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ENGAGING THE JAIN SOUL
The Jain tradition challenges many traditional categories and conceptions regarding the nature of the soul. First, it exhibits a radical pluralism. Innumerable souls take seeming countless forms. Second, it suggests a radical egalitarianism. Each soul has endured countless births in a variety of different forms of life. Each human knows innately how it feels to be an animal, how to be a member of the other gender, how to feel empathy even with the earth itself. Third, this tradition evokes a rugged individualism. Each of the Tirthankaras forged a life of privation through which they gained great spiritual strength, serving as a model for later practitioners.
Dr. Christopher Chapple
cchapple@lmu.edu. Website: myweb.Imu.edu/cchapple/
If we examine the three soul qualities of Jainism: pluralism, egalitarianism, and individualism, we confront a religious system quite markedly different from those that emphasize monism (such as Brahmanical Hinduism) or monotheism (Judaism and Islam) or trinitarianism (Christianity) or even harmony (Confucianism and Taoism). Furthermore, unlike Buddhism, Jainism affirms the existence of a soul. How then, can one develop an interpretation or hermeneutical approach to Jainism so that it can make sense in terms of dialogue with other religious traditions?
Dr. Christopher Chapple is the Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative
Theology at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. He served as Asst. Director oft
he Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions and taught Sanskrit, Hinduism, Jainism
and Buddhism at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook. He has published
several books including "Karma and Creativity' and 'Nonviolence to Animals, earth and self in Asian Traditions'.
American psychology, as articulated by William James in his Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), has been characterized as both pragmatic and spiritual. Though he wrote during the career of Freud and Jung, James did not emphasize the role of sexuality or the importance of symbol. His narrative of the "sick soul" serves as a paradigm for coming to grips with the ups and downs of life through religious narrative. James tells the story of mystics such as George Fox who through their personal struggle developed new religious communities. James speaks of the role of conversion in moving the individual from the unremarkable to the spiritual, just as years later Philip Kapleau narrates the transformative power of satori in the lives of Zen Buddhists. For Jains, this would be readily recognizable in the experience of awakening (samyak drsti) wherein concerns of the humdrum world disappear, liberating one into an extended moment of pure energy, consciousness, and bliss. For James, as for the Jains, this can result in an utterly new approach to life, a restructuring of priorities. This process might also be recognizable to those familiar with Alcoholics Anonymous, which draws from William James, Carl Jung, and the ideas of Indian philosophy. In all these systems, a momentary pause in the normal state of affairs can create great opportunities for change.
A person inspired by a transformative spiritual experience is likely to change his or her everyday personal behavior. For the awakened Jain, a strong resolve might arise to become more mindful not to create harm in thought, word, or deed. For the Buddhist, there might be a deep resolve to continue the practice of meditation that resulted in a moment of enlightenment. For George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, speaking truth, gathering people in silence, and enduring long bouts in prison for his beliefs came about after
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