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The Unknown Pilgrims
Should not the sadhvis, one of whose tasks is to teach the way of Liberation to all members of the dharma and to all living beings, be pātras (vessels, receptacles) of the teaching and be so in the social context of today?
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This is of the greatest importance. The sadhvis are pillars of the dharma and must know how to express it in contemporary language, in openness of spirit towards their hearers.
Would it not be desirable to undertake a new study upon the subject of strimukti, the Liberation of womankind?
Such a study is all the more necessary because the Digambara scholars themselves hold divergent views on this question.
Does not the organisation, as it is today, lend itself, in certain gacchas, to a certain type of sectarianism, a withdrawal into oneself within a closed group?
This withdrawal is easily observable in some gacchas and it contributes neither to the full flowering of the individual person nor to his or her spiritual advance nor to the on-going development of the dharma.
- Might not the sadhvis be able to create some independent samghas, directed by some of their own number and open to all the gacchas? Would not such samghas, formed out of the same restricted groups as exist today, promote a fraternal exchange between their members?
Many sadhvis suffer on account of their enclosure within the confines of a group. Though remaining under the spiritual direction of an acarya, which is indispensable, at least until a certain stage has been reached, certain ones of them do have aspirations towards broader pastures, towards encounters with other groups. Do not all belong to the spiritual family of Mahavira? Several among them are capable of inspiring and directing their companions, but up till this present their influence is limited to their own group, on account of the lack of communication existing between the communities. The rigidity of their structures and the weight of secular prejudices combine to prevent any awareness of the mutual ignorance now prevailing
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