Book Title: Art And Science Of Meditation
Author(s): Vinubhai D Shah
Publisher: Vinubhai D Shah

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Page 51
________________ Art & Science of Meditation Philosophy and Religion No God, nor His prophet or deputy or beloved can interfere with human life. The soul, and that alone, is directly and necessarily responsible for all that it does. God is regarded as completely unconcerned with creation of the universe or with any happenings in the universe. The universe goes on of its own accord. Because of this definite attitude towards God, Jainism is accused of being atheistic. It is true in the sense that Jainism does not attribute the creation of universe to God. But at the same time Jainism cannot be labelled as atheistic because it believes in Gods who show true path for salvation, in Punya and Papa, i.e., merit and demerit, in religious practices, etc. According to Jainism the emancipated soul is considered as God and it is absolutely not concerned with the task of creation of this world. Jain philosophy deals with metaphysics, reality, cosmology, ontology, epistemology and divinity. Jainism is a trans theistic religion of ancient India. The distinguishing features of Jain philosophy are its beliefs on independent existence of soul and matter, absence of a supreme divine creator, owner, preserver or destroyer, potency of karma, eternal and uncreated universe, a strong emphasis on nonviolence, accent on relativity and multiple facets of truth, and morality and ethics based on liberation of soul. Jain philosophy attempts to explain the rationale of being and (50)

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