Santbal A Saint with a Difference

Author(s): T U Mehta
Publisher: Navjivan Prakashan Mandir

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concerned only with the liberation of their own soul and hence were not concerned with the plight of people or the society. On one hand his saintly order gladly accepted all sorts of facilities such as residence, clothes, etc. from the society but did not feel obliged to give anything in return to the society. They believed that they were exempt from the work of social nature under the pretex of “Nivrutti” (retirement from social life); the moment they gave some crammed sermons, they thought their duty to the society was over.”
“Thus since long a dangerously destructive belief has taken roots not only in the minds of saintly order but also in the minds of their followers that it was "sin” (for a Jain saint) to be connected directly with the work of social reconstruction. Santbalji dared to oppose such belief and desroyed the poisonous bondage of such mentality and engaged himself very actively in the work of social reconstruction.”*
Ethics and morality were the basis on which he wanted to reconstruct the social order. In this world of practical matters, the worldly-wise people consider morality as an unaffordable luxury. They seem to rely on the Darwinian principle of the "survival of the fittest” and believe that whatever strategy ensures our survival should form the core of morality. This attitude takes us to the culture of pre-historic days when life was nothing but a grim struggle for survival.
But human history has changed. Inter-dependence of human society has now become the core of a civilized existence and the evolution of a kind of universal morality has become a constant under-current of not only individual relationship but also of national and international relationship. Notion of the survival of the fittest is outdated. If so, values of life are required to be reviewed
Taken from the Preface of Santbalni Jivan Sadhana, Volume-II, page-5 written by Shri Dulerai Matalia, published by Mahavir Sahitya Prakashan Mandir, Ahmedabad.
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