YJA Convention 1994 07 Chicago IL First

Author(s): Young Jains of America (YJA)
Publisher: Young Jains of America YJA USA

Page 62

fresh and blooming and during absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing, and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents...
materialistic now. A common complaint among Jains is the lack of time for spiritual growth. Of the three jewels of Jainism, faith (darshan), knowledge (gnan), action (charitra), action forms the weakest link, and subsequently leads us to accept personal ceilings of spiritual progress. We become stagnant, content in living tomorrow like today and today like yesterday, or as Thoreau says, "leading lives of quiet desperation...determined to be starved before we are hungry."
His ideal of "living free and uncommitted so long as possible" leads him naturally to Aparigraha:
Simplify, Let your affairs be as two to three, and not a hundred or a thousand.
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
How can the link between faith/knowledge and action be strengthened? Thoreau never claims to have answers--he was but a man whose life example remains a sincere and notable experiment in the practical art of living. He rejects the life of resignation and re-values his time, insisting that the cost of money is much higher than imagined:
I am convinced both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely.
Some say that time is money. It is more than that. Time is life, and however wastes much of it exchanging it for money, or for the things money can buy, makes a wretched bargain, and will be bankrupt in the end.
These are mere glimpses of the genius Thoreau. Sincere readers of Walden have been known to "date a new era in their life from the reading of a book." His greatest contribution is perhaps his karmic conviction that each must find his or her own way. He concludes in Walden by encouraging each reader to "advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, and endeavor to live the life you have imagined."
In this precious time, he suggests reading. To read the Gita or Illiad is to absorb the vicarious experiences of a thousand suffering souls in much less than a lifetime, as "books are the treasured wealth of the world, and more than kings and emperors, exert an influence on mankind." Similar to Jain practice, Thoreau feels inclined to awaken with the morning and "abstain from animal food, and from much food of any kind in order to preserve the higher and poetic faculties."
To youth he suggests learning to live "by at once trying the experiment of living," to seek out the experience and adventures of life instead of following the beaten track, to drop prejudices of what cannot be done (one type of Anekantwad). He recalls a metaphor from the Gulistan:
The Arhum Yoga Logo
Of the many celebrated trees, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit. What mastery is there in this? Each has its appointed season, during which it is
60
Jain Education Intemational
www.jainelibrary.org.