Jain Journal 1967 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 42

84
JAIN JOURNAL Mind is an instrument and soul is the player, the mindless). The sangis enjoy the power of deliberation, and are able to learn if taught; they respond when they are called, and can also be trained. The organ of the mind (dravya mana) is a body of fine matter which is the instrument of reflection or thought. The dravya mana is composed of very fine material, and marks the limit of the specialisation of the function of nervous matter and nerve cells. It is not conscious in its own right, since consciousness belongs not to matter of which it is composed. As a matter of fact, this mind is, in a way, the instrument of limitation of knowledge, because it narrows down the field of consciousness to what is actually the subject of attention at any particular moment of time. To elucidate the point, full and unqualified omniscience is the nature of each and every soul ; but this is so only potentially in the case of those that are still involved in transmigration ; for in their case the purity of spirit is vitiated, more or less, by the contact of matter, there being no transmigrating soul which may be said to be altogether free from polution. Where the association with matter is of the worst type, as in the case of the lowest forms of life--metals and plants-knowledge is reduced to bare sensations of touch and a mechanical response to the external stimulus. In less unfortunate cases other sense organs also appear, but deliberation, i.e., reflection and memory (except what is known as habit memory) do not appear, unless the soul acquires the central organ of reflection and the power to check the headlong rush of the torrential current of animal passions and desires. The organ of reflection is the central telephone exchange of the nervous system where all the nerves—sensory and motor--have their terminal endings. The clerk-in-charge of the office is the soul, the self-conscious force, whose self-consciousness directly depends on and is affected by the nature of his tendencies, desires and passions. These desires and tendencies are all of them powerful forces originating in the constitution of the soul by virtue of its union with matter. They clog the mental stream with rubbish, and prevent reflection. The point of this current of tendencies, the head of the serpent manas, is attention, which tests the quality of the incoming sensory stimulus by laying itself open to its vibratory impulse and which may set a motor nerve in motion by augmentation of energy at its inner terminal. It is the application of attention, the connecting of the object without with the point of the mental stream, which is the twofold cause of the detailed knowledge of a thing as well as of the closing of the door against all other senses than the one which may be actually functioning.
The amount of consciousness which watches over the actions of life where the intellect is not shedding its illuminative lusture, consists in the sparks given out, from time to time, at the sensory motor point,