Jain Journal 1970 01

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

Page 67

JANUARY, 1970
175
Self-realization, then, is both object
to realize the individual Pure Self. and subject of what Jainas believe.
3.
Do Jainas believe in God?
... in the synonym for Pure Self, yes. In the God word, modern Jainas express the qualities inherent in the individual, the divinity in even you and me. As regards the Jaina story of creation, there is none. First cause of the cosmic universe is denied by the question, who created the creator ? One who feels desire, as the desire to create, is not perfect, hence not God, in the Jaina judgment. No, the eternal existence of both living and non-living posits their own environments in which they can manifest. Thus the universe is without beginning or end, the sum total of eternal substances undergoing modifications, as a gold bangle into a gold ring. So we see the Jaina religion is not based on diety. How then is it a religion ? Because it is based on the conscious principle that the West calls the immortal soul. Every living being possesses its own private, self-existent, uncreated, and eternal soul. Since beginningless time, Pure Soul has put itself in bondage to impure body. The rare privilege of embodied life is to free the soul and let it soar to
individual and permanent pure conscious state. Way-showers to the pure state are the twenty-four worshipful Jinas.
4. Do Jainas then believe in idols, like Twenty-Four ?
... not in idols, in ideals. Highest Jaina ideals were achieved by the twenty-four Jinas. They began as people like you and me, they succeeded at austerities, they realized their Pure Souls. By their presences were their contemporaries inspired to emulate them. Today, by environmental association with their images, are the devout likewise inspired. We know the image is not the teacher. The image is the symbol of the spiritual ideal, a material reminder to recall the vagrant human mind to the model spiritual example. Worshipful Jina, attached only to Pure Soul, is not touched by any prayer nor moved by any act of worship. Still, Jainas of most sects bow to chosen images. Agreed, the outer form may mislead us. While in truth, in his own words, the Jaina is saying “O Pure Soul without a body, I bow to you because I too want to be pure.” This is the ideal worship that narrow acquaintance mistakes for idol worship. In point of history, Jainism never had a place for idolatry, it never had a tribal mentality that carved out an idol and breathed life into it. Always a cultured and intellectual judgment, Jainism always led out with the loftiest concepts of the universal themes of birth, death, and immortality.