Compassion And Passions

Here's a comprehensive summary of the provided text from "Compassion and Passions" by Dr. Jayantilal Jain, focusing on the key concepts presented:

Core Thesis: The fundamental problem for all living beings is passions, which lead to the continuous cycle of birth and death. Lord Mahavir taught that true compassion, when understood in its profound Jain context, offers the path to peace in this life and ultimate liberation (Moksha).

Understanding Passions:

• Nature of Passions: Passions are the basic instincts of all living beings, encompassing likes, dislikes, anger, ego, greed, delusion, happiness, and sadness.
• Classification:
  • Primary Passions: Generally categorized into four: anger, ego, deceit, and greed.
  • Origin: Passions arise from contemplation, preparation, and commencement of activities, driven by mind, words, and body.
  • Types: Can be one's own, supporting others' passions, or having others fulfill them.
  • Numerical Representation: This leads to 108 (4 x 3 x 3 x 3).
  • Broader Scope: Passions also relate to the five cardinal sins: violence, falsehood, stealing, possession, and sex, leading to complex classifications of 18,000 and even 8.4 million passions.
  • Categorization of Beings: Passions are linked to the five senses and states of body/mind, categorizing beings into humans, animals, hellish beings, and heavenly beings, further divided into 8.4 million life forms, each with unique passions.
• Cause of Passions: The root cause is the misidentification of the body with the soul, leading to ego and attachment to non-living objects and worldly desires. This is illustrated by animals being destroyed by their dominant passions (moths by light, deer by sound, etc.).
• Dynamics and Relativity: Passions are constantly generated by karmic bondage due to ignorance of the soul's true nature. What is considered "good" or "bad" passion is relative, influenced by social, economic, political, and religious environments. Passions are temporary and subject to interpretation.
• Impact of Wrong Beliefs: Wrong beliefs and repeated inclinations lead to temptations and wandering minds. Deluded individuals turn away from self-knowledge and pursue sensory gratification, mistakenly believing the body to be the soul. This mental state determines passions and karmic bondage, capable of turning hell into heaven and vice versa.

Lord Mahavir's Teaching: Lord Mahavir taught how to subdue, conquer, and contemplate the supreme soul, which is ever-blissful and omnipresent. This is the unalterable law of the universe.

Understanding "Compassion" in the Jain Context:

• Critique of Conventional Compassion: The text distinguishes between common notions of compassion (kindness, forgiveness, sympathy, mercy, tolerance, non-violence) and the true Jain concept. Common compassion provides only temporary relief and does not offer lasting solutions to human problems. It's temporary, relative, and has no absolute standard of benefit.
• Practical Advice for Temporary Control: The text offers practical suggestions for managing passions in daily life, such as:
  • Seeking forgiveness or forgetting wrongs done to oneself.
  • Seeking forgiveness if one has wronged others.
  • Not seeking revenge if wronged.
  • Forgetting minor hurts.
  • Seeking forgiveness to overcome hurdles in noble pursuits.
  • Avoiding "tit for tat" to maintain good conduct.
  • Not mirroring others' negative behavior.
  • Disregarding others' misperceptions.
  • Not aggravating the problems of those consumed by passions.
  • Understanding that karmas regulate worldly activities and that spiritual upliftment through forgetting, forgiving, and annihilating karmas is the way to salvation, rather than fighting karmas.
• The True Path to Eternal Liberation: Overcoming passions permanently requires developing an understanding of the marvelous and powerful nature of the pure soul. This is the only way to achieve eternal freedom from passions.
• "Have Compassion for Passions": This seemingly paradoxical statement means to view passions with great discretion, recognizing that all beings have been afflicted by them for infinite lives. It's about having compassion for the self in its struggle with passions.
• The Divine View of Self: Realizing that "God lies within oneself" allows for transformation. When one views oneself as divine, it naturally extends to seeing all other beings as divine. This realization builds the foundation for true compassion for others.
• The Impact of Realization: With this realization, passions like violence, untruthfulness, stealing, greed, and sexual misconduct will wither away.
• Compassion as Indifference to Passions: True compassion, in the Jain sense, means recognizing that passions are not the ultimate goals. It advocates for ignoring, overpowering, or controlling them by adopting the path to Moksha. This compassion ensures everlasting happiness. It means being indifferent to passions and understanding their impact across lifetimes.
• Focusing on the Pure Soul: Compassion implies focusing on one's own real self. Passions are absent in the pure soul, leading to a loss of interest in them. Knowledge of the pure soul "dries up the river" of passions, making them easier to overcome.
• Internal Control Leads to External Control: By controlling internal passions, external actions of mind, speech, and body are automatically controlled.
• Transcending Passions: Self-realization involves turning away from passions, temptations, and worldly snares. Worldly affairs should be viewed as transient. The wise remain indifferent to cravings and compulsions of passions.
• Inward Vision and Bliss: Compassion means rejecting earthly joys and sorrows, turning inward to realize the pure soul. This vision transcends karmic bondage and the limitations of the body, senses, and mind. Living with the vision of the pure soul is like living in a lighthouse, while living with passions is like living in darkness.
• Universal Brotherhood: Once one identifies with the pure soul and disengages from temporal viewpoints and worldly pleasures, conquering passions and relative sentiments, there are no friends or foes. The pure soul is non-material, intangible, and beyond senses. This realization leads to indifference towards external treatment and fosters universal brotherhood and peace.

About the Author: Dr. Jayantilal Jain is a highly respected Jain scholar with extensive academic and professional experience in economics, banking, and Jainology. He has a strong background in delivering spiritual discourses and lectures on Jain philosophy.