Book Title: Religion and Culture of the Jains
Author(s): Jyoti Prasad Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

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Page 245
________________ EXCERPTS FROM THE HJINA'S TEACHINGS 223 He who looketh on creatures, big and small, of the earth, as his own self, comprehendeth this immense universe. To do harm to others is to do harm to one-self: “Thou art he whom thou intendest to kill. Thou art he whom thou intendest to tyrannise over!' Know other creatures' love for live, for they are alike unto you. Kill them not: Save their life from fear and enmity. All living beings desire happiness, and have revulsion from pain and suffering. They are fond of life, they love to live, long to live, and they feel repulsed at the idea of hurt and injury to or destruction of their life. Hence, no living being should be hurt, injured, or killed. All things breathing, all things, existing, all things living, all beings whatsover, shoul not be slain, or treated with violence, or insulted, or tortured, or driven away. He who hurts living beings himself, or gets them hurt by others, or approves of hurt caused by others, augments world's hostility towards himself. He who vieweth all living beings as his own self, and seeth them all alike, hath stopped all influx of the karman; he is selfrestrained, and incurreth no sin. The painful condition of the self is the result of its own action; it has not been brought about by any other cause. The soul is the maker and the non-maker, the doer and undoer; it is itself responsible for its own happiness and misery, is its own friend and its own foe; it itself decides its own conditions, good or evil. Wealth and property, movable or inmovable, cannot save a person from the sufferings he or she undergoes on account of the fruition of that person's own karman.

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