Jainism through the lens of modernity
The religion I have to follow by birth is Jainism. For the past few years, I had got more involved with Jain ideologies and philosophy. The more I tried understanding it, the more it attracted me to learn further. More so because the practices that exists today are somehow very scientific, logical or spiritual though one of the hardest to follow and might also be irrelevant.
After several months of observations and having an open mind for it, I could get a better idea about the beauty of its foundation thoughts and on a majority of practices followed. The core idea is nonviolence to any and every form of life on earth. Neither by your words nor actions should you incite violence on others or harm them. LIVE AND LET LIVE with all due respect.
Another important aspect is not having desires or rather putting efforts into controlling them. Over the years I have observed elders take a determination/vow of not having to say for example curd for a week and fulfilling it without fail. The essence is in the curbing the acts of pleasure or rather in just putting control over your sense organs or rather not being ruled by your senses. In a sense, it also points to the very old yet golden philosophy which I believe did rule India for centuries is that 'desire is the root cause of all evils'. So rather than committing acts to achieve what you desire for, you try to stay peaceful finding happiness with what is in hand. I can go on and on.
The past few years have witnessed drastic changes in the lifestyle of people with the inclusion of technology making life modern. I see how Jainism too is fast upgrading. We have TV channels where various temples are being shown for us to see/pray for idols in temples we could not visit, channels where our religious leaders are delivering a discourse on nonviolence, happy and peaceful leaving, chanting mantras, talking about karma, prayers, fasting, etc, etc. Today it is very easy to travel across the country to holy places like Shikhar Ji or Sharavan Belagola, etc due to better connectivity and conveyance. Better inns, hotels, and facilities in all places. New temples are coming up. Fully air-conditioned temple, a 108 feet high statue of ahimsa in the most respected place named Mangitungi Ji which just got registered in Guinness Book of the world record, etc. We get calendars printed with our Tirthankars on it. We have smartphones/whats app to click and share pics of idols and share audios and videos of aarti's etc on going in a temple. It has become very convenient for us to follow, continue and propagate about Jainism today and the masses take deep pride/pleasure in it as well.
But is that done? For respect of Tirthankars, we are to wash our hands, feet, and mouth before we enter a temple. Yet we comfortably sit and dine before sunset with our Paras channel on and listening to an aarti with Tirthankars on the TV screen. Thinking that we are seeing gods in front of us daily on a calendar hanging for 1 full year is religious enough but what about the disrespect to the same Tirthankars when the calendar is to be discarded as the year has ended. We go to temples for prayers, to perform aarti and Kalash but rather than sincerely doing that, we focus on taking snapshots of our relatives doing 'Kalash' and sharing it out showing how religious we are. We are to show utter respect to our gurus and have faith in their sayings. We are encouraged to listen to the video discourse of our gurus which mostly revolve around nonviolence, controlling one's materialistic desires, leading a peaceful life and to do greater good to the society including the environment but once the channel is changed we are encouraged on how to earn more so that we can grow rich as that's what makes you respected in the society. We want to possess our own home, the very homes which are mostly laid on ponds and marshlands filled with sand/garbage or concrete harming the environment and mercilessly killing the aqua species therein but it is worthless to spare a thought on it. We are actually not supposed to eat post dusk but all the marriage and parties are scheduled in the evening and needless to say so much of the food we waste just because it did not taste good.
The list of such hypocrisy in our clan is endless. We are mostly following Jainism as per our convenience and as it pleases us. Rather than up-gradation of this religion because of modernity its a degradation of it probably. Not sure which path to follow I wonder. If I follow Jainism sternly and do justify my surname, It would be difficult to lead a normal modern age life. If I live a normal life like all chasing money, luxury and comfort I don't think the surname is justified, it is rendered hollow. This is for sure that both can not go hand in hand. I can only be one of the two. So which one?.
After several months of observations and having an open mind for it, I could get a better idea about the beauty of its foundation thoughts and on a majority of practices followed. The core idea is nonviolence to any and every form of life on earth. Neither by your words nor actions should you incite violence on others or harm them. LIVE AND LET LIVE with all due respect.
Another important aspect is not having desires or rather putting efforts into controlling them. Over the years I have observed elders take a determination/vow of not having to say for example curd for a week and fulfilling it without fail. The essence is in the curbing the acts of pleasure or rather in just putting control over your sense organs or rather not being ruled by your senses. In a sense, it also points to the very old yet golden philosophy which I believe did rule India for centuries is that 'desire is the root cause of all evils'. So rather than committing acts to achieve what you desire for, you try to stay peaceful finding happiness with what is in hand. I can go on and on.
The past few years have witnessed drastic changes in the lifestyle of people with the inclusion of technology making life modern. I see how Jainism too is fast upgrading. We have TV channels where various temples are being shown for us to see/pray for idols in temples we could not visit, channels where our religious leaders are delivering a discourse on nonviolence, happy and peaceful leaving, chanting mantras, talking about karma, prayers, fasting, etc, etc. Today it is very easy to travel across the country to holy places like Shikhar Ji or Sharavan Belagola, etc due to better connectivity and conveyance. Better inns, hotels, and facilities in all places. New temples are coming up. Fully air-conditioned temple, a 108 feet high statue of ahimsa in the most respected place named Mangitungi Ji which just got registered in Guinness Book of the world record, etc. We get calendars printed with our Tirthankars on it. We have smartphones/whats app to click and share pics of idols and share audios and videos of aarti's etc on going in a temple. It has become very convenient for us to follow, continue and propagate about Jainism today and the masses take deep pride/pleasure in it as well.
But is that done? For respect of Tirthankars, we are to wash our hands, feet, and mouth before we enter a temple. Yet we comfortably sit and dine before sunset with our Paras channel on and listening to an aarti with Tirthankars on the TV screen. Thinking that we are seeing gods in front of us daily on a calendar hanging for 1 full year is religious enough but what about the disrespect to the same Tirthankars when the calendar is to be discarded as the year has ended. We go to temples for prayers, to perform aarti and Kalash but rather than sincerely doing that, we focus on taking snapshots of our relatives doing 'Kalash' and sharing it out showing how religious we are. We are to show utter respect to our gurus and have faith in their sayings. We are encouraged to listen to the video discourse of our gurus which mostly revolve around nonviolence, controlling one's materialistic desires, leading a peaceful life and to do greater good to the society including the environment but once the channel is changed we are encouraged on how to earn more so that we can grow rich as that's what makes you respected in the society. We want to possess our own home, the very homes which are mostly laid on ponds and marshlands filled with sand/garbage or concrete harming the environment and mercilessly killing the aqua species therein but it is worthless to spare a thought on it. We are actually not supposed to eat post dusk but all the marriage and parties are scheduled in the evening and needless to say so much of the food we waste just because it did not taste good.
The list of such hypocrisy in our clan is endless. We are mostly following Jainism as per our convenience and as it pleases us. Rather than up-gradation of this religion because of modernity its a degradation of it probably. Not sure which path to follow I wonder. If I follow Jainism sternly and do justify my surname, It would be difficult to lead a normal modern age life. If I live a normal life like all chasing money, luxury and comfort I don't think the surname is justified, it is rendered hollow. This is for sure that both can not go hand in hand. I can only be one of the two. So which one?.
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