Jain Journal 1990 04

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

Page 59

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JAIN JOURNAL
soul : but if the soul for a moment thinks that the body is not the self but altogether different and a stranger to the soul, for that reason no feeling of pain will exist ; our attention is taken away in some other direction and we do not know what is passing before us." This shows that the self is something higher than the body. Still under ordinary circumstances the soul is influenced by the body, and therefore we are to study the laws of the body and soul so as to rise above these little things and proceed on our path to salvation or liberation which is the real aspiration of the soul. There is power of matter itself, but that power is lower than the power of the soul. If there was no power at all in the body or in matter the soul would never be influenced by it, for mere non-existence will never influence anything ; but because there is such a thing as matter, when the soul thinks that there is a power of the body and a power of the matter, these powers will influence it. Bodily power as we see it is on account of the presence of the soul. There is a power in matter, as cohesion etc., and this will work although the soul does not think anything about it. If the moon revolves around the earth there are some forces inherent in the earth and moon. What I mean to say is that the influence of these material powers on soul powers depends on the soul's readiness or willingness to submit to these powers. If the soul takes the view that it will not be influenced by anything it cannot be so influenced.
(b) This being the soul's nature, what is its origin ? Everything can be looked upon from two standpoints, the substance and the manifestation. If the state of the soul itself is to be taken into consideration that state has its beginning and its end. The state of the soul as living in the human body had a beginning at birth and will have an end at death, but it is a beginning and an end of the state, not of the thing itself. The soul taken as a substance is eternal, taken as a state every state has its beginning and end. So this beginning of a state implies that before this beginning there was another state of the soul. Nothing can exist unless it exists in some state. The state may not be permanent, but the thing must have a state at all times. If therefore the present state of the soul had a beginning, it had another state before the beginning of this state, and after the end of this state it will have another state. So the future state is something that comes out of or is the result of the present state. As the future
5 'Christian Science' was a prevalent Western cult of Gandhi's days. According to it,
the physical bodies possess no real reality, the only real realities being the souls. Gandhi agrees with this view only to the extent that according to him too the physical body does not influence that soul which refuses to be influenced by this body but not to the extent of denying the very reality of the physical body,