Why Alcohol is considered bad as per jainism

 Topic : Why Alcohol is considered bad as per jainism

Psychologically speaking, we need to be strict around avoiding wrong things, coz if we do it once, we are prone to do it again just coz we've done it once. Or we find ways to justify the act by convincing ourselves. And slowly habits can evolve and take a bad turn.

Hence sometimes the first layer of defense is to over exaggerate the badness of a thing. So that the individual themself stay away from it no matter what. And it is often amplified by social moral policing as well. Social shunning was a big tool back in the days. Even if we cannot explain the logic to everyone, social shunning can reach to everyone.

In case despite the defenses, someone does it once, the next line of action is to make a big deal out of it so that there's an associated memory with the thing such that it is not repeated. Hence the concept of pashchyatap.

Social shunning becomes a problem when a revolt who doesn't give to social shunning asks for logic and the exact people who'd frown if someone does that bad thing, cannot explain the "why" behind it. Then the revolt just finds it as a facade and does the act.

Spiritually speaking about alcohol :

As far as I know, alcohol is made by fermenting things.

Fermentation in itself is a natural process, where bacteria(yeast in the case of alcohol) eats the food and produces a byproduct(ethanol in this case) that changes the composition of the main content.

Fermentation in itself is not that much of a bad thing, we have that happening in curd and idli batter too. But those happen naturally.

In case of alcohol, when the ethanol concentration reaches some % yeast starts becoming dormant and even starts dying.

The problem in case of alcohol fermentation is that it is deliberate and requires bacteria in more count for a single drop as compared to our household fermentation of curd or idli batter. Plus the intent for alcohol is not survival or health but for intoxication that leads to non vigilance/pramad and more potential hinsa down the line.

Fermentation still in my opinion is less hinsatmak as much as the next process is.

Coz the next process is distillation, even if we ignore the microbial hinsa, the distillation process,  especially in old times, was a very hinsatmak process where lots of wood was burnt to generate heat for distillation. Bhattiyan /furnaces used to run 24*7 and per bottle hinsa was also high.

With capitalism and modern equipments, I think per bottle hinsa might be down now. But down or not, it is still hinsa greater than any normal Arambhja hinsa that we do.

The third problem with alcohol is that it causes intoxication. When intoxicated, our pramad(which in general also is high in all of us) intensifies! When our vigilance goes down the drain, then we have no spiritual/moral filters as well and that can lead to infinite possibilities of karm bandhan, why ever risk that?

Fourth problem is social acceptance.

I agree a single drop won't do much intoxication but making one drop socially acceptable can allow you to go to two drops and then so on. The point that I made in the first sentence is what becomes a big problem!

Let's say you are a sane drinker, who only drinks in limit and is not "intoxicated", you justify it to yourself saying that it is modern alcohol which is not as hinsatmak as alcohol used to be back in the days when it was actually a big hinsatmak event. And you also justify it by saying that you only do it once a year or so.

Despite all these, when you drink, you end up endorsing the idea, which can promote it for others around you (doesn't matter if they are jain or not), so you in a way unintentionally contributed in more alcohol consumption which leads to more intoxication and pramad in people and boosts the sales thereby signalling the manufacturers to indulge more into production and hence more hinsa.

Wow, that became a really long message.

Just wanted to clarify in the end.

I am not supporting the idea that alcohol is less hinsatmak in today's world due to better machinery and drinking it in limited quantity in isolation is fine.

I AM JUST TRYING TO PUT FORTH THE REASONINGS THAT CAN DEVELOP IN ANYONE'S MIND WHICH CAN BE USED TO JUSTIFY THE ACT.

And all I am saying is that, if we go down the path of justification we can end up doing a lot of wrongs.

Hence strict prohibition is required (as I stated in the start of the message).

We talked about psychological, social and spiritual angle.

It took me some time to gather another most scientific angle of all.

From health perspective, here's what I found from a friend who shared this article from WHO website.

Alcohol is classified as a grade 1 carcinogen. And WHO recommends that there is no safe level of exposure. https://share.google/QAc60r4wy6yEXjk8X