I am The Soul Part 02

SR No.: 006791
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Tarulatabai Mahasati
Publisher: Shri Gujarati Shwetambar Sthanakwasi Jain Association
Total Pages: 466
Language: English, Hindi
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 83

I am the Soul
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heating up of water is its interaction with another substance. It could be the rays of the Sun or fire in some form, but when that interaction is removed, water returns to its original coldness. The characteristic of coldness in water can never be destroyed.
Thus the modification of substance and characteristic goes on happening. It does not halt even for a moment. There is no substance without modification, and no modification without substance. Similarly, there is no characteristic without modification, and no modification without characteristic. This is the law by which characteristics also arise.
This state is there in both animate and inanimate substances. The broader - larger modification are visible to the eye, but the minute ones can be identified after a long time, only because of the configuring changes in substance. They are not seen otherwise.
Let us understand the aspects of utpad - formation, vyaya - abating, and dhrouvya - permanence in the substance atma. Atma is a substance. Where there is substance, there is modification. Therefore, in atma too there is formation and abating. Taking on the form of the mobile body is the affected modification of the atma. Atma is not a human or such, by itself. In its pure form, atma does not need to take on any form, but it is because of Karmas that a body has to be taken. So long as there is atma with karmas, it takes on many bodies. All the bodies that were taken on in the past, the body in which it resides at present and the many bodies that it will take in future are all the affected formations of the substance atma. One body gets destroyed, and it takes on another. In the course of death, one body is let off and in the course of next birth a new body is formed. In these states, atma at either place is the same. Just as in the changing shape of ornaments, the gold is the same, in the changing bodies too the atma is the same. That is to say, atma is the substance and the changing bodies are its modifications.