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JANUARY, 1982
115
being and the innate transformations of the soul. However, it is not possible to draw an exact parallel because the innate transformations of the soul, and, the mechanism of interaction between soul and material particles are beyond experimentation.
Living and Non-living Beings in Modern Science
"Living things have certain characteristics, none of which by itself is sufficient to define them as being alive, but which, when taken together, enable us to distinguish them from non-living. The capacities for growth, maintenance and repair, reproduction, movement, responsiveness, change these are the properties of the living.”(6) Science has not been able to determine what imparts all these characteristics to the living beings. It is the soul which does that according to Jainism. Further, modern science says "Life is characterized by the capacity to perform a series of highly organized interacting processes that occur within a a definite framework."(6) There are certain large molecules known as nucleic acid which are informational molecules. These are DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid). DNA can reproduce itself and it contains within it the information for directing the synthesis of proteins. DNA is like a blueprint which resides in the nucleus of the cell. RNA is the transcriber and translator of the genetic code which is the symbolic message that directs the cell to produce specific substances. “A gene is a linear stretch of the DNA molecule that contains the information for producing a protein chain."(6) Genetic changes (mutations) are produced in a cell or an organism when one nucleotide (building block of the nucleic acid) is exchanged for another. These concepts are parallel to the Jaina concept of the physique-determining karma. However, there are some important differences between the two concepts. First according to the Jaina concepts, the karma particles can not be detected by any means, and, second, heredity plays an important role in the case of genes but it does not play the same role in the case of karma particles. Nevertheless, the parallelism between the concept of informational molecules and the theory of karma is significant.
Influence of Feelings and Emotions on Life Processes
Our feelings and emotions have a profound influence on our body. Dr. Martin Stein of Mount Sinai Medical Center of New York studied six men whose wives died of breast cancer. He found that each one of them "showed marked changes in their lymph cells, which help guard against disease ... Thus the grief of their wives' illness and death had put them at a greater risk to developing some kind of illness themselves."(7)
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