________________
882
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
to groan under the rigor of the very laws which they are now laying down, for keeping down those whom they regard as created solely for the purpose of being insulted and kicked by them.
The law of karma is no respecter of personality ; it does not distinguish between the peer and the peasant, the cat and the king, or the rustic and the civilian. It only takes into account the quality of active goodness in the soul, and though its mills grind slowly, they grind exceedingly small.
To sum up: the doctrine of re-births, by whatever name it might be known, whether metem psychosis, reincarnation or any other, is an indisputable proposition of philosophy, and rests on the solid foundation of the indestructibility of souls, so that being eternal and, therefore, also, uncreated, they must have existed in some form or other in the past. Furthermore, miracles being inadmissible in science, the present incarnations of the souls now living in the world cannot all have been determined by anything in the nature of a lawless occurrence, but must be due to a law or laws which are concerned in the shaping of our destinies. The fact is that the souls are wrapped, so to speak, in two invisible inner'sbeaths which constitute the vehicle of transmigration, regulating their re-births and determining their circumstances, environments aud conditions. All that a living being undergoes, all that lie feels, and all that he experiences, is in consequence of his own actions in the past, even health and vitality depending, in the first instance, on the forces residing in the very constitution, which he has brought over from a previous life.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org