Saturday, March 27, 2010

Dhal 4 Stanza 13-15

Stanza 13
Two Types of Sins:
1.Purposeful: Ex]
• If you want to build house you need to dig land. This will cause violence because all the living beings in the ground will get killed. This is a purposeful sin because it is done for the house, making it a less severe sin.
• Police is interrogating and torturing a terrorist to find out information about violent acts. Then this is a purposeful sin.
2.Purposeless: Ex]
• Killing the insects by digging for fun is called purposeless. This is more severe.
• Torturing someone for fun is purposeless and is a severe sin.
Go to restaurant and order more than we can eat. Then ordering the extra stuff in the trash is a purposeless sin because it is wasting food. In a house holder state one should try to avoid all the purposeless sins. However if you have to do something mean to someone, but for a good purpose then it is okay.
He does not through carelessness cause injury to water, earth, vegetable, fire, nor does he secure an obligation by supplying a sword, a bow, a plough and other instruments of destruction. He himself does not only commit careless injury but also doesn’t supply things to lead to distraction.
He never listens to narrations, which excite feelings of attachment of aversion. He does not indulge in other acts which cause purposeless sins. Does not see, hear, or talk about movies, books, conversations, about topics which excite any emotions and attachments. Watching game is a purposeless sin because u get attachment and aversion sins. If you want fun then play some real game rather than watch TV. Because if u get attachment and aversion for a real game that you play, its acceptable because it is a purposeful sin, versus watching a purposeless game on TV.

Stanza 14
He practices concentration, with equanimity in heart. Renouncing sins, he observers fasts on the four days (the 8th and the 14th day of every fortnight). Having fixed a limit to objects of enjoyment and re-enjoyment, he avoids attachment. He offers meals first to an ascetic and takes his meal thereafter.
Household does meditation every day for 48 mins or more. Meditation- Practicing ourselves to maintain equanimity. It’s the process through which we train ourselves to have equanimity to objects around us.
At night when we give rest to body the soul doesn’t rest. It rests when we meditate because it has to attachments and aversion. It causes spiritual bliss. The soul leaves all the aversion and attachment of the objects around and therefore attains spiritual bliss and meditate on the quality of the soul.
Prochet: The fasting on the four days. Approximately they observe fast, no food or water. They do meditation and worship in the temple all day, if possible.
Enjoyment: A meal
Re enjoyment: Enjoying over and over. Clothes, you can enjoy multiple time.

A householder limits number of enjoyments. He offers meals to ascetics first before taking meal himself. If he doesn’t find ascetic then feeds someone else then eats. This is done on an everyday basis.

Stanza 15
He avoids the five defects of each of the twelve vows, and observes defect less Body-Renunciation at approaching death. By such an observance of the vows of a layman, he attains the sixteenth celestial region. Descending from there, he gets a human body, becomes an ascetic and attains Liberation.
A good householder avoids defects form the 12 vows.
Two ways to die. Death comes to everybody and everything. It is a natural phenomena that occur to everyone. We start as child and turn into man then old age. During old age we have much suffering.
1. To Suffer due to physical discomfort and then die
2. To die peacefully. It is called Samadhi Maharan. Ask to forgiveness from everyone in this life.
If someone follows the 12 vows, and does right renunciation at time of death he can attain the 16th celestial region. Then he will come back with a human body as an ascetic and attain liberation.
In the traditional Indian culture, rather than having a death with suffering they would have peaceful death. They would have vows and meditate on the soul and die peacefully. It is better than going to hospital and dying there. In India a religious person would join group of ascetics and take samadhari maran in guide of ascetics. In these days all the ascetics die a peaceful death. Then soul would transmigrate to a very heavenly body and then take the path to liberation.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Dhal 4 Stanza 9-12

Stanza 9
O Brother! Do not feel elated or grieved by the fruits of good or evil Karmas. These are modifications of matter. They come into being, they vanish, they are not permanent. Out of a million talks keep this truth in your mind. Break off all trammels of the world, and concentrate your attention on the SELF.

All the karma that we have is because of the deeds of our past. Whatever we soe is what we reap. Whatever body we have keeps on changing. Everything we come across is changeable and nothing is permanent. There is no point to run around anything. Even if we get what we want then it is an impermanent accomplish
All karma and external circumstances are all changing. We should only run behind the thing that is ever permanent and never changes which is the soul. Break off all the trammels of the world and concentrate your attention on the self. Do not get relieved with good karma and angry with bad karma, There is no point of running behind these things and there is not
Stanza 10
After having obtained right knowledge acquire Right Conduct. It is classified as partial or complete. A layman avoid injury to mobile being and does not purposelessly hurt immobile beings. He does not utter words which are harsh, reproachable or incentive to killing.
Knowledge comes first then the conduct comes. First the revelation then someone follows it. Right conduct can only be called right conduct if it is accompanied with right knowledge. For example, lets say Anything we do we should know the knowledge behind it. If you do it you have conduct but you do not know what you are doing.
You follow it partially and completely. Partially is by house holders and completely is by monks.
All the souls follow the same laws.
A lay man avoids injury
Compassion is the root of the dharma. You see a tree. What is the root of the tree. The r root is actually from where the tree starts. Similarly compassion is the root of dharma. The root is the one which is the most important in the tree. Similarly The human life is worth nothing with compassion. What is compassion? When you see suffering inside you also feel suffering. When somebody gets hurt then you feel some suffering inside. Why do we have compassion? Compassion is there because we have love. We have love for almost everybody. The love we have is called Matri and Mittha Bhavana.


Love is of different kind. Friends, parents, Respect is a kind of love. Respect for the lord, someone who has saved us life, elders. The same love gets transferred into our kinds Vadsalya. When we have love for everybody how can we kill anyone or hurt anyone. The love can heal our hatred.

Two Types of Living beings
Mobile human
Immobile plants
A lay man also does not utter words which are harsh and he takes care of his words and makes sure that they are goods an d that they are harsh and that they are sweet and good for others.

Stanza 11
Partial conduct
Right Conduct two types partial and complete.
Partial
He does not take anything, except water and earth, which has not been given to him. He remains unattached to all females except his wife. Keeping in view his circumstances, he limits his possessions. He also limits his movements in the ten directions; and does not transgress such limits.
This layman who is following partial conduct he does not steal anything except earth and water. He only indulges with his wife and considerers all other women as his sister, mother, and daughter. Vow of celibacy. He would only keep their possessions that are useful. If one job is enough for hi m he would keep that. He limits his money, property, clothes, and positions that he can have.
He limits his movements in the directions. He does not cross over those limits. He does that so that he does not have any attachments.
Stanza 12
Within these limits he further limits his activities to a village, a lane, a house, a garden, market, and thus avoids all the rest. He is not anxious over anybody's financial loss, or failure or success. He offers no advice in respect of such matters. Commerce and agriculture also lead to sin.
Evil thoughts
One should not give such advice as where there is violence involved Trade or agriculture But give advice for when there is something good.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Dhal 4 Stanza 1-8

Dhal 4
Stanza 1
Nature of right knowledge and Partial right conduct
Right knowledge is the one that knows himself and the others.
Hardcore thing to know about jain religion it is important to know self and alien substance. To know who am I need to know who I am not.

Stanza 2
Right now
Lets say we have a lamp and the lamp lights up and the surroundings get lighted up. Two things happen. If someone asks you which thing happened first, then it is the same because as the lamp lighted up then only the surroundings get lighted up. There is a cause and effect. Similarly there is the same thing with Right Faith and Right Knowledge. First Right Faith happens then Right Knowledge happens. Right Faith is the cause and Right Knowledge is the effect.
Needs to acquire right knowledge first. Right faith happens by experience with soul. Atma nu bhou. After this one attains right belief. Then knowledge that comes after this is called right knowledge since it comes after right faith.
Smoke behind mountain. Ask someone why is smoke there . They say there is fire so that’s why there is fire. And think there might be smoke because of something else. Then go back to thinking it has to be from fire. Then go to mountain and see with your own eyes that it s actually fire. This is right knowledge because you say with your eyes. Same with soul when one has done atma nu bhou because one has experienced the soul so faith will be true so knowledge will become true.
Because of right faith right knowledge happens. Cause effect. Cause = faith, effect = knowledge.
Stanza 3
2 knowledges. Direct and Indirect
Direct I go and see fire myself
Indirect is someone tell me fire is behind mountain.
EX: don’t wear glasses its direct. Then if u wear glasses then light reflects off glasses and then the vision is indirect because it comes though glasses.
Knowledge comes through soul itself cant’ come through eyes or mind. Go ask mahavir swami question and he will answer with soul since he has infinite knowledge. All that info gets reflected on his soul. Ants, bugs, animals don’t have dream and have very limited senses. We have at worst nigodia jeev who have 1 sense of touch with no brain. Then as we go up in spectrum then we have more senses. Eventually humans with 5 senses with brain. Then in humans we have saints who can find out from soul so they don’t have to use brains. Same for kevalganni who have all info on soul.
Indirect: info comes thru senses to acquire knowledge
Direct: saints and kevalganni get knowledge from soul and matter
Indirect knowledge comes from 5 senses and mind. So indirect is of two types.1. matignan (cognitive) 2. Strutgnan.
1 is knowledge u get from 5 sense and maan. Maan is physical apparatus. Raday translates to heart. One location where maan is btw left lung and heart. Other is more authentic which is in btw lungs. 7 chakras in body. 1 head, 3 on neck, 4 is in btw lungs. Structure in 4th chakra that looks like lotus. Is suppoted to help us with thinking.
2 shrutgnan. After knowing something from matignan we get to know some other obj related to 1st obj is called shrutgnan. Ex] go to mall and see jeans. It is purple and say it’s the same one m friend bought last year. Knowledge of jeans is matignan. Then you think about your friend having bough t same jeans and is related to this obj, so the second one is shritgnan. Go to lecture and all of that is matignan but when u think about what u learn and correlate it to things u know or things in life that is shrugnan.
Matignan is wahts happending directly. And when u relate to other obj it becomes shrutgnan.
Direct comes from soul. Also two types. 1 partially direct 2 kevalgnan.
if one hasn’t attained kevalgnana then will only get limited knowledge. Will be in terms of space, time. If saint has direct knowledge he will know what is happening in 100 miles. Will not know what is happening 5000 miles away. Also won’t be able to tell what will happen future. And know limited about past too. Also he can’t know all things. Won’t be able to tell us number of e- or p+ after 100 years but can tell other atomic level detail. Higher knowledge then will be able to know more at macro level vs micro level.
Partially direct knowledge is of 2 types . 1] advidnan – whne one knoes of pudgal. 2] manaparviagnan- will know what other peron ins thinking.
Narki – have matignan since only have senses. Shutgnan, and avdignan- can meet other hellish being and can know relationship they had with pervious birth and begin to take revenge from other birth. Can remember any good of them, only remember bad, limited compared to dev
Dev- matignan, shrutgnan, and avdignan- far batter than narki.
Terianch- 1 sense : matignan and shrutgnan (all things in world have atleast these two)
2 sense -4 : matignan and shurgnana
5 sense a] without maan : matignan and shrutgnana
B] with maan] (horse, tiger, giraffe) will have matignana and shruggnan and can have avdignan-knoow past and future.
Manushya- same two can also have advignan. If saint then only can have maniparyagyagnan. When arihant have kevalgnan.
Manipargnana can only happen in 4th kaal. Cant happen now.
Advidgnan in general cant happen now in 5th kaal. There could be rare cases.

What is dhravya, gun and paryiay.
Dravya is all six substances each with its own unique qualities. Guna is those unique qualities in the substances and Paryay is the modification of the substances in each samay.

Stanza 4
The arihant state and siddh state have omniscient. They about past present future they know all substances. They know all attributes and all states.
Properties of the Soul
Invisible
Awareness
Preservation
It has a belief property in it
Shape expand, shrink, change
No karma can go upward to the top of the universe

Avasta
Dravya Substance Gun Attributes Paryay Modification
Kevalibhagwan knows all the infinite substances and to every dravya he knows all its infinite gun and its past present and future. The past and future is not coming from his memory. He understands all the laws through which the world works. Anything which exists is in the knowledge of the omniscient lord. He knows everything.

HOMEWORK
WHAT DOES OMNISCIENCE MEAN IN BHUDDISM, HINDUISM, MUSLIMISM, CHRISTIANISM.

Why is right knowledge going to bring happiness? The way the world works is very different from the way we look at it from our sensory knowledge. He think the other person is bad or this thing is good or bad. When we look at the world that there is nothing good or bad then we will get the right knowledge. If our deceives us, then this bad emotion makes us upset. Then if someone tells us that he friend to do something good, but something bad happened then our emotion changes to be good. What matters is how we look at the world and how we will think about it. When we realize the true nature of the world there is nothing good or bad and nobody good for me or nobody bad for me. Then thats how our right knowledge.
Once he realizes how the world works then he attains happiness. Having the right knowledge is very very rare.
Basically right knowledge brings happiness.
When we go to a bank and the cashier gives us 10,000 dollars then do we bow down to the cashier? No because it s our own money. Similarly when some give us pain they are giving us what is our with the karma bank. This all happens because of karma.

Stanza 5
So there are two kind of people who can do penances.
1. Who has right Knowledge
2. Who does not have right knowledge. He would not be able to bring vitragta. Because he does not know he will have hatred and build up raag and dwesh.
With the ascetic practices if one has the right knowledge then only will be able to control the mind and shed all his karma.
Baal tap
Baal means child, immature
Taap is penances
Its called baal taap because he does not know what it is, like a child when they are told to do something they do it. We in our past have done the penances the baal tap infinite time and after doing those baal taap we have been in the dev gati the nine neck dwelling celestial realm. On top of 16 swarg there are 9 gravik-a lot of sensory pleasures. We could never attain the liberation. This is very rare.

Stanza 6
Stanza full of inspirations. We should got rid of doubt- this roads leads to the right path, this road doesn’t lead to the right path, vidhram-cognition, knowing something right, Stupefaction indecision The knowledge should be clear of all these three things. Just like the lost gem the human life is like a gem. Even if one becomes a human it is hard to have a good family, then a good religion, then someone who tells you the right religious discourses.
HOMEWORK ANSWERS!!!
Hinduism
The world is created by God and He knows everything about it. There is nothing hidden from Him, He knows all. He has records of the past births of every creature and knows what an animal or person will do in its present and coming lives. There is nothing called free will, everything is governed and directed by Him.

OMNISCIENCE

Omniscience (sabbaṭṭutā) is the ability to know everything and is usually believed to be an attribute of God although there have been religious leaders who have claimed to be omniscient too. The Buddha said that no being, human or divine, could be all-knowing. He denied that God is omniscient (D.I,17) for if he were religion would become meaningless. If God knows everything, he must know how we are going to act long before we do, which means that we have no freedom to act otherwise. And if we have no freedom to choose how we are going to act, what is the point of teaching people to be good and to avoid evil? Mahāvīra, the founder of Jainism and a contemporary of the Buddha, claimed to be omniscient (M.II,31), a claim which the Buddha said was without foundation (M.II,127). Interestingly, in the centuries since his passing, some unlearned and over-enthusiastic Buddhists have claimed that the Buddha 'knows everything that has been seen, heard, sensed, thought, attained, sought and searched by the minds of those who inhabit the entire world of gods and humans.' Although the Buddha never made this claim for himself (M.I,482), he did say he was 'one who knows the worlds' (lokavidū).

Christ’s Church through the ages (the historic Body of Christ since the Cross) has believed that God is omniscient, that is, that he knows all – past, present, and future. Among the orthodox (those who believe the simple fundamentals of Christianity) this all-knowing has meant that there is nothing that can be known or will be known that God does not already know. Christians have historically believed God knows the end from the beginning.

Islam traditionally has strong views of predestination similar to some found in Christianity. Muslims believe that God is literally a temporal, eternal and omniscient at the same time.

God's omniscience
The Qur'an describes God as being fully aware of everything that happens in the universe, including private thoughts and feelings, and asserts that one can not hide anything from God:
In whatever business thou mayest be, and whatever portion thou mayest be reciting from the Qur'an,- and whatever deed ye (mankind) may be doing,- We are witnesses thereof when ye are deeply engrossed therein. Nor is hidden from thy Lord (so much as) the weight of an atom on the earth or in heaven. And not the least and not the greatest of these things but are recorded in a clear record.
—[10:61]

Stanza 8
• Knowledge had helped to attain liberation in the past and still does in the present
• We try to attain wealth, have desires, ect… These things only burn up and the only way to extinguish this is with a heavy rainfall of knowledge.
o 1 way to extinguish this fire is with a rainfall of knowledge
o The other way is to control it. It is important to know that this will never die just like a fire and desires.
• Right knowledge is knowledge of the 7 tattvas
• The main scriptures in Jainism are Samasaar, Pravachan Saar, and Paratma Prakash. All of these scriptures talk about right knowledge.
• Once you attain right knowledge then you can extinguish h the sensory pleasure.
Our soul is the observer and witness of all things. Sensory pleasures are only a chemical reaction within body. When we realize we are witness of pleasure then we will get more bliss due to spiritual pleasure. Because of this bliss we will immediately leave our sensory pleasure.
Sensory pleasures bind us to bad karma, which will only give us sufferings in the future. So sensory pleasures are suffering. To someone who has experienced true spiritual bliss, the sensory pleasure is nothing.