Jain Journal 1995 10

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

Page 18

GOVARDHANADASA : MAHĀTMĀ GANDHI AND KAVI RĀJACANDRA
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urge in life to be free from all bondages and limitations. A close consideration of this urge makes the truth of the above saying of the wisemen to be self evident.
4. POSSIBILITY OF MOKŞA. Q-Is it possible for an embodied soul to know precisely whether he
would attain Mokṣa or not? A.-Just as a man whose hands have been tightly bound down with a
rope, on being slowly and slowly loosened, feels a great relaxation from bondage and begins to perceive as if the rope has ceased to exist or exert any influence, similarly the soul which is bound down with various kinds of nescient emotions, on being slowly and slowly released from them, beings to feel the glory of salavtion. The more and more the streaks of these emotions fade away, the more and more the soul shines in its lustre untarnished with ignorance. As soon as there is a complete extinction of these nescient forces, soul even though it is full splendour with a consciousness of freedom all round. Thus the soul though residing in this body enjoys the blessings of salvation.
5. TRANSMIGRATION IN LOWER CONDITIONS OF LIFE. -It is said in scriptures that a man after death goes to animal,
mineral and vegetable lives according to his actions. Do you think
it to be right? A. -When a soul on death leaves one's body to occupy the other, he
moves according to his accumulated karmas. In that state sometimes he takes up the animal life and sometimes the mineral one. In mineral state soul experiences the fruits of its karmas only with the help of the touch sense, leaving the other four senses. It does not mean that in mineral state soul becomes earth or stone, rather in this state soul assumes a physical shape akin to stone and itself resides there in an invisible form. Since in this state soul does not possess the other senses besides the touch sense, so it is called prthvi-kāya-jīva i. e. a soul with earth body and it is an (eka-indriya) one-sensed being. By and by after experiencing the fruits of his Karmas, when it leaves that form to assume other form of life then its earthly body made of stone is merely a heap of particles devoid of life. After the departure of soul it does not evince the instincts of hunger, sex, fear and accumulation. Please mind, that a soul in mineral state is not absolutely mineral, it has got a living aspect also. It is all due to its own nescient tendencies that a soul by their fruetification has to assume an order of life which is one-sensed