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INTRODUCTION TO JAINISM
been no beginning to existence as the Jains teach, it would be impossible to explain why there are still non-liberated souls in the universe. However they teach also that there is an infinite number of nigodas (“microorganisms” in a sense) which find themselves in the lowest state of consciousness. They have one sense only: that of touch or feeling. But how did they reach their present karmic condition? Within the framework of karma theory this is only possible if there is a stage which precedes that of the nigodas. Though it is believed that many nigodas can never leave their present stage, there is another class which can. So when these graduate to a higher realm, they are “lost” for the nigoda realm. At the other end there are souls who reach liberation for ever, so that at least on the average evolution is progressive. This average is determined by the totality of the conditions of all individuals. So we can also say that there is an average evolutionary progress for each individual. If however there is an infinite number of nigodas and liberation is the absolute end to the pilgrimage of the soul, there must be an infinite number of liberated souls. In between there is a continuously upward moving stream of living beings. Prof. Padmanabh S. Jaini of Berkeley discusses the question of evolution in his article Karma and the Problem of Rebirth in Jainism and states among other arguments: “... every soul is said to exist along a virtual continuum of consciousness, from the minimal but ineradicable trace of awareness (nitya-udghātita-jñāna) possessed by a nigoda to the omniscience of a siddha (one who has achieved liberation) ... we have here a model which is both linear and evolutionary in its conception.” Every being on earth (and elsewhere) seems to have some instinct for progress in agreement with the direction which the inner being has chosen and in agreement with its previous desires. Despite an endless number of setbacks on a path of trying and failing, this effort to progress always remains a dominant vibration of the soul, as a result of which all souls will ultimately be driven to the human condition, and finally to liberation. Progressive evolution in nature follows as a logical
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