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RELIGION & CULTURE OF THE JAINS
or adversity, all these will be easily and instinctively referred to the central Guide, and dealt with in their own proper perspective. All our worldly evaluations depend upon our angle of vision. Ugliness is beauty in the wrong place, or seen from the wrong angle. High treason is patriotism from the wrong viewpoint. The State and Politics create chaos in an attempt to save the country and citizens from disorder and disruption. Marriage sanctifies apparent monogamy and not seldom becomes an effective cloak for mental and even physical polygamy. Trade and commerce meant for natural and equal distribution to things of necessity and use, often result in extravagant waste or stagnation of such things in the hands of the rich few, to the agonising misery of the poverty stricken many. Even religion, the sign and mantle of God, has cloaked Satan more than the light-ever-lasting against whom Satan rebelled for ever. Indeed there is nothing good or desirable in the world, which to some extent or other is not locked up in the arms of its contradictory. Verily, the extremes meet literally. Life means death. Death breeds life. The extremely rich are extremely poor. The possessionless are the richest. The crown of thorns is ever the real, ultimate adornment. The cup of misery is the only joy-giving nectar. Purusa and Prakrti are inextricably interlocked. Brahma and Māyā lie mingled together, none can say which is which. There is only one way out of the den of this Duessa. It is to recognise the reality of this den and also of the flowerful glade of real roses outside. Till the rose glade is gained, the dark den must be tolerated and regulated." Obviously, imperfection, which means the present conditions of the mundane existence, is only tolerated because and so long as we do not get rid of it. Therefore, all worldly endeavour, being the child of the living soul's union with non-living matter, is to be tolerated only to be renounced ultimately. Until, for practical reasons, that stage of total renunciation and
