Compassion-helping others

Helping others:

Guidleline for compassion:
1. If it helps himself in his own path, by helping others, he does.
2. without disrupting his own path, if he is able to help someone, then he does. (in Hindi: Apni sadhna bhanga na hote hue kisi ki madad ho sake tau kar deta hai")

From Guideline No 1:
Compassion helps keep ahimsa vow stabilized. If one has compassion, he will do less killing from word, body and mind. This is given in Tatvartha sutra chapter 7.
There would be some other advatnages, which I thought about, and found some from scriptures:


For householder: [/b][/i]

Householders have to do ashubha bhaav the whole day because of their job, family, food etc. Therefore they may develop a feeling of "do not care" while they do hinsa. Hinsa can not be avoided as a householder, and over the time hinsa becomes a habit and they develop a feeling of "do not care" which is hinsa. Actually householders should try to minimize hinsa, and whatever hinsa they do, they should have feeling "self-critization, or repentation" in their heart. Therefore, it is recommended for them involve in activities which retain compassion in their heart- helping others help them retain compassion which keeps motivating them to minimize hinsa.

When he preaches others, he gets benifits of same kind as saints get, which are descripbed below. When he serves old people, his detachment feeling from the world increases, which motivates him to make efforts for liberation and hence helps in his sadhana. When he serves people who are suffering, it increases his emotions of compassion, which helps him win ahimsa.

[i][b]For saint: [/b][/i]

When a saint preach others- his belief himself gets strenghtened, and he himself gets encouraged to proceed further. Also preaching others washes his papa karma and build punya karma which helps him in this birth and next births for favourable conditions to liberation.

A saint has less attachment and less ashubha bhaava than a householder, therefore he does not have to go out and help others to retain his compassion. Mostly preaching is recommended for him. In both case of householder and saint, balance is needed for helping others. Not only just for compassion, but also for reading scriptures, thinking, tapa, daan, meditating and all activities there is a balance.
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Householder are fo two types: One who try to meditate as saint does. And others who just follow somewhat religion. So how much they should help and have compassion, it depends on where they lie- towards the saint, or towards someone who just follow religion.

[b]From Guideline No 2:
[i]For Householder: [/i][/b]

He helps by preaching the right things, helping poor, helps by serving old people. However when he is onto meditaion and tide of detachment feelings are high, same thing applies to him as to a saint.

[i][b]For saint: [/i][/b]

He is saint with the objective to be in shudha bhaava. However when he see people suffering in cycles of birth and death form ignorance- he preaches them. However if he has detaichment feelings taking tide he does not, as I talked about oin last post. And if he is full of compassion, he does.
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I also would like to know if one should continue helping others even if he/she is more advanced in the path. For example, it is good for a muni continue to making efforts to help others – through social activities, voluntary work, for example – or just be engaged in meditations? My opinion is if he/she is overcoming attachments there will be no harm to help others because attachment is in the mind, not in the objects of the senses. But will such efforts really help others?
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No it is not recommended for them to do social activities. Only mediation, and other things. Actually there is a relation between "objects of the senses" and "attachement in mind". "Objects of the senses" definitley affect the attachement in mind, and hence it not recommended as a regular practice. This duty fall under the bucket of householders, as per digamber jain scriptures.