What is Jainism

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain

Page 92

82
ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES
openly violate their firmly-cherished belief in a creating and ruling God. Two things especially were intolerable to these men, namely, firstly, the setting up of any one else, whether the individual soul or some other being, as a god, in opposition to their own and, secondly, the denial to their godhead of the creative function. Hence, no one dared openly preach the doctrine of the soul being its own God, and the tenet of transmigration of the soul; for they both went directly to challenge, the one the being, and the other, the creative function of their divine favourite. The mystics, therefore, had to express themselves in the most guarded of terms, and took special care to avoid openly saying anything that might go to inflame the enemies of truth. The measures taken included, amongst others:
(a)
secret worship and instruction, as in Freemasonry, which sought to escape persecution under the guise of a society of men carrying on an innocuous occupation, whereas in reality the Freemason is not a common mason or builder, but the architect of the Temple of Freedom and Divinity of his own soul;
(b) caution in the conferment of membership;
(c)
secret, that is to say, cryptic instruction, which says one thing and means another, so that even in the hands of an enemy of the faith the composition should pass off as an example of poetical exuberance or license, without exciting adverse comment; and
adherence to the time-old symbolism, with which the masses were familiar, to maintain friendly relations with them.
(d)
The mystics fully understood the kind of trouble that was sure to arise from such wholesale employment of cryptological methods and secrecy; but they were quite helpless in the matter, and had no alternative left to protect themselves and their followers, and to preserve and preach the truth. They, therefore, took every precaution to indicate the proper direction for the ascertainment of truth. Care was taken that certain stumbling blocks, or interrup
66