21st Century Flower Child

I have officially finished my first week and four days of school.
Before I get to my flower childness, I must explain some things:

1. I miss Chile
a. My friends
b. Traveling 50 hours on a bus to see some crazy world wonder for a couple days
c. The culture
d. speaking espanish
e. My friends...

2. Adjusting to my new/old life is crazy...
a. changed me adjusting to old Hawaii (culture, people, language... I do love the food though.)
b. I guess that sums it up if you want it short

3. I've had this weird struggle figuring out that I am not the all-powerful fixer of all things in the world.


So yes, I've been having a little bit of a challenging time being back. My goals this year are:
1. Make Hawaii my Chile
2. Find Bradley.

I swear I have others, but these are the most important.


So after finally getting all of my 17 credits I wanted in school... I had a couple of nervous breakdowns... maybe we'll just call them melt downs... Haha. Anyway, this is not the point. The unimmediate point is that I have two amazing teachers this semester, my physics teacher, which is hilarious and smart... and my religion teacher, who is... how do I describe him? He knows his shit. He challenges yours... he's great.

Today we went over the Jainism religion.
I think this religion is intriguing.
Please correct me if I'm wrong about any of this, considering I have only known this information for a day, but...

Jainism started off as a denomination of Hinduism and then eventually became it's own religion. It all started (unless you're a jainist and then nothing starts or ends...) when Vardhamana, a prince, studied the enlightenments of Parsva and Mahavira. He wanted to be enlightened and renounce all his earthly posessions. He respected his parents so much that he waited till they died to do this. After that he gave up his crown and practiced asceticism (giving up all worldly desires including new clothig) for 12 years. After 1 year his clothes detiriorated. After 12 years he became enlightened and reached "Kevala." He taught for 30 years.

Teachings:
There is soul (you) and non-soul (everything else, material world)
When soul and non-soul encounter each other they produce Karma.
To be enlightened you need to get rid of Karma.
Good Karma erases bad Karma...
You need to help others.
Highest form of good Karma is truthfulness and Non-Violence.

There are four kinds of Jainists:
Male renunciants
Male householders
Female renunciants
Female householders

There are two types of ways to dress:
The Digumbadas= sky clad (naked)
The Shwaykumbada= white clad (white clothes)

Goal:
To be free of all desires:
includes leaving family, clothing optional, fasting, meditation...

The final step would be to fast till you die, renouncing your desire for food... and then the desire to breathe. When you die your spirit is free and is inspiration for those who have not attained enlightenment and will be re-born till they do.


First of all, I think that this religion is very interesting and inspiring, and though I do not follow this religion I think there are things we can learn from it.


One thing that's weird about the US is that everyone is constantly on their phones, a habit I try not to get back into... but I did have one indulgence... talking to Shaun. We've been friends for about five years. I was telling him about my religion class and Jainism... He was like, "Charisa, please don't tell me you're going to fast till you die..."
"No," I said, "But they do inspire me, their conviction, their dedication, extremism... they live by example instead of pushing their beliefs on others."

We began to talk about beliefs and I asked him to tell me one thing he believed in. He told me that he believed in doing good and it'll come back to you, same thing with doing bad...
Alright, anything else??? No. Ok. I'm sorry Shaun, I love you like hell, but it made me sad that you (we, the majority of young people or people in general of the world) don't have beliefs or convictions like we should. We have no concept of real or truth. It's sad.

So he asked me what I believe in (here comes the flower child part...)
"Ah," I said, "I believe in love. I believe that with love anything is possible. I believe in peace and with love peace would be possible. I believe in ideals," I told him, " I believe in ideals that probably aren't reachable. I believe that just like the Jains believe, we shouldn't be attached to our material things, stupid things shouldn't matter to us, if someone needs something, we should be able to help them, emotionally, physically, materialistically... you know. I know that there will always be people we don't like, but it's possible to love them too because they're a part of our family too. I know there's disease, but we can work through it as a family, suport them, find ways to work through it. I know there are bad people in the world and none of us are perfect, but we can work towards it. We can work towards peace. If everyone would just do their best to make a world a better place..."

Andeh says that Winston Churchill said "If everyone wanted world peace as much as they wanted a color T.V., we would have it."

Well said.

As I was driving home, I thought of all the "gods" the Jainists have. They're not really gods to worship, just reminders and ideals. They all look alike because they're an image of an ideal. This made me think: People make a big deal about how Christ looks. Does it really matter? All we need is an ideal and a reminder of what we're living for. A goal to reach or to be. An example, a reminder. Maybe my other goal this year is to be able to live with conviction, which means I have to get myself edumacated. Yes. Learn. I don't know. I'd love to live with passion for what I believe in, find my identity in that. But what do I know, I'm just a 21st Century Flower Child.