Gandhi Before Gandhi

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

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GANDHI BEFORE GANDHIA
the idea, I am I? This recognition of a real unit does not vary from the cradle to the grave, from childhood to old age, during the whole course of the total change of all brain molecules, "I am I" is undisturbed. This " I am I" is the soul. It is this soul which makes memory possible. It has its own consciousness and not the consciousness of anyone else; therefore it is a unit existing by itself. The law of the conservation of energy is true in the physical as well as in the spiritual world. Therefore as no atom can be created or destroyed, so also no soul-entity can be created or destroyed. What becomes of soul then after what we call death? No power in the universe can annihilate it. It must exist somewhere. In what would it exist? Does it at once pass into Spiritual existence? If so, there is no justice in hurling all the egos, good, bad or indifferent into Spirituality without distinction.
Spirituality itself means the existence of spirit pure and simple and there is no sense in asserting that all egos after death live in that state, when we know for certainty that all of them have lived on this physical plane different kinds of life. Effects of good or bad acts committed on the physical plane must manifest on the physical plane. The force created by the ego on the physical plane, in this life, must in someway or other manifest itself after death on the physical plane-be it in future life. And if the soul has to pass through other future lives, is it unreasonable to say that it has not passed through past lives also? If the soul was created at a particular time it must also die at death. Whatever begins in time must end in time, if the soul, is immortal, it must be immortal at both its ends. It cannot be immortal at one end without being immortal at the other. The idea of special creation at birth implies the correlativity of annihilation at
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death. When we wake up and find ourselves on a stair. There are other stairs below us; which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many of which go upward and out of sight.
Re-incarnation is the only doctrine which gives a complete solution of the much-disputed question of original sin. There cannot be greater injustice in the world than the fact that I am suffering for the transgression of my ancestor. Adam's responsibility for our sin is only a make shift of the theologians. No one but the individual himself only can be blamed for his wrong doing. Are not the courts of Law of your United States founded on the ideas of justice? Will any Judge sitting on the throne of justice be justified in accepting the death-the voluntary suicide of Mr. B. as the proper retribution for the murder committed by Mr. A? And if he does that, will not the same Judge be arraigned before a superior Court having knowingly abetted the suicide of B? And still we are asked to believe that the guilt of one man can be washed by the suffering of another!
But the doctrine of re-incarnation assists us most when we look at the inequality and injustice and evil of the world and seek for solutions. Why is one man born rich and the other poor? Why is one man born in Central Africa among the Cannibals and the other in the peaceful part of India? Why is Queen Victoria born to rule over territories on which sun never sets and why is a laborer of Burma, born in Burma to work as a slave in an Englishman's tea-garden? What is the cause of this apparent injustice? Even those who believe in the null creator of the universe must believe in this doctrine of re-incarnation in order to exonerate God from the charge of such maliciousness. And now let us see if the Bible of Christendom assists in upholding this doctrine of Karma. In the proverbs of Solomon