I am God. And the Devil too!

By Professor Vastupal Parikh, Ph.D

November 2007

Human beings consider ourselves to be a very intelligent species. Our ingenuity has conceived and built several systems constituting family, social, religious, political, economic and industrial networks. Our success in these endeavors has brought them tremendous material success. Humans have built homes and palaces to live in, towns and cities for shelter; and roads, cars, trains, ships, and airplanes for transportation. But along the way, development in the name of survival has changed to development as a way to “have” more -- to fulfill a seemingly insatiable need.

Humans have exploited the oceans and streams for fish, land for nature’s mineral resources, and forests for vast quantities of timber. The slaughter of fish and wildlife has become entertainment. No other species kills other living beings just for fun or the pleasure of the palate, and none soils its own nest. Our machines and factories have created still more wealth. So successful has been human inventive genius that soon we even invented an omnipotent God and started fantasizing himself to be in our image.

Such fantasy might have been acceptable but for the terrible record of human species. No other species has developed weapons of mass murder and accepted genocide, religious and ideological wars, empire building, colonization, and subjugation. Yet, here too, human genius is at work! We invented even a devil to absolve ourselves of all our evil acts and to whom we can assign blame. Man is an intelligent genius indeed!

Little do we understand that no one but our self is responsible for our acts….that the devil and godliness are both within us! Our soul, if pure, is godly but we also harbour the devil in the form of our passions. We are so egotistic and self-righteous that we have no respect for other living beings.

Our self-righteousness makes us believe that our race, our religion, our nation, and our political systems are so superior that we have the right to impose our authority and will on others, or kill other living beings for profit, food, pleasure, or fun. Our ego and cruelty has made us insensitive to the pain we inflict on animals. We wage wars, and build war academies to turn young minds in to killing machines.

We have amassed enough nuclear weapons to blow up our planet with the flick of a switch. Aren’t these devilish acts? Yet, amazingly, we see ourselves as the most intelligent species!

Our desires have no limits. We designed animal farms for the mass production of animals for slaughter, and trawlers to catch millions of fish in one sweep. Make no mistake – these “farms” are not the idyllic settings of Charlotte’s Web, they are factory-like farms where thousands of cows, pigs, chickens, etc. are stuffed in small cages for all their short lives, fattened prematurely, pumped with drugs, and slaughtered for humans.

A 2006 United Nations report concludes that animal farming and animal consumption have the most devastating effect on our environment. The world is currently raising over 50 billion farmed animals for slaughter each year. This contributes significantly to the destruction of forests, extinction of plant and animal species, soil erosion, pollution of ground water, and depletion of fresh water and arable land. Animal farming contributes significantly to the greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide (9%, 37%, and 65% of world totals, respectively) – of which methane and nitrous oxide are 23 and 296 times more detrimental to global warming than carbon dioxide.

To make the matters worse, we are rapidly stripping our rain forests to acquire more land for providing animal feed for these animal farms. These trees not only provide habitat for several species of birds, animals and insects, but also act as a carbon dioxide sink, converting greenhouse gases into needed oxygen. With the forests depleted, global warming accelerates. Additional greenhouse gases come from our cars, factories, oil and coal burning, and energy consumption.

Between 1970 and 2004 the greenhouse gases rose by 70 per cent from 28.7 to 49 billion tons per year. Global temperatures have risen by 0.74C in less than a year and have hastened melting of the polar icecaps. Scientists predict that a two-degree increase in global temperature will raise sea levels enough in few short years to submerge many costal areas and cities. The devil in us must be working overtime!

Signs of inevitable disaster are everywhere, but can we do anything about it? Can we stop the devil in its tracks? Politicians and scientists are now scrambling to prevent greenhouse gas emissions by asking car drivers, energy producers, and factories to cut down their emissions, yet any suggestion to curb animal farming and meat production meets with deafening silence. Nevertheless, such measures, though beneficial, are really only temporary. Ultimately the solution lies in dealing with our internal devil and its insatiable greed.

As many as 2600 hundred years ago, Mahavir, the 24th Jain Tirthankara issued a warning. He asked us to respect the environment. In keeping with his message of non-violence, he preached that air, water and soil are all living systems, and man will abuse them only at his own peril. Jains may have received this message with lukewarm enthusiasm (devil pervades every soul), but still try to live by Mahavir’s message. The rest of the world, however, has so far given it the cold-shoulder.

The Tirthankaras actually identified this devil and even have a name for it. They call it “Kashayas”. Passions such as ego, greed, lust, anger, self-righteousness, power hungriness, jealousy, etc. are the kashayas. The Tirthankaras preached that every pure soul is divine but the kashaya-devil has imprisoned our soul and has somehow managed to overpower our conscience - the God within us. They developed a philosophy and a practical, workable technique not only to control this devil but also to get rid of it. They tell us that if we eliminate our kashayas and liberate our mindset from this devil, our soul will be free and godliness is ours! It is our mindset that keeps the soul imprisoned, and we need a fundamental change in our mindset to be able to free ourselves and our planet from the devil.

The Tirthankaras preached a set of beliefs to prepare us to follow a path to gradually eliminate the kashayas. In this sense, Jainism is more of a psychological system to overcome human weaknesses, than a religion. Its theoretical construct is founded on liberating the human mind from its dependence on an external imaginary God and devil, and empowering it to shape its own destiny.

Its basic message is “All living beings are, in essence, impure souls trapped in a continuous cycle of rebirth and death due to their own doing (karma), and have the potential to liberate themselves. Humans in particular have the ability to liberate their soul by their own actions if they so choose. We are the masters of our destiny and can expel the devil within us to achieve the divine state of omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence.”

Jainism has developed three main doctrines to prepare the right mindset for the journey on the path to achieve moksha – the state of divinity. These are:
Triple ‘A’s OR Triple ‘R’s
Ahimsa Reverence for ALL living beings
Anekantawada Respect and examine the validity of differing viewpoints
Aparigraha Reduce your needs and possessions

It is not too hard to imagine how these doctrines, if applied globally, can alleviate most of the problems facing our planet such as violence, wars, fundamentalism, terrorism, and environmental decay. The Jain scriptures emphasize that even the intention of violence (bhava himsa) is a serious act of violence.

Such emphasis, and their unique doctrine of Anekantawada has had a great impact on the psyche of the Jain community. This impact has resulted in the formation of a peaceful community, which has adhered to these three doctrines for thousands of years.

The Jain doctrine of ahimsa has even influenced a large number of Hindus (particularly “upper caste” Hindus) to abandon their practice of animal sacrifices and become vegetarians.

Apart from the issues such as ‘cruelty to the animals’ and ‘effect of carnivorous habits on human health’, vegetarianism has gained crucial importance in the 21st century.

The most inconvenient truth is that a global shift away from meat and other animal products (understand Ahimsa), so also from self-righteousness (understand Anekantawada), and from a lifestyle of increasing needs and possessions (understand Aparigraha) is urgently needed to save the planet from rapidly growing greenhouse gases. Without such a massive shift in human mindset, the kashaya-devil will have free hand with its ‘intelligent ingenuity’.

The history of Jain community suggests that their triple ‘A’s have been effective in bringing about massive change in the human mindset to create a peaceful community. Jains have inherited these three ‘A’s and have used them for centuries. They must now bring their long-standing know-how in these techniques to the attention of the world. Not doing so will only strengthen the hands of the devil. I implore Jains to be proactive not only to help world breathe easy, but also to restore the lost glory of Jainism.

Source: Professor Vastupal Parikh, Ph.D - contact
Author: Professor Vastupal Parikh