YJA Convention 2000 07 LA Fourth

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

Page 45

to find a way to reconcile this supposedly flat earth model with the spherical earth and Copernican universe that we now know exist.
thinking. We get very little exposure to the impact of Jainism on the world here around us. While many of us are aware that Jain thinking was very evident in the nonviolent independence movement of Gandhi's India, very few of us have any understanding of the relationship between Jainism and the next largest nonviolent movement in world history: the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.
However, we would also like to have an interactive element dealing with more recent civil rights issues affecting Jains and Indian-Americans today. This progression from history to the present time would not only be a natural chronological progression but would also allow the seminar to end with thoughts and discussion of issues that are important to us at present.
4. However, if the MWC were in fact a model of a flat terrestrial
earth, and if the features called "Bharat Kshetra' etc. were originally intended to refer places in or features of the earth and the Indian subcontinent like many Jains have been led to believe, then we must necessarily find a series of contradictions to that assumption, contradictions which arise from within the Jain tradition itself. First of all, Jain literature makes numerous references to a great variety of locations and areas on earth and in South Asia, locations which are nowhere mentioned in the MWC. The islands of Sri Lanka and Dvarka, for example, are nowhere to be found in the MWC, and on the other hand, the MWC gives details of literally thousands of 'tributaries' of the 'rivers' referred to as the 'Sindhu', 'Ganga', etc.- none of which have ever been known to exist anywhere in South Asia. Such glaring discrepancies between the MWC and the obvious geography of South Asia (which was known to the early Jains) lead one to conclude that the MWC could not originally have been intended to describe the earth or delineate the terrestrial objects with which Indians are most familiar. Going with this conclusion, the MWC must have been meant to describe a structural complex having a scale that is much different than what subsequent traditional Jain interpretations - due in part to a lack in technology - have been capable of comprehending.
JAINISM'S VIEWS ON INVESTING AND GAMBLING presented by Paras Maniar and Sunil Gudhka
Is investing a form of gambling? As a layperson, can I invest to build a security blanket for my family and not as a form of gambling? How can one assure that investing will not become a form of gambling when it can easily become a form of addiction? . Is it okay to gamble it your income will go to a Jain worthy cause? Is it okay to invest or gamble if you are doing it in a controlled manner?
Given the findings and language of modern cosmology, that scale may be on the order of billions of light years. Modern cosmology has yet to locate over 90% of all the matter and 70% of all the energy that its own calculations dictate must exist in the universe in order for it to be gravitationally stable. Perhaps therein lies the answer to what the Jain MWC - without the planetary, heliary, and nomenclature embellishments of later generations of Jain thinkers - could have originally been intended to describe.
Ask a Jain sadhu or sadhvi about Jainism's view on gambling and investing, and the first response will likely be one of dissatisfaction and disapproval. In the ideal Jain approach, we should be in a state of contentment and satisfaction, whereas gambling and investing are activities manifesting that we are not in such a state.
6. Among other models, modern mathematical speculations
involving fractal geometries suggest that all the matter in the universe could indeed be arranged in the superstructure of concentric rings very similar to that described in the MWC.
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JAINISM AND THE U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
presented by Pareen Shah, Neil Chokshi and Rahul Shah
Lack of satisfaction with one's salary or wage lead one to get rich quick' schemes. Though Jainism does not object to the actual act of gambling, there is great concern for the mental harmony that is broken with the stress of attempting to get rich quick. Gambling is forbidden for two reasons: a lack of contentment broken by the inherent greed that is involved (which itself leads the gambler to abandon and discard all other values) and the mental violence of risking the entire stability of worldly life - both one's own life and that of those who depend on a person for sustenance. Investing is opposed even further. Beyond the reasons against gambling, funds placed on investments often support wrong causes. In the hectic market of buy and sell, there is often little time to figure out precisely what economic complexes one is buying and selling. This blind investing can lead to promotion of 'unjain' activities. If we are to go as far as being vegetarian and vegan to prevent the innocent slaughter of animals, then why fund such an industry (meat industry for example) by investing in it? Though many will claim to watch where their money goes carefully, investment is still opposed by the same principles as gambling.
Though we might not involve ourselves in politics, how do civil rights relate to Jainism? Did Martin Luther King Jr. really use the ideas of Ahinsa in his protests?. If violent actions are needed to prevent other (more severe) violent acts from occurring, isn't the violence worth it?
The only twist in these hard and fast statements is that we live in a non-ideal world. How can we invest wisely to minimize karma? Just as we eat fruits and vegetables instead of meat and other animal products, there must be some way to thrive in today's market world while maintaining a healthy soul.
Much of the teaching that we receive as young Jains revolves around principles of our religion, our philosophy, and our way of
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