There are many faiths in this world, of which, for those that are non-adventurous, or perhaps provincial, or maybe set in their ways, they thus miss the opportunity to expand their own faith, so as to take in the valued wisdom that another faith could so offer to them. That is to say, we don’t need to be an adherent to the Jainism faith in order to evaluate it and to look in on it, as providing us with, at a minimum, food for thought, and possibly a breakthrough in our way of not only looking at the world, but additionally in the conduct of our behavior, for the betterment of our own self, as well as society, in general.
When it comes to the three jewels of Jainism, they are basically known as Right Perception, Right Knowledge, and Right Conduct – which certainly seem to be attributes that line up very well with any mainstream religion that has any true purpose or worth. For instance, when we think about right perception, we have to take into our thought process that because we are gifted with our own mind, that we are then responsible for developing that mind in a way and manner in which the thinking that we so do, is actually thinking, as opposed to blindly accepting whatever that it is that is being propagated to us. That is to say, we have an innate responsibility to not just to believe what we have been told, but to actually do our own part to verify that such is valid and sensible, by utilizing our power of perception to discern such, correctly.
When it comes to right knowledge, it has to be said, that there is all sorts of knowledge that is available for each one of us, but not everything that we could spend our energy and time upon is actually worth that expenditure of our time and effort. That is to say, to spend inordinate amounts of time, learning about things that have no lasting good purpose behind such, is probably not a wise expenditure of time. Rather, we are called to obtain the type of knowledge that will bring not just lasting satisfaction to our being, but also to be of benefit for those that we interact with. Thus, we are meant to obtain that knowledge which is first of all, worth passing on to others, but also that knowledge that encompasses eternal values that helps brings enlightenment.
Finally, when it comes to right conduct, we have to keep in mind, that just because we have the right perception, and just because we have the right knowledge, does not, in and of itself, signify that we will for a certainty conduct ourselves with the right conduct. This thus indicates that the foundation of what we need to be, is based upon our knowledge and our perception, dutifully utilized to produce the right conduct with not only our thoughts and deeds, but also with our interactions with others.
In short, we have a real need for good knowledge so that we know what we are talking about, we also need to be able to discern and to perceive things that occur correctly so that we are not foolish or easy to fool, and finally we need to conduct ourselves in a way and manner, that displays these perceptions and knowledge in the real world, that is credible and of worth.