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The Unknown Pilgrims
- Hope that the vairāgiņis, the candidates for dikṣā, may all receive, as happens already in certain groups, a solid training in character and understanding and a general education such as will help them become enlightened sādhvis, well able to devote themselves to the study of their own tradition in all its aspects and also to that of other religious traditions.
- Hope that the sādhvis, adapting themselves to the needs of their own day, may be able to transmit to all the message of the dharma. The sādhvis, who are in constant contach with society, must not only be knowledgeable themselves about the burning questions regarding justice on a nationwide scale (such as the abolition of untouchability and the amelioration of conditions of life among aboriginal peoples, with due respect for their own customs) but also help the śrävakas and śrāvikās to act justly themselves in their own personal lives and to take an active part in the movements for justice. This is, indeed, the spirit of the dharma: the mutual assistance of all beings. The Jaina community has members throughout the world and, among them, there are those who return periodically to their native land and come to pay respects to the sădhvis. Such śrāvakas and śrāvikās will emerge from these conversations strengthened and enlightened, when the sādhvis; having transcended the narrow confines of their own group, open and receptive to everything that concerns humanity, know both how to listen to those men and women who speak to them of social conditions in Africa, Asia or Europe and also how to impart to them wise counsel.
- Hope that a study of strimukti may shed fresh light on the question and that such a study may bring together in the same spirit of careful research both Digambara and Svctāmbara schools of thought.
- Hope that in this our own day the rigid structure of the various gacchas and the secondary groups formed within certain of the gacchas may give place to an openhcaredness towards gacchas other than one's own and that meetings conducive to positive exchanges of view may take place.
3 Cf. TS IV, 21. On this theme the fervent words of Mahāsati Ujjvalakumāri spring to mind.
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