Introduction to Jainism and its Culture

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

Page 97

the world he cannot be kind. If the beings suffer pain or pleasure according to their karmas then what is left for God to do? If it is called his playful activity, the world is fed up of this childish game. After creating the universe why does God cause deluge and destruction. Would this also be called his kindness? In short, there is no logic that can help prove the concept of a creator God.
In the modern scientific age when the principle of cause and effect in context of every thing has been investigated and analyzed the concept of a creator God sounds ridiculous. Such flights of imagination came about in the dark ages when ignorance and superstition prevailed. In the modern developed world such beliefs can under no pretext be called wisdom.
WHERE GOD IS ?
As soon as the form of God is confirmed it ought to be certain where God is? Those who are not certain about the form of God continue to have various imaginations about His abode. Some say He is all pervading, some believe He lives in the seventh heaven, and some call His abode as Brahmaloka, Vişnuloka, or Sivaloka. Certainly they neither know about the true form of their own soul or about that of God.
Since remote past sages and seers, renouncing attachment for their family and home, have been retiring into isolation of caves, mountains, and riverbanks and indulging in rigorous spiritual practices in an effort to behold and know the self. All this exercise has been to attain the status of supreme-soul. It was their strong belief that our soul has the potency to become supreme-soul. If right endeavour is made on the right path in the right direction, that power can be evoked and our soul can become supreme-soul or God. The seed of a tree has the potential to become a tree. If proper nutrition and water is provided the seed can turn into a large tree. Every soul in this world has all those attributes, in dormant state, that are evident in the supreme-soul in their fully mature form. What is needed is to develop those dormant and undeveloped attributes. Those who had faith and awareness of the real form of soul went deep into the search and exploration of that real form. By purifying the self they removed all perversions and the dirt of