Fundamentals Of Jainism

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

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FUNDAMENTALS OF JAINISM
âsrava through the senses can be easily understood if we put ourselves the question: who feels the sensations of taste, smell, colour, touch and sound which are received through sense-organs ? Is it, for instance, the tongue that enjoys the relish of food, or the soul ? Obviously the soul; for if its attention is exclusively engaged elsewhere it is not only not conscious of the taste of food but may also fail to take conscious cognizance of the quality of eatable put before it. It follows from this that while the bulk food passes into the stomach through the gullet, some finer particles of its relish reach the soul through the glands of taste and the nerves connected with them, enabling it to feel and enjoy the taste of each morsel. Hence, when these relish-particles do not come in contact with the soul it is not cognizant of their presence. The same is the case with the feclings of pain and pleasure and with the bodily sonsations in general; these, too, are not felt if the mind is busy elsewhere. These facts unmistakably point to some kind of material asrara with every sensation and feeling. The same conclusion is to be arrived at by a study of certain kinds of mental states, for the process of controlling such passions as anger, greed, and the like, clearly points to the exertion of will on some kind of matter, while their complete eradication means neither more nor less than a complete annihilation of their causes, i.e., the freedom of mind from some kind of foreign material whose presence was responsible for their existence and recurring recrudescence. Whether we regard our passions and emotions as the states of our consciousness or as so many kinds of rhythms of the soul, or in any other way, it is certain that a simple substance like the soul or consciousness can never, by itself, be the basis of so many different kinds of states of rhythms some of which are undoubtedly antagonistic to one another. Hatred and love both, for instance, cannot be the natural functions of the soul, so that if the latter be the normal state of our consciousness, the former must owe its existence to something else. Matter, the only other substance which enters into interaction with the soul, then, is the substance whose influence is responsible for the abnormal types of emotions and passions. Its fusion with spirit gives rise to disposition, and renders the soul liable to experience different kinds of affections according to the varying