Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

Page 89

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
God, not as a being who is going to give us something, not because it is going to do something to please us, not because it is profitable in any way; there is no idea of any selfishness or material gains.
distinctly denies such creator as illogical and irrelevant in the general scheme of the universe. But it lays down that there is a subtle essence underlying all substances, conscious as well as unconscious, which becomes an eternal cause of all modifications and is termed God or nature, What is the God of the Jains? You will ask. I have only told you what he is not. I will now tell you what he is. We know that there is something besides matter; we know that the body exhibits many qualities and powers not to be found in ordinary material substance, and that the something which causes this depart from the body at death. We do not know where it goes; we know that when it lives in the body, the powers of the body are different from what they are when it is not there. The powers of nature can be assimilated to the body when that something is there. That entity is considered by us the highest, and it is the same entity inherently found in all living beings. This principle common to all of us is called divinity or soul.
Jainism, therefore, is not a theistic system in the sense of belief in the existence of a God as the Creator and Ruler of the universe; and still the highest in the Jain view is a most spiritual liberated person, and not impersonal characterless, quality less being
What does the universe consist of?
SIFICATION OF RE
UTIFUL CLASSIFI
SOUL
MATTER
PRINCIPLE OF MOTION
Jains believe that there are two major Reals (real means that which exists). The souls and non souls. Non souls again consists of 5 categories matter, time, space, principle of motion (Dharmastikaya) and principle of steadiness (Adharmastkaya). No other philosophy have given such classification of Reals where one finds both scientific and spiritual component together.
PRINCIPLE OF EQUILIBRIUM
TIME
SPACE
We make a distinction, and worship only the spiritual energies. Why should we do so? A Jain verse says, "I bow down to that spiritual power or energy which is the cause of leading us to the path of Salvation, which is supreme, which is omniscient; I bow down to that power, because I wish to become like that power. So when this form of the Jain prayer is given, the object is not to receive anything from that entity or from that spiritual nature, but to become one like that not that spiritual entity will make us by a magic power become like itself, but by following the ideal which is before our eyes, we shall be able to change our own personality, it will be regenerated, as it were, and will be changed into a being which will have the same character as the divinity which is our idea of God. So we worship
INFINI
Idea of soul according to Jains
The ordinary idea of any substance is that in order for a thing to exist it must have form, must be perceived by the senses. Really speaking it is the experience only of the sensuous part of the being the lowest part of the
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