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Chapter 8: Guru's Explanation of the Soul's Everlastingness
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Utpäd-Vyay-Dhrauvya. Assuming the new state is Utpäd, giving up the old one is Vyay and retaining its own substance is Dhrauvya. No substance can thus be really destroyed. That is the scientific law of conservation of matter. Jain seers were aware of that, and therefore refused to admit the concept of Creation or a Creator.
Since the pupil had contended that the soul cannot be everlasting, the Guru states that as a substance, the soul cannot be destroyed. As such, if it ceases to exist in its present form, it must be assuming a new one. The Guru therefore asks the pupil to find out what new state the soul would assume, or wherein it would merge, if it ceases to exist.
The explanation given under this stanza (Vachanämrut # 718) takes the illustration of an earthen pot and points out, "When such a pot is broken, it is said that the pot is destroyed, but the earth of which it was made is not destroyed. Even if the pot is reduced to pieces, even if it is pulverized, the earth would stay as Paramänu, it cannot be entirely destroyed. Not a single Paramänu of the erstwhile pot can be lost, because it is of every one's experience that an object can be transformed, but it is not possible to conceive of its total destruction."
The Guru therefore tells the pupil that if by extinction of the soul he means its transformation similar to a pot, he should specify the form that a soul would assume after its extinction. In other words, as the Paramänus of the earthen pot are mixed with other earthly aggregates of Paramänus, he should explore with what matter consciousness can be mixed. He would then find out that consciousness is a substance that cannot mix with or merge into anything else. Therefore the only conclusion would be that the soul is everlasting consciousness.
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