Arihants and/or Jinas. There seems to be a ranking system among these gods.
Tirthankaras are those who establish the four fold order of the religion known as Monks, Nuns, Laymen, and Laywomen.
Arihants are those who are able to destroy their inner enemies "like anger, greed, passion, ego, etc."
And Jinas are those who conquer their inner enemies like those stated above. Jinas are Jains.
Lord Mahavir one of their spiritual hero's gave up all worldly possessions to find inner piece. He spent days of meditation, fasting and etc. He found the realization known as "keval-jnana" which is "the realization of perfect perception, knowledge, power, and bliss." His teachings tried to show people how to free themselves from
birth, life, pain, misery and death and to achieve what the Jains call Nirvana. He would talk about our souls being born in bondage from "Karma" and it was the influence of Karma that could keep us bonded or free us.
The five vows of Jainism are:
Non-violence (Ahimsa)
Truthfulness (Satya)
Non-stealing (Asteya)
Chastity (Brahmacharya)
Non-materialistic (Aparigraha).
Every day the jains pray and not to any specific god but to give blessing to all of them. They never ask for favors or material benefit. The jains have a path of liberation known as Moksha which is three part or three jewels. The right perception is seeing the truth in all things of nature and being able to understand oneself.
Right knowledge is the correct knowledge of faith and of the universe. Also knowing the six universial entities and the nine tattvas or principles. The third is the Right conduct which consists of the five vows.
Jains go off of Five samitis and three Guptis known as the rules of conduct and the rules of avoidance of misconduct. The five samitis are:
The regulation of walking, walking carefully and looking six feet distance to not cause anything pain or death.
The regulation of speaking, avoiding anger, pride, deciet, greed, laughter, fear, gossip, and slander.
The regulation of begging; they should search for pure foods that are neccessary.
The regulation for taking and keeping; must lay down and pick up things carefully to not injure things.
The regulation of disposal; taking care of waste to not cause problems or spreading or germs.
The three guptis are:
the regulation of the mind; not having impure thoughts, hatred, greed, etc.
The regulation of speech, same thing except verbally spoken.
The regulation of bodily activity; careful not to hurt anything or
day dream.
Why I Do Not Eat Faces by Lang starts out with his story of when he was sixteen about how he felt completely sick to his stomach for all the junk food that he had had in his lifetime and that he decided to
be a vegetarian. He discusses that for the most part he felt that the only reason why any of us eat meat is because of what surrounds the food, that what is on it or placed in it for example spices is
what causes us to eat it and like it. He talks about when his brother had a bucket of KFC chicken how he ate some of the skin and his brother told him basically that he was a bad vegetarian for
eating the skins of dead chickens. He then only ate things that didn't contain any sort of meat whatsoever. He talks about our CNS our central nervous system and how it responds to pain and how it is
weakened. He states that we all have felt pain and that is why we don't kill and eat other humans because of the fact that we can empathize with that pain. He states that he feels a general reason
why we eat animals is because we don't see them killed and we don't eat highly complex animals that seems smarter in respect. So then he states "if it is not necessary to eat things with central nervous
systems in order to survive (and I am not arguing about exceptional cases here, only those who have options), then why do we persist in eating faces?." He states that yes we are forced to eat but we are
not forced as to what we eat and that we can choose to abstain from meat. So he broadens the topic and uses us as an example stating what if there was a higher life form then us and decided to
slaughter and eat us. Give a reason why it is OK. He states that no one would want to eat meat since there is no ultimate reason too other then pleasure.
I definately feel that this ties into Jainism