Book Title: Jain Journal 1972 04
Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

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Page 7
________________ APRIL, 1972 one thing which everyone is seeking either consciously or unconsciously, namely, happiness. The kind of happiness enjoyed by the perfect ones is beyond the imagination of ordinary humanity. 143 Happiness is the natural functioning of pure spirit. In its pure state, the soul possesses the four attributes of infinite life, infinite joy, infinite knowledge, and infinite power. In other words, every soul is divine and has the potentiality of omniscience. There is the teaching of those Great Souls who in past ages actually attained to omniscience, and who are now living in another part of the universe in eternal life, completely free from all pain, misery and death. What are the forces that impose limitations on the spirit-substance and prevent it from manifesting its natural omniscient state? The forces which prevent individuals enjoying their own, pure state or divine life are physical or material. These forces of matter are attracted to the soul-substance by means of desire. Now, desire is an attitude of the soul that is constantly seeking to extract enjoyment from external things. Through its desiring nature, the soul is continually attracting to itself forces of matter. This almost ceaseless activity, foreign to its real nature, throws the soul into a state of darkness or unenlightenment, and at the same time causes it to "evolve out" a material body. In the course of time, the soul leaves the body in death, and as soon as the life-substance is departed, the body begins to decompose. The soul, however, being imperishable, lives on and is immediately attracted (through its material forces) to another re-birth, when the process of birth, growth and death is again experienced. If the nature of the soul is properly studied, it will be found that re-incarnation is a very real fact of life, and not a mere superstition as most people imagine it to be. The kind of birth, body and type of intelligence which the ego makes for itself, depends on the kind of material forces acquired during its previous life, or lives. The process of re-incarnation is entirely automatic, its operation depending on the magnetic properties of the soul, due to the forces of Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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