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If it be said that there must be some Creator (as distinct from some Cause or Co-existence or Sequence) of everything, then there must be some Creator of God, and so on ad infinitum.
JAIN JOURNAL
Further, like creates like. God as Pure Soul can create only Living Soul. How then can He create non-living unconscious matter out of Himself?
The Jaina doctrine is that the lifeless, non-living, unconscious Universe is eternal and uncreated, and it evolves and revolves within its own countless attributes and modifications for ever, and that it undergoes even radical, catastrophic changes in Space and Time, which the History of all Nations records as the Deluge, the Mahabharata, the Great War, the Pralaya, etc., etc., etc. Is this doctrine not more soul-satisfying, simple and stamped with cogency and Truth than an attempt to explain things by the doctrine of Creation? Creation thus being only the creation of its Perfect condition by the Pure Soul, it is easy to see that all else in the Universe, from the point of view of conscious, living, knowing Soul, is Imperfect.
Obviously Imperfection is only tolerated because and so long as we cannot get rid of it. Therefore all worldly endeavour, being the child of the living Soul's union with non-living matter, is to be merely tolerated; to be shunned; to be renounced. When renunciation is impossible or impracticable, it has to be merely tolerated and controlled and regulated so as to keep it within the limits of the most minimum harm to Perfection.
A clear intellectual perception and a persistent, practical pursuit of this in our daily life is essential to keep us true to the Centre of Truth. No verbal jugglery, no pious deception of self or others will save one from error and harm if this Central Truth is lost sight of. All Politics, Ethics, Laws and Economics will be engulfed in stygian, chaotic darkness if once the human mind, the soul, loses or loosens grip of this First Fact of Life.
On the other hand, if this beacon-light is kept in view, nothing in the world can delude us long or deep. Our joys and sorrows, our successes and failures, our illness and health, births and deaths of relations and friends, victory and defeat, prosperity or adversity,-all these will be easily and instinctively referred to the Central Guide, and dealt with in their own proper perspective. All our worldly valuations depend upon our angle of vision. Ugliness is Beauty in the wrong place, or seen from the wrong angle. High treason is Patriotism from the wrong
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