Jaina Philosophy

SR No.: 006901
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Virchand R Gandhi, Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: World Jain Confederation
Publication Year: 2009
Total Pages: 298
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 5 MB

Page 160

- Essential Philosophy of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism lived on this physical plane different kinds of life. Effects of good or bad acts committed on the physical plane must manifest on the physical plane. The force created by the ego on the physical plane in this life must in some way or other manifest itself after death on the physical plane – be in future life. And if the soul has to pass through other future lines, is it unreasonable to say that it has passed through past lives also. If the soul was created at a time it must also die at death. Whatever begins in time must end in time. If the soul is immortal, it must be immortal at both its ends. It cannot be immortal at one end without being immortal at the other.
The idea of special creation at birth implies the correlative of annihilation at death. It does not stand to reason that from an infinite history the soul enters this world for its first and only physical existence and then shoots off into an endless spiritual existence. As Emerson says :-We wake and find ourselves on a stair. There are other stairs below us which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one which go upward and out of sight.
Re-incarnation is the only doctrine which gives a complete solution of the much-disputed question of original sin. There cannot be greater injustice in the world than the fact that I am suffering for the transgression of my ancestor. Adonis responsibility for our sin is only a make shift of the theologians. No one but the individual himself can be blamed for his wrong doing. Are not the courts of Law of your United States founded on the ideas of justice? Well any Judge sitting on the throne of justice be justified in accepting the death – the voluntary suicide of Mr. B. as the proper retribution for the murder committed by Mr. A. And if he does that, will not the same Judge be arraigned before a superior Court having knowingly abetted the suicide of B. And still we are asked to believe that the guilt of one man can be washed by the suffering of another.
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