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Jain Digest - Summer 2007
Change is Life : Life is
hange
JAIN WOMAN
round of creation and destruction, however, something remains immutable; that something can change its form,
but does not change within itself. We can see the forms of By Acharya Chandanaji
the substance, and these forms mean change. To reject this
concept of constant change is to reject nature itself. Nothing remains static in the whole of creation. What appears so unchanging, or what we call still, is not really Change and flux are unavoidable aspects of creation. Body stillness at all. Everything is prone to change. In fact change and mind, the inner and the outer worlds, nothing is is nature and nature is change. All living and non-living untouched by this principle. The new-born baby changes things are changing all the time. Neither man nor nature
daily before our eyes. Soon his youth will turn to old age remains static. Though the dust under our feet appears inert and death will finally claim him. and lifeless, were we to study it closely under a microscope, we would find a great deal of activity in each tiny in the same way that the condition of the body changes. speck. Even the Himalayas, which appear so immutable, so too does that of the mind. The mind is as playful as a are actually growing, changing and moving every second
breeze, as active as a monkey, as swift as a horse. The reason of the day. In the last 15 million years the Himalayas have
for all these analogies is that our inner world undergoes a grown by 3,000 meters. Geologist John Holden claims
continuous change as well. Our feelings change, cultures that 200 million years ago Japan was near the North Pole
change, beliefs and observances change. We ourselves are and India near the South Pole. Earth itself, the mountains
changing. Society is changing. The world is changing. So and the oceans, the sun and the moon, are all changing. Change and evolution come through movement and flow.
excessive zeal and futile struggle towards permanency? It Scientists tell us that the moon moves around the earth, is true that man has been searching for immortality since and earth moves around the sun. The sun is moving too.
time immemorial, and this has led to the discovery of Our sun and its solar family moves around in a galaxy,
much that is useful. The very existence of death has created which itself also moves spirally ad infinitum.
the search for the means of its conquest. Immortality is a
sweet dream that attracts man with her seductive beauty A dry plain at Haridwar marks the spot where seven sacred
and that's why he keeps on searching for her. However, the streams of the Ganges once flowed. The sand dunes of
grear sages who, conquering all of life's passions, achieved Rajasthan were once submerged under a mighty ocean.
immortality of the soul, have themselves testified that they rissas Konark Sun temple, once built on the seashore, could not have done so without first entering the realm of has now moved inland. Such changes are the law of nature, change a law that brooks no exception.
Change pervades everything. Even in the attainment of Man himself is an intrinsic part of this change and he, in ciritual perfecrion infinitesimal changes take place. turn, is evolving. Philosophers have called man a 'death
It is an inner process in which both progression and inhabited being.' Every moment we are moving towards rerrorresion ce
retrogression occur. One goes up and down the spiritual death. The human body is perishable and its existence is ladder'. Moment by moment, the stream of consciousness momentary. On the surface it seems so unchanging. Look changes in its course. Why then is man clinging so inside and what do you find? Every moment the body
body obstinately to his old beliefs and observances? In reality
sherinate changes as hundreds of thousands of old cells die and are
our beliefs and observances are changing and are changing replaced. At every moment our bodies are engaged in the
imperceptibly. Unaware as we are of the motion of the process of life and death. They are nothing but a mighty
earth rotating on its axis, so we are unaware of the changes crematorium and a massive birthing place where millions
occurring in our own beliefs. But we hold on to certain of cells die and are born every day.
beliefs in the same way that a female monkey continues to
cradle her dead baby long after every last vestige of life has Does the blood that flows through our veins stop even for a been extinguished from its body. second? Unclean blood returns to be refreshed, ready to be used again. The heart pumps continuously. Imagine what Man too sometimes clings to the corpse of his beliefs. would happen if it stopped even for a moment. Physicians By doing so, he goes against creation's principle of change say that all the organs of the body have to be active all the and development. He interferes with the very function of time. The old wears out and the new is born. In this ceaseless
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