Book Title: World Jain Conference 1987 4th Conference
Author(s): Satish Jain, Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Ahimsa International

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Page 149
________________ opposing set of values and contradictory patterns of behaviour, we have also divided life inwardly too and developed a schizophrenic personality. Throughout, we have a fragment. Hence, we aspire for peace but plan for war; we behave as a sacrificing mother but as a grabing man in economic life, a loving father or a husband in the family but as a man of machination and despotic behaviour in politics and public life. Hence, we lack the holistic values, which have the greatest sustaining power. The foremost of these holistic values is LOVE. Love aud harmony form the basis of our good family life. Hence, there is no reason why it should not be the basis of society or the entire global family. The positive meaning of non-violence is Love. Literally, non-violence means absence of violence but this is one-sided and incomplete definition. Positively, non-violence means active love this is Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus or Gandhi. Again, non-violence is not a static but a dynamic concept. In its dynamic condition, it does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil-doer, but it means the putting of one's whole soul against the will of the tyrant and still without any ill-will against him. Ahimsa, therefore, is not "passive spirituality", it is real activity as we find in the life of Buddha and Mahavira who fearlessly carried the war of non-violent resistance into the enemy's camp and brought down an arrogant priesthood. Even Jesus, the extreme practitioner of 'resist not evil', drove out the money-changers from the temple of Jerusalem. Mahavira challenged the orthodoxy of Vedic religion and allowed women to adopt Sannyasa and prepare for salvation. He also fought the hypocrisy of those priests in giving a religious sanction to the caste hierarchy of high and low. But even if Buddha, Mahavira or Jesus fought against them, they showed unmistakable love and compassion behind every act of theirs. Non-violence or love, is not only an individual virtue, but it is a societal concept. Non-violence is not only the absence of bloodshed or murder, but it is also the absence of exploitation. Non-Violence and exclusive possession can never go together. We retain our possessions on the sufferance or exploitation of the weak, immoral gains and insatiable pursuit after enjoyments of the flesh. Exploitation is the essence of violence. Hence, no man could be actively non-violent and still not rise against social injustice no matter where it occured. Non-violence is a universal principle. It is not a cloistered virtue but applicable as much to the forum and the legislatures as to the market place. Hence, in the 21st Century, we have to make non-violence, not a matter of mere individual practise but also a matter of practice by groups and communities and nations. If it cannot be practised in all departments, it has no practical value. Hence, we have to show that Ahimsa is not only for the saint and seers but for the ordinary men and women living in society. It is only in a climate of non-violence that 'opposing ideologies' can peacefully co-exist. It teaches not Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only 41 www.jainelibrary.org

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