Jainism

Janism has its roots from the BC Indus Valley civilization (6th to 9th century).  Approximately 5 million followers in reside in India.  

Jainism prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings and encourages divine consciousness and liberation.  When the soul has conquered its spiritual ignorance and sheds it karmic bonds completely, it reaches a state of supreme being known as Jina ("conqueror" or "victor"). 

The triple gems of Jainism are: 

 • Samyak Darshana - right vision or view. 

 • Samyak Gyana - right knowledge. 

 • Samyak Charitra - right conduct, provide the path for attaining liberation from the cycles of birth and death.  

Jains do not believe in a creator deity that could be responsible for the manifestation, creation, or maintenance of this universe. The universe is self-regulated by the laws of nature. Jains believe that life exists in various forms in different parts of the universe including earth and that all organisms have a soul and therefore need to be interacted without causing much harm. 

To achieve spiritual enlightenment, Jains observe ethical principles known as Mahavrata ('Great Vows'): 

 • Ahimsa - Non-violence.   The vow involves "minimizing" intentional as well as unintentional harm to another living creature. 

 • Satya - Truthfulness. 

 • Asteya - Non-stealing. 

 • Brahmacharya - To curb passion and wasting one's energy in the indulgences of worldly pleasures (eg, drink, drugs, sex). The householder must not have a sensual  relationship with anybody other than one's own spouse. Jain monks and nuns practice celibacy. 

 • Aparigraha - Non-possession or Non-materialism.  To observe detachment from people, places and material things. Attachment to an owned object is possessiveness.  Non-possession is owning without attachment, because the notion of possession is illusory.  For monks and nuns, non-possession involves complete renunciation of property and human relations. 

Core Beliefs 

 • Every living being has soul. 

 • Every soul is potentially divine, with innate qualities of infinite knowledge, perception, power, and bliss (masked by its karmas). 

 • Every soul is born as a heavenly being, human, sub-human (living creatures) or hellish-being according to its own karma. 

 • Every soul is the architect of its own life, here or hereafter. 

When a soul is freed from karmas, it becomes free and attains divine consciousness, experiencing infinite knowledge, perception, power, and bliss (Moksha). 

In Journey of the Soul #4 (Soul's Perfection), Sylvia Browne comments about the nature of karma: 

"Karma is grossly over rated. That everyone must go through horrendous trials, tribulations, murder, rape, wars, burning is not factual.  The false notion about Karma is that it's supposed to incur some kind of wrath from the "Great Beyond", God, whatever.  It made people repressed, like our "Jesus Freaks", where they could not move laterally.  Everything they did (anger, feelings of revenge, hurt) was thought to carry with it a Karmic barb.  Stop using it as a hammer over your head!  If the Karma is something that hurts you that bad, you had better get out of it.  God did not mean for you to come down here to suffer being penitent, walking around carrying a cross, being miserable. 

"Karma simply means experiencing of life for you own soul. The lesson you must learn. It is the soul experiencing for itself, until it finally reaches the pinnacle of spirituality to know."

"Judgment is not involved. God is not judging. How could He be when He is omnipotent, holding you and loving you? Same for Mother God. Instant Karma occurs when behavior has been deliberately hostile and premeditated; people will snap back. The things that we have done that are good will come forward, but with not without trial. If you really want to find how you separate the chaff from the wheat, get a trauma in your life."

"There is Retributive Karma, but it is very, very rare. Only the most advance souls pick horrifying experiences."

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