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ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES
the habit of drinking, and various other things from the contamination of which the very incident of birth in a Jaina household ensures your freedom? But great though the advantage of birth undoubtedly is in your case, its effect can be neutralized by inaction, or retrogression, on the path of adharma. I need not tell you what adharma means. I am not aware of any other religion which goes. so deeply into the question as Jainism does. Adharma is the tendency towards materialism. In a few words, Adharma signifies the influence of ignorance and passions from which the soul must free itself, if it wishes to come into its own. Our young men are in danger of being led on this path, in consequence of the materialistic education, which is forced upon them in modern schools and colleges; they fail to understand the higher teaching of Religion--I use this term in its broadest sense-and naturally cannot avail themselves of the great and coveted opportunity which the birth in a Jaina family puts within their reach. Should we keep our scriptures locked up in secret places, and prevent them from illumining the world? Or should we spread the light of the grandest and most perfect philosophy, the light of the noblest Religion in the world, and thereby help in the true edification of our own children as well as of our race? Look at the men and women of Europe and America, whose eagerness to understand the truth makes them travel thousands of miles, by land and sea; see how anxious they are to get hold of the genuine manuscripts of all religions. We ought to be fired with the same zeal. We should take up the sacred work of spreading the truth of our glorious religion ourselves, lest it receive unsympathetic treatment from the hands of those to whom its full understanding has not been vouchsafed as yet.
I will not detain you any longer, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for the patience with which you have listened to this somewhat lengthy discourse.
Sri Jaina Dharma ki jai
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