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The vow of aparigraha also means limiting the holding of positions of responsibility of any type whether voluntary, commercial, govemmental or academic. Attachment is of two types: material and psychic.
Material possessions are of various kinds, including wealth, property, livestock, servants, gold and jewels, clothes, furniture and utensils. In the modern world we would perhaps add cars, videos, dishwashers, home computers and much more. Material possessions themselves create a craving for even more. The more we get of them, the more we want, as material desires are notoriously insatiable. Happiness is not achieved through the pursuit of possessions.
Psychic 'possessions' include likes and dislikes, hatred, anger, pride, deceit, greed, sexual infatuation, grief, fear and disgust. These are the affective states corrupting the development of the personality and should be sublimated.
Property earned by wrong and unrighteous means, even if it is within a selfimposed limit, is to be considered as sinful.
The vow of non-attachment helps to control the desires and makes an individual contented. It has great social significance to modern society: it is not uncommon for people to be blind to the values of life while pursuing social and political ends, as for many, power and self-interest are their ultimate ends. The vow of non-attachment can lead to greater economic justice in society and improved social welfare.
Anekaantavaada (Relative Pluralism)
One of the important philosophical principles of Jainism is 'relative pluralism'. Literally, the term anekaantavaada refers to the Jain view of the many-sided nature of reality. Jain seers taught that reality could only be fully understood in a state of omniscience, and worldly beings possess only limited or partial knowledge. This view is neatly expressed in the famous story of the seven blind persons who each sought to describe an elephant. Being blind, each had to rely on the sense of touch for knowledge of the elephant. One who touched the elephant's leg thought that it was like a log; another who touched its tail thought it was like a rope; and yet another, who had touched its trunk, thought it was like a snake. All arrived at different descriptions: wall (the body), fan (the ear) and so on, but could not describe the totality. To comprehend many different points of view, all must be taken into account in order to arrive at a complete picture.
Attempting to synthesise opposing viewpoints in philosophy frequently presents problems. Jain philosophers were well aware of such problems. In order to resolve them, they developed the idea of 'relative pluralism', synthesis of two doctrines: the doctrines of 'standpoints' (nayavaada) and 'relativity' (syaadavaada), which have been discussed in detail in chapter 4.7. Relative pluralism is the fundamental mental attitude which sees or comprehends 'reality' differently from different viewpoints, each viewpoint (or standpoint) being a partial expression of reality. If we remember the story told of Mahavira, when he was on the middle floor of his home he was 'downstairs' according to his father who was on a floor above, and 'upstairs' from the point of view of his mother on a lower floor, but both parents were right from their differing points of view. The relativity of viewpoints (Syaadavaada) brings together such differing viewpoints into a single logical expression.
According to Jain philosophy, 'reality', concrete and abstract, is complex: it is constituted of substances and their qualities which change constantly; it extends over
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