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DISCOURSE 88
There was a village in Gujarat all the inhabitants of which were thieves. It was a village of thieves. Some social reformers thought about it; went there and made a study of their circumstances. There was no school in the village. The children were not getting education at all. The villagers had no land to cultivate. Some officials also connived at their crimes. The social reformers who went there established a school in the village. Later, the villagers were given some land to cultivate. They encouraged the villagers to eke out their livelihood by means of agriculture. The officials were transferred. In course of time, the number of crimes decreased. Within about ten years, all the villagers changed their way of life and began to live by means of hard work. Late Ravishankar Maharaj played a crucial role in this endeavour. He spent his life in such noble activities as reforming individuals and villages. Of course, he had to endure many hardships on account of this; he had to experience much anguish; yet he carried out his mission with a feeling of dedication and achieved success. If you discard your propensity of vengeful scheming (Abhinivesh) others will get inspiration from you. Suppose somebody tries to disgrace and humiliate you and you come to know of it then you can safeguard yourself against the machinations of that person but you should not think of disgracing and humiliating him. You can safeguard yourself but in carrying out that endeavour, you should not try to disgrace and humiliate others. You should not level true or false allegations against others. There should be no personal hatred.
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MUTUAL ILL-FEELING HAS INCREASED
I think the tendency to disgrace and humiliate one another is increasing in families. Brothers take recourse to ignoble methods to disgrace and humiliate one another. The mother-inlaw and the daughter-in-law take recourse to unfair and ignoble methods to disgrace and humiliate each other. Does this propensity increase domestic happiness? Will domestic peace increase? No. Only sorrows, agonies and anguish increase in families.
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