for this reason, and offers many temptations which even men of mature judgment, to say nothing of raw youths, at times succumb to. Besides, the true spirit of friendship demands that one should not perform any religious acts likely to offend one's companions in the least degree, and since all forms of worship are open to objection on the part of the opponents of the true faith, good companionship necessitates a total abstention from them in the company of those of a different persuasion. The effect of such forms of comradeship, thus, is quite pernicious to the aspirations of the soul, and requires the restriction of association with those outside one's own religious community to particular occasions at well-selected times and places. This does not mean that one should be rude or intolerant to those who do not belong to one's faith, but only that one should avoid undue intimacy and constant companionship with them. As no one who values his peace of mind should associate with anarchists, sedition-mongers, robbers, murderers and the like, howsoever agreeable may their company be, so should one avoid, so far as possible, all those men whose association is likely to seduce one from the true path, and only mix with those of a holy and pious temperament. This, however, furnishes no license for the absolute exclusiveness of different castes in the community of the right-believers. Those who follow the same religion have a right to expect that their co-religionists will not push them out of the fold.or shut the door on them, cutting them adrift from the satsanga (association) of the pious and forcing them to seek shelter and social intercourse elsewhere. There is great danger for the excluder and the excluded both in this matter; the latter is likely to be forced back into mithyātva (falsehood), and the former to engender the highly unfortunate antarāya and to suffer from many kinds of disadvantages in his future life. As a matter of fact no one who treats his co-religionists as pariahs and outcastes can himself be deemed to possess the true faith, for the one striking characteristic of Right Faith is profound unqualified love for those who cherish the same doctrine, without any kind of restrictions, beyond personal cleanliness.
Naturally a Jaina householder is required to be a model of cleanli
