Monday, 3 February 2014

Participant's Questions

1. Can we dispose off religious items like unused books, little statues, coins / Soparis, etc? If so, how?

"Either buried in the soil or dropped in the ocean. However, first try to recycle the books by asking around or donating to a library. "


2. In Jainism, consuming vegetables like potatoes, onions, carrots, etc are prohibited. Why is it so? By adhering to this only during Paryushan, what are we achieving?


"These vegetables have one body but many souls unlike vegetables grown on trees which have one body and one soul - hence vegetables grown underground are prohibited"




3. There are 24 Thirthankars who had their souls liberated from the cycle of birth and death. This happened thousands of years ago. Why has this list not been extended ever since - Are there no more people who attained Moksh after these Thirthankars? Who and how can it be decided whether a soul has been liberated?

According to Jainism, there will always be living Tirthankaras in some part of the universe and that is why we say Jainism is eternal. At the moment, Simandhar Swami and 19 other living Tirthankaras are present in the Mahavideha part of the universe which is not on earth. The earth is said to undergo a time cycle and in every half time cycle, 24 Tirthankaras appear.We will be doing the time cycle later in the course when things will become clearer on this aspect.

4. These days, Corruption has become inevitable in almost all aspects of our lives. Can this be considered as "Ahimsa"? If so, what are the alternatives?

corruption is based on greed and hence inevitably leads to violence. Therefore where possible, do not abet corruption.


5. Why when the snake bit mahaveer bhagwan milk came out instead of blood. I did not understand the concept quite well so can you please reply to this.

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