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ਵੀ ਡੀ ਵੀ ਡੀ JAINA CONVENTION 2017
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In terms of the Jain view of the afterlife, concepts such as the jiva-the life force or souland karmic matter, as well as the reincarnation of the jiva in a new form after death, are not readily available to science. But they do not contradict science, and they are, in fact, remarkably consistent with certain theories that are on the cutting edge of science, such as quantum theory, and its suggestion that consciousness might be an intrinsic property of matter (an idea consistent with the Jain teaching of the all-pervasiveness of jivas). Still controversial, but nevertheless occurring under the auspices of well reputed child psychologists, studies of past life memory, such as those carried out by Dr. Jim Tucker of the University of Virginia, are yielding a growing number of cases that could overturn a conventional materialist interpretation of science and affirm a model of the universe even closer to that affirmed by Jainism than the one which is currently predominant
Other areas of knowledge explored in Jainism that remain beyond contemporary science, but that are not necessarily incompatible with it, regard forms of knowledge, such as telepathy and clairvoyance, that are capacities of the jiva which it exhibits as it becomes progressively purified of karmic matter. Did the anticipation of many scientific discoveries by Jains in the past arise from these forms of knowledge?
Not all Jain teachings fit so easily within the current scientific framework. Most controversial of all is the literal interpretation of Jain cosmology in a way which requires the earth to be a flat disc. It may be possible, though, to read this cosmology symbolically, as primarily describing the fact that space is not morally neutral: that where we are located in the cosmos is a function of our karma at any given moment.
Jainism is certainly a religion, as I have defined it, in the sense that its teachings are based not on revelations from a creator God, but from omniscient beings who have reached a state of perfect awareness and are thus able to describe reality as it truly is. At the same time, Jainism is not entirely unlike science to the extent that it affirms that anyone who follows the path of purification that it recommends may reach, eventually, the same state of perfect awareness that is attributed to the Jinas.
Finally, in its teaching of non-absolutism, or anekant, Jainism enables its followers to navigate a world in which multiple views prevail: including scientific and religious views. Taking a stance of anekant, one can see both religion and science as contributing some important perspective to the sum total of human knowledge, as well as each being, in its own way, limited, being appropriate to different aspects of being. Jainism thus points the way to an eventual harmony of all views: religious and scientific.
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