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bags adhere to its ropes, so is the soul unable to enjoy its natural freedom and divinity so long as its karmas are not severed from it.
RE-INCARNATION.
If the soul were an insentient principle, like the balloon, it could never free itself from its captivity, but being a self-active, conscious being, it has the power, hence the choice, to cut the cords with which it is tied down. Hence, its bondage continues just so long as it does not exert itself to break its bonds. It must, however, be remembered that the power of exertion depends on selfknowledge which arises only when the bondage itself is somewhat loosened, as in the case of man. Therefore, man alone of all creatures is gifted with the power to free himself from the cycle of births and deaths; hence he alone needs the warning against the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Hence, also, the emphasis on the privilege and importance of human birth in the Scriptures.
Thus recognised, karma is no imaginary creature of the Jaina and Hindu metaphysicians, but a real binding force, the coils of which can only be unwound by certain prescribed means.
The effect of the actions of the soul is not to create a liability to suffer identically the same experience that an individual subjects another to, in all cases, e.g., he who has killed a man would not be necessarily murdered by his victim, in expiation of his sin, in some future birth; for if that were so, moksha could not be obtained till the identical experience, or suffering, had been undergone. The fruit of evil karma may take any form, and subject the individual to ignorance, loss of vision,
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