Religious Problem in India

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophist Office Adyar

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THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM IN INDIA
taught to make such promises, and the result is that it checks thoughtlessness, it checks excitement, it checks that continnal carelessness, which is one of the great banes of human life. A boy thus educated is not careless. He always thinks before he speaks or acts; his body is taught to follow the mind and not to go before the mind, as it does too often. How often do people say: "If I had thought, I would not have done it; if I had considered, I would never have acted thus; if I had thonght for a moment that foolish word would not have been spoken, and that harsh speech wonld never have been uttered, that discourteous action wonld never have been done.” If vou trail yourself from childhood never to speak without thinking, never to act witliont thinking, see how unconscionsly the body would learn to follow the mind, and without strnggle and effort, carelessness would be destroyed. Of course there are far more serious vows than these taken by the layman as to fasting, strict and severe, every detail carefully laid down in the rules, in the books. But I was telling you al point that you would not so readily find in the books, so far as I know and that seemed to me to be charaeteristic and useful. Let me add that when you meet Jainas you will find them, as a rule, what you might expect from this training-quiet, self-controlled, dignified, rather silent, rather reserved.*
Pass from the layman to the ascetic, the Yați. Their rnles are very striet. Much of fasting, carried
* The details here given are mostly from the Jainu-to!!rădarsha, hy Muni Almarämji, and were translated from the Prakt for me by my friend Govinda Dasa.