"Pearls of Jaina Wisdom"

By Mr. Duli Chand Jain

1. All living beings desire to live. They detest sorrow and death and wish a long happy existence. Hence one should not inflict pain on any creature nor harbour any feeling of enmity. Not to kill any being is the essence of all wisdom.

2. The soul is the begetter of both happiness and sorrow; it is its own friend when it treads the path of righteousness and is its own enemy when it chooses to travel on the forbidden path.

3. Victory ever one's self is greater than conquering thousands and thousands of enemies in the battle-field. A true conqueror is one who conquers his own self.

4. Deception, fraud, telling lie and malpractice in trade are the four animal instincts which drag the soul to sub-human existence.

5. The more you get, the more you want; desire increase with every gain. What starts as two grams of gold, has a tendency to end as millions of grams (as illustrated in the episode of Kapila kevali).

6. Anger, pride, deceit and greed are the four powerful enemies which stimulate sinful deeds. One who desires and welfare of his self should renounce these four flaws.

7. Conquer anger by forgiveness, pride by humility, deceit by straight forwardness and greed by contentment.

8. He who has got rid of delusion has his misery destroyed; He who has got rid of desire has his delusion destroyed; He who has got rid of greed has his desire destroyed and He who owns nothing has his greed destroyed.

9. Anger spoils good relations, pride destroys humility, deceit destroys amity and greed destroys everything.

10. Fight with your own self, what is the use in fighting the external foes? Difficult it is to conquer your own self.

11. As light from crores of burning lamps is of no avail to a blind person so also the study of numerous scriptures is of no use to a person who has no character.

12. Greater is he who retrains himself, though giving no aims, than he who gives thousands of cows every month but restrains not himself.

13. Without character, human birth is futile.

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