Page 107 - Courage Redifined

1) Looking around can prove poisonous.

2) Hearing and reading can also prove poisonous for the
soul.

3) Good company is a prerequisite.

4) The temptation to look good among people also plays a part.
If 3-4 people gather at the end of the day, do they even bother
to talk about the increase of sins and ways to avoid them.
Instead they talk about new ways to increase luxuries and
comforts in life, indirectly inviting sins in their life. When
anything that you see or hear is bound to be a reason for
inviting sins, then how can you save yourself from sins ?

Consider yourself lucky to be born in a Jain family which has
gifted you the precious Jain religion right from birth.

It is our great fortune that by way of Jainism, we can
recognize these acts as sins, which the world is otherwise
unaware about.
Other religions existing in the world may show sins by the
medium of thoughts, words and acts but Jainism shows the
emergence of sins even by a particular state or belief of the
soul.

For e.g. You may not exercise violence in your routine
life, you may not be speaking or reading anything related
to violence and your thoughts are also not violent. But if
your soul’s belief is not firm that, “I retrain from violence
completely,” if you do not have the oath to avoid violence
by means of body, speech or thought, then the soul is in a
state of non-restraint towards sins which can lead to abundant
sins. This is what Jain religion says. This means that even
the elimination of the thought of violence is not enough.
To completely refrain from violence, you need to have an oath
Kamlata's Misery 97