Awakening from Tradition: My Journey from Jainism to Atheism

It was sometime between my 12th and 14th birthday when I realized Jainism is impractical. It made no sense. How did I come to this conclusion at such a young age? It was simple: my mom told me that if I said my prayers, God would grant me my wish every day. I wanted to be tall, handsome, and popular at that age. I prayed and prayed every day for these things, but none of it came true. 

I had some odd fantasies of how I would go about becoming the person that I wanted to be. One I remember starkly was that I would get bitten by a vampire, and then somehow look like the Indian version of David Boreanez. 

We’re all dumb at that age, but to think that I couldn’t conclude that the religion that I grew up in was certainly within the purview of my intellect at the time. It didn’t happen overnight. I went deeper into my religion. It made my mom happy that I was singing all the Jain melodies and participating in the temple. I was so hungry to learn from our late Gurudev Chitrabhanu. But the more I learned, the more confused I became. 

You see Jainism doesn’t have a book like a Bible. What you learn in Pathshala (the Jain version of Sunday School) is Jain prayers and rehearsing for plays. You don’t get to learn about the real meaty stuff (funny because all Jains are vegetarian). You don’t learn much about Jain Cosmology, or the fact that Jainism is an atheistic religion. Mahavir Swami, the last tirthankar is referred to as a god, but he did nothing to demonstrate himself as a god, nor did he claim godhood. 

So I slowly began to slip away. No, I can’t pinpoint that exact moment, but it was at some point when I began to stop praying in the morning and stopped participating in Jain things, like going to the temple or Pathshala. 

Transition to Atheism

I didn’t stop trying to learn, however. Secretly I considered myself an atheist, but every weekend when I went to my dad’s store I would take a walk to Borders bookstore and spend time in the religion and metaphysics sections. I read many books on Eastern religions but didn’t spend time on Abrahamic religions. If I did, I perhaps would have realized that yes, there can be Logic in religion. However, at the time I believed that really what we were dealing with was a time where people were using religion to understand the world around them.

For example, there is a rule in Jainism where you have to boil water before drinking it. Well, that seems like a good rule to have in the ancient world before water purification and treatment plants. Another rule is that you shouldn’t eat leftover foods from the day before. Another great rule if you don’t have a fridge! So all these rules were outdated, and we Jains were just going crazy trying to follow them, trying to be good according to some sage back in the day that was perhaps just trying to protect us from getting sick, or worse. 

But then you have this thing about stripping off all your clothes and begging for food. Then you have this thing about not getting married so that you do not build any attachments. These are things I couldn’t accept. 

In any religion, if you are not able to follow the teachings of the teacher of that religion, then you probably should take a second look. I didn’t understand why getting married and wearing clothes would condemn me to the cycle of birth and rebirth. I didn’t understand why that was even a condemnation. After all, I don’t remember my past lives. 

There are Good Things in the World

Jainism states that the world we live in is hell, that there is only misfortune, misery, and punishment, and therefore our goal in life is for our souls to be freed from being born on this Earth. But I don’t necessarily believe that. Of course, the world is fallen, and there are a lot of bad things, but there are a lot of good things. Like love. Like the birth of your child. Like walking around when the weather is warm under the sun and taking in the first smell of spring. 

But I understood what this Mahavir Swami guy was getting at. If everyone didn’t get married and wandered around without clothes, then there would be no procreation, and therefore no souls would enter the world ever again. But it’s a hard thing to sell, and I’m surprised there are more than 6 million Jains in the world. 

To sell Jainism, it had to be changed. First people were allowed to get married. So now you had one group of people who were the lay people, and then you had people who took “diksha” which means the vow of asceticism. However, even Jain ascetics these days are not as extreme as the example set forth by Mahavir Swami. 

Another big change is that Jainism loosely became a part of Hinduism. It’s even seen as a higher caste, when in fact Jainism was started as a way for people to break free from the caste system. Oh, how things change! 

The more I learned about Jainism, the less I liked it. The interesting note is that the new generation of Jains sees it as a vehicle to promote things like veganism and animal rights. It’s ok if you believe in these things, but it has nothing to do with Mahavir Swami’s teachings or vision.

And that is really where I landed: if I am unable to follow those original teachings of Mahavir Swami, then how can I possibly call myself a Jain?