Fundamentals Of Jainism

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Veer Nirvan Bharti

Page 20

CHAPTER 11
THE NATURE OF KARMA (कर्म का स्वरूप)
EMANCIPATION FROM BONDAGE
When Jesus of Nazareth propounded the proposition*
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,"
His interlocutors failed to understand the nature of freedom which the knowledge of truth was to carry to their hearts. It was their ignorance of the nature of spiritual bondage which prevented them from grasping the true sense of the messianic observation. They looked upon freedom from only the political point of view, and had never thought of the true or spiritual freedom with which religion mainly concerns itself. They had then to be told that freedom signified emancipation from the bondage of sin, but it is not clear whether they fully comprehended the messianic speech even then, for even today it is difficult to believe that the full significance of the terms freedom and bondage has been adequately grasped by the humanity at large. Be this as it may, the important question for us is not whether the interlocutors and followers of Jesus understood his purport or not, but what is the true significance of the terms freedom and bondage in the science of religion ?
It is obvious that there is no concrete substance or thing to correspond to the word sin when used as a noun; the word expresses a pure mental abstraction, and conveys the idea of wrong-doing. The bondage of sin, thus, is clearly the thraldom of actions, i.e., karmas (actions or deeds), which is to be shaken off in order to bring the state of natural freedom of the soul into manifestation.
*See John, VIII. 32.