Life Force: The World of Jainism

Get a look at the ancient wisdom of Jainism with "Life Force: The World of Jainism," an insightful journey exploring the peaceful teachings and timeless principles of one of the world's oldest religions. Discover how Jainism's commitment to nonviolence, peace, and the environment offers solutions to today's global challenges. 

In this episode of our "Beyond the Book" series, we explore Michael Tobias's in depth look into Jainism, taking you on a captivating journey into the heart of Jain philosophy. Uncover the essence of living harmoniously in a world filled with contradictions and pain, and see how Jainism's deep respect for all forms of life can illuminate our path forward. 

Learn about the Jain commitment to nonviolence, their view on the sanctity of life, and how these principles have shaped their practices for millennia. This video is not just an exploration of a religion but an invitation to reflect on our own beliefs, practices, and the impact we have on our planet and its inhabitants.

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Transcript

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Have you ever wondered how ancient wisdom can guide us through today's most pressing challenges? Imagine a philosophy so profound that it almost predates civilization. This is the world of Jainism, a path of nonviolence and respect for all life explored through the insightful lens of Michael Tobias Life force. The world of Jainism. We're going to uncover the timeless teachings of one of the oldest religions on Earth and discover how its principles can illuminate our own path forward in an increasingly complex world. This is what our Beyond the Book series is all about learning about important books in religion, spirituality, philosophy, and self-improvement, and seeing how they can help guide us on our path. Little more about the author. Michael Tobias spent a great deal of time traveling in India, and at one point he just wandered into this Jain temple and became fascinated with them. And he's a relative expert in their faith, at least for a Westerner, he's previously produced a documentary on them for PBS. He's had access to the highest levels of Jain leadership all the way from the top, all the way down to their naked traveling monks and the layperson, Jain practitioners, As an introduction to his book, Tobias says the following work sets out to examine just what it means. According to the Jains, to live harmoniously and how it is possible to do so in a world of contradictions and pain. And this gets to the core of how we navigate our own spiritual path. How do we do so in a world of contradictions and pain? It's about our mindset, our perspective, how in touch we are with that divine, universal oneness inside of ourselves. Are they one of the world's oldest religions? Jains would tell you that they are the world's oldest religion and they might have a claim. The Hindus would say they're the oldest and they would probably have a solid claim to that. The Zoroastrians and the Jews have similar claims, and this is for still practice religions as there's probably older phase that we have no record of. That just kind of went by the wayside. But Jainism originated in the Indus Valley of ancient India and the same place that Hinduism originated When I say Jainism is a peaceful religion, you might think, Well, that makes sense. Most religions are peaceful, right? And that's kind of true. And I think most religions preach peace, but many have also had this very complicated relationship with how man and humankind has manipulated those religions throughout history and in the past in the name of power and money, the Jain, they've been able to maintain their extremist dedication to remaining peaceful for about 4000 years. they've been uniquely protected through history by these various geopolitical events. And as a result, they've been able to practice almost complete nonviolence and adhere to their strict beliefs in that realm. It's their most important principle, nonviolence. And they're also strict vegetarians, and they're mostly vegan. They can't hold jobs that damage the environment or hurt any form of life on earth down to single celled organisms. And Tobias says on this, my previous doubts regarding humanity's willingness or capacity to live respectfully on this fragile bit of turf we call Earth have been stilled as a result of my increasing familiarity with Jain Doctrine and my many Jain friends. And so what he's saying there is, you know, practicing the Jain faith, studying the Jain faith has given him renewed perspective and hope that we can live peacefully on this earth and that we can treat everything. How it was probably meant to be treated in the fundamental order of things. Jainism was the only large scale force in Indian society that never accepted the caste system and that's truly important. I think when we talk about religion around the world and some of the great harm it's done, whether it's Christianity or Islam or Hinduism, they've all had these things, they've done that. I think many people associated with those faiths regret. And I think the Jains never embracing the caste system and rejecting in India is this big thing. And they also provided equal status and rights to women and gave them the right to practice their faith as equals to men and to be equal in society. And the Jains don't have a deity which is similar to Buddhism. They believe that our time on earth is sacred and that the true point of everything is living the best and most sincere that we can live. They do believe in karma, and they believe in the idea of reincarnation and the fact that we're we're born, we live, we die, and we have this rebirth of reincarnation until we eventually, through this idea of moksha, is called liberation or enlightenment or salvation. We escape and break out of this cycle of rebirths. And this significantly overlaps Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. And I was struck by the authors description of a Jain temple that he visited, several Jain temples that he visited, where he contrasted them with the Hindu, Buddhist and other East Asian sanctuaries. He pointed out that the Jain temples were much cleaner and less secretive. They were more open. The Jain say the pain or pleasure of the world hangs in the balance of our thoughts and actions. And we're constantly changing our world. And in doing so, we're changing the whole world around us. Like us as individuals are changing the world. And so we're changing the whole world around us. And there's tremendous power here. And this goes along with our previous discussions on this channel about how you can write your own story individually, you yourself, and if you can write your own story, you can just make stuff up and go do it. And I, the Jains, talk about this innate power that you have as an individual to write that story. And for them, plants are this fundamental base of belief in their faith. Tobias writes 98% of all energy transfer on Earth, such as nutrition and survival, is a result of sunlight, water, carbon dioxide and soil, not aggression. The overwhelming weight of the life force on Earth is accounted for in peace loving plants, not malevolent animals. So we're surrounded by this tremendous life force. Even if you don't agree with everything in that quote, I think we can all appreciate what the Jains are getting at the respect for this massive life force around us, the beauty of Mother Earth and this great power of Gaia. And that's something that I believe in so deeply that the name of of the nonprofit spiritual community that sponsors this YouTube channel is called Kishar, which is the Sumerian goddess of Mother Earth. That's what that's what she represents. And if you're interested in learning more about Kishar and our spiritual community online, please visit Kishar.org. And we have great discussions, just like we're having right now. We have community events, and it's pretty cool place, Jains, to believe all beings on earth have a soul, including plants. I see overlap here with pagan and indigenous faiths. I particularly love some similarities between Jain beliefs and certain Native American traditions. Even if that overlap is kind of inexact. It is definitely there. There's a great deal to love about this religion, even if they take some of the things really far, sometimes to extremes. I mean, sometimes you'll see Jains wearing face masks. It's just long before COVID because they don't want bugs fly into their mouths because they don't want to kill those small, tiny bugs that might get into their teeth. That's how extreme they are about nonviolence and peace. And I think we can learn a great deal from studying these beliefs. And for me, talking about Jainism is a little difficult because I think it's a bit harder to put into words in some other religions and spiritual philosophies that I've studied, that we've talked about here on this channel. It's a rich faith, and I think the sum of all Jain writing could fill many rooms there. They were prolific writers. They were they were as prolific as writers in Judaism, where scholarship is such an important thing, and they really do an extensive job of documenting their rules and the dogma that goes along with their beliefs. It's hard to get an exact number of the genes that are populated around the world. The estimates range from anywhere from 4 to 12 million, and most are concentrated in India, where they make up about one or 2% of the population. The author says Jainism is a momentous example to all of us, that there can and does exist a successful ecologically responsible way of life which is abundantly nonviolent and thought action. Indeed, we might misread our history, go forward confusedly to perpetuate other follies, but we will do so knowing that there is a viable alternative. And I love that the author wrote this quote, because there's always another way. There's there's always a better path that we can take, and we just have to choose it. And life is this series of choices that you make. And when you take ownership of that fact that you're always making these choices and that you have these choices, then suddenly you have this awareness and intention and you can seize the initiative and use these choices so that you can start to write your own story instead of living somebody else's story. And that's something that's super powerful. I hope that you can all reflect on that. Gandhi was raised within Jainism and by a Jain family, and this had a real deep and profound impact on him, and it led to his concept of changing the world through nonviolence. And he brought down a whole empire with it. At the time, probably the most powerful empire that had ever existed in humanity. And I think this alone probably speaks more to the power of Jainism than anything else that I could tell you in this video. Before we move on, please subscribe by hitting the watermark in the lower right hand corner and share this video with any friends or family who you think might benefit from it. Jains seemed to very much appreciate art in this world. Some have even said that the religion itself is a form of art. Their architecture is truly amazing and they appear to have this innate understanding of humankind and what it means to us and what art says about us and what we say when we see it. And that's both the good and the bad. And so they can see the vibrancy of humanity and how it reflects in the makeup of what they build and what they produce. And in their culture. Do you ever think about art as a portal into religion or spirituality? We see certain architecture and we see the divine or God or the Brahman or whatever you want to call it, whatever that divine thing is to you. You might see it. And this in a building that you see or a song that you hear and you know, the divine is there. You might see in a painting and that shows you the oneness of the universe. And there's all these creative and artistic things around us in our world that connect us to the beyond. And here, Tobias says, Jainism contains the same imaginative prowess as the greatest art. It, too, is an art form, and it has been termed ethical realism. Jainism is the only religion that has no God, and yet is not atheistic. How can that be? In a very telling, since the Jains have replaced the notion of God with the nature of things. And I think that what goes a long way into describing what Jainism is and how they see it and how we can look at it from an outside perspective, looking in to try to relate better to what this faith is in this world. The Jains also have a window into the darkness of us, and especially the darkness of the collective. It's in this darkness that I think drives them to be so fundamental in their approach to peace and love. As a society, we willfully avoid the horrors of the world around us. I think we're afraid of what it might do or what it will touch inside of us. We look away from the darkness, but we do it in a way that pretends it doesn't exist. And ignorance of the darkness doesn't mean we embrace the light. Tobias makes the point that were unwilling to stare down evil. Those of us who've seen evil have a knowledge of evil that I think others don't. And some of us have been just seeing evil. But we've been a party to it. But how much is that evil different in the denial and the willful avoidance of coming to terms with evil as a society or individual and as a direct result of being right in the middle of kind of man's evil theater? I've seen that abyss of evil, and I was a part of it. I was trapped in the cycle of war, chasing a high like some kind of war junkie. Tina Fey's character touches on this same thing in the movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which is kind of a comedy but is also a huge drama. It's worth checking out. So essentially, it's easy to write off evil as somebody else's problem, right? And so the cycle continues because we stand by and just kind of watch it pass by without, you know, taking too much time to go. And, you know, we just glance at it out of the corner of our eye. We're not like we're actually looking at it. We just let it pass by us. And we we seek to tame everything around us humans do, and yet we refuse to tame ourself. And I think the point here is that action is required to counterbalance evil. It's seeing it, knowing it, it's accepting it. And then we know that we're the we're the balance of the universe. You are the balance of the universe and you have the power. Once you've accepted evil, to then intentionally turn your gaze to the light. And you can be comfortable in your knowledge and acceptance of evil as this universal truth. And there's something about how the Jains approach all of this that's truly enlightening. And if you believe you can do anything that you want and be free of the consequences by, you know, reciting John 316 or walking into a confessional, making an offering or some sincere, thoughtless sacrifice, or maybe the stock prayer that we recite or whatever, this dogma that we can think of. I think that we probably don't truly understand the divine or our true self if we're doing that. And I think that we would be blind and poor in that case. So instead, we can choose to understand, accept and be rich, wealthy in the knowledge of the universe, the understanding of our true divine self. And here, Tobias writes, Something happened somewhere, sometime in the accumulation of contacts and sensations that sudden quick, a quiet revelation purring at the rear of that dark canyon I know to be myself conveying what I must have known to be true all along. And that's it, right? What I knew to be true all along. That means the truth is there inside of us. We know it already. We just have to accept it. We have to come to it and. And let it free. And that truth will set us free. That sets that famous saying, right? The truth will set you free. It's. It's this amazingly powerful thing. I have great hope and faith in humankind. I say that often on this channel. We're going to be okay. And Tobias agrees when he says at any one time, according to war historians, approximately half the human population is directly or indirectly engaged in war. But we mustn't forget that the other half is engaged in peaceful activities. And so you don't have to look far to find peace in this world. How great is that? To embrace the best we have to offer as humanity? It's right there. And so reach out and look around you and appreciate the peace around you, because not everyone can see it. So appreciate that. You can see it in its always loving kindness to me. Most faiths and traditions and spiritual constructs come back to loving kindness. So even if we can't relate to some of the extreme measures that Jains is take to say on their own peaceful path, maybe we can appreciate their effort to love this world and everything in it. The great thing not just other humans, but each and every cell in the universe, every living thing that's so powerful, we can all do better to one another. We can be more compassionate, can have more empathy, and we can love ourselves even more. There's definitely something to learn here. Tobias said You cannot save the world, but you can cultivate your own garden, which the Jains know to be the soul. And there is this indelible twist. One soul is equal to all souls. And so when you save yourself, guys, you're saving the whole world. You're saving the whole universe because we are one. And so you will lift up the whole world around you. You will lift up the universe when you love yourself. And I guess if I could take anything away from this beautiful religion and faith, it's that is go deep within yourself deeply. Love yourself and and you will love everything. You'll be one with everything. Ultimately, Jains just let the world be. It's an embracing of what it is and letting it be in its purest form. And this could be seen as the ultimate form of living in the present moment and appreciation for the base state and flow of the rhythm of the universe. So if you just stop for a second and say, I'm just going to be right now, I'm going to let life happen all around me, I'm going to appreciate it as it's happening. I'm going to see it as it's happening. I'm going to take it all in. And that's living, that's being present, that's living for today. All these things that we talk about in various spiritual circles, in the spiritual community. So how do you see these themes of loving nature, embracing peace, accepting darkness and all these other things that impact your own belief and faith? How do you see it? How does understanding the Jains inform your own spiritual practice and your worldview? I'm interested in how this beautiful religion might impact your own spiritual journey. So hit me up in the comments. I will absolutely get back with you, please like this video and we'll keep making content just like this. And until next time I wish you peace on your journey.