Introduction to Jainism and its Culture

Author(s): Balbhadra Jain
Publisher: Kundkund Gyanpith Indore

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Sir William Crooks, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Sir Oliver Lodge who was also a member of the Royal Society.
THE SECRET OF LIFE
With birth one begets life. When this life is destroyed it is called death. After death there is another birth. Birth and death are the two sides of the same coin. These are two ends of life. One end is life and the other is death. It is difficult to say which end is first and which is last. When there is life, death is inevitable. When there is death generally birth follows. Generally, because with death some spiritual seekers terminate the lineage of rebirths. The cause of life and death is karma. Some spiritual seekers shed karmas with the help of austerities and meditation. With the destruction of karmas life and death also comes to an end. But most of the beings in this world are tethered to this endless chain of death after life and life after death.
Here two questions arise in the form of curiosity: (1) Life and death of whom, the soul or the body? (2) What is the form or the definition of life, the link joining these two ends?
With the rise of this curiosity I also see the dawning of the glow of the answer. Let us elaborate the first question a little. If we further clarify it the answer would become more simple and easy. Soul is an immortal entity. It neither dies nor is it destroyed. When it is without death it is also without birth. The body is a combination of particles of matter, an aggregate. It has never been heard or seen that a particle of matter gets born or dies. Thus neither soul nor matter gets born or dies. So what is it that gets born or dies?
This question is very useful in understanding life and death. Soul is a fundamental substance or entity. In numbers there are innumerable or infinite souls in this universe. When we talk of classification the souls can be divided into two classes – pure souls and impure souls. The pure souls are the souls liberated from saṁsāra (the cycles of rebirth); they are called Paramātmā (supreme soul) or Siddha (soul in the state of liberation). These souls exist with their natural purity and purity of attributes and modes. These souls have not even the slightest interaction at all with any non-soul or a substance other than the self. They are neither born nor do they die. Reaching beyond birth and death
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