I have been reading William Dalrymple’s new book Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India. It is based on real stories of nine people in search of piece, divine and sometimes giving up materialistic world.
A first story is about a nun of Jain religion. She gives away all her life with the belief that all attachments bring sufferings and finally embraces Sallekhana- fast to death.
Her life talks about all sacrifice, control of emotions, pain, sufferings to take new life. “When the body withers completely, the soul will take a new one, like a hermit crab finding a new shell. For soul will not wither, and in rebirth you simply exchange your torn and old clothes for a smart new suit,” she says.
After reading the entire story I have failed to understand the philosophy of the religion. It goes against the basic theory of human birth. We are born to live and death is the ultimate reality.
Why one has to forcefully push oneself to death when we are born to live the life. Living is the basic instinct of human being. All the discoveries and inventions in human history may be good or bad came from this instinct.
Now the second half part of the philosophy, which says the death is only for the body but the soul gets rebirth. It means you have greed to get another body. So, to get a new body, you torture the earlier body by giving up food, pulling hair, refusing to wear proper clothes etc.
I wonder why these contradictions in the theory are not being raised by the followers.
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