Anger Management - According to Jainism Anger is an emotion ,in which a person make a psychological interpretation of having been offended , wronged, or denied. A person may react to his anger in active or passive way. Active way being a person becomes angry spontaneously and then soon after that calms down. Example if a person breaks your fa...
Jain rituals play a prominent part in Jainism. A ritual "is a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors' goals and interests." Rituals can take place daily or more often. Different traditions of a com...
The Higher Stages of the Religious LifeWhilst it is quite possible to lead a religious life as a lay person complete devotion to religion involves giving up completely the concerns of ordinary life. In most religions we find groups of people, usually fairly small in numbers, who leave home and family and occupation to live dedicated lives as monks ...
The Religious Life of the Lay Man or WomanAs we have seen earlier, Mahavira started a fourfold organization of monks and nuns, who can follow his teachings to the utmost limit of human capability, and lay men and women who follow them within the limits of their everyday duties. All can achieve moksa but monks and nuns, because they have no attachme...
In the second chapter we traced the history of Jainism in its earlier centuries. The story is not complete for, even if we had much more space and time, historians are still only slowly unraveling the confused history of ancient India. In this chapter we shall sketch a few of the developments in Jainism in the history of India. Obviously we can onl...
Jainism is one of the oldest religions in the world, so old that we cannot with certainty date its beginnings. Jain tradition tells that Mahavira twenty-forth and last of the Tirthankara or Prophets of the current cycle of the time. Some of the stories about them are truly amazing and non- Jains are rarely convinced. They are credited with enormous...
As has been mentioned, Jains declined in numbers after the medieval period. In some ways this strengthened Jainism for it produced tight-knit communities of Jains with common interests and a devotion to the faith reinforced by their closeness within the group. In the early nineteenth century we must speak of communities, rather than of a single Jai...
The Science of Religion (ii)The Jain scriptures and the writings of Jain scholars over many centuries right up to the present day have examined the puzzling question of the nature of the universe. Modern science has taught us a lot about the solar system and the great systems of stars beyond. At the other extreme, scientists have investigated the n...
The Science of Religion (i)Let us start with karma. (Do not be put off by the fact that some of these terms are not familiar in plain everyday English: every science has its own technical words, and the science of religion is no exception.) Karma just means actions, or deeds. When we talk about the 'law of karma' all we mean is that a person's phys...
Priya: Ma, Jainism teaches us nonviolence and vegetarianism. It teaches us to speak the truth. It tells us that anger, pride, deception and greed are violence of self. Such behavior also leads to violence of others. Is there any religion that does not agree with these ideas?Ma: Priya, you are right. Teachings of all religions are similar to the Jai...
I present my trip details and learnings from my first and only visit to Acharya Shree Vidya Sagar Ji Maharaj's Sangh.I got fortunate to have my first Darshan of my life to Acharya VidyaSagar Ji Maharaj's Sangh in Ramtek, Nagpur. I started on 14th Dec'08 in the morning from Delhi to take flight till Nagpur and then took taxi to reach Ramtek Jain tem...
Lord Mahavir was the twenty-fourth and the last Tirthankara of the Jain religion. According to Jain philosophy, all Tirthankaras were born as human beings but they have attained a state of perfection or enlightenment through meditation and self realization. They are the Gods of Jains. Tirthankaras are also known as Arihants or Jinas.Tirthankara - O...
The spiritual power and moral grandeur of Mahavir's teachings impressed the masses. He made religion simple and natural, free from elaborate ritual complexities. His teachings reflected the popular impulse towards internal beauty and harmony of the soul.His message of nonviolence (Ahimsa), truth (Satya), non-stealing (Achaurya), celibacy (Brahma-ch...