________________
110
Indian Ethnicity and Religious Heritage
new life is different from the one which has already died. In view of this it would follow that the consequences of the Karmas of the previus life would terminate. Buddhist would say no, that is not so' because the new soul of the new life would come after being "Conditioned" (i.e. being affected) by the consequences of past actions and hence even in the new life the new soul will have to suffer the consequences of past karmas. Buddhists call this appraisal as "Conditional Orientation" which seems to have been evolved to accommodate its basic theory of transitoryness of soul.
According to Buddhism the soul merely appears to be immortal and continuing even in the new life, but this is only an appearnace because life and death are nothing but the parts of a continuous process like the flow of the running water of a river. If we stand in such running water we feel that we are standing in the same water but this is not correct as the water touched at a given moment has already gone away yielding place to new one.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
