Book Title: Jain Shwetambar Conference Herald 1913 Book 09
Author(s): Mohanlal Dalichand Desai
Publisher: Jain Shwetambar Conference
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જેન કૅન્ફરન્સ હેરલ્ડ,
શાન–ચર્ચા.
પ્રશ્ન:–અનાદિથી કર્મને સંબંધ આત્મા સાથે છે, એ વાતમાં ગતઃકાલમાં આપણે સદા જડ-કર્મની સાથે સંબંધવાળા હતા એવું આવે છે, તે તેવી જ રીતે એમ કેમ ન હોય કે આપણે સદા કર્મ સાથે સંબંધવાળા નહતા ? આપણું સત્ય આત્મસ્વરૂપ સંબંધી અજ્ઞાનને માટે કોણ જવાબદાર છે?
આ એક ઘણા જ દુર્ઘટ પ્રશ્ન છે. આ પ્રશ્ન એના જેવો છે કે ફક્ત કંઈ વસ્તુ છે એવું શા માટે હોય છે? શા માટે કંઈ પણ વસ્તુ નથી એવું નથી ? અને એમ હોય તો પછી કંઈ દુઃખ કે પીડા જેવું રહેજ નહિ...ખુલાસો કરતાં આગળ જે શુદ્ધતત્વ છે તેનું સંપૂર્ણ સ્વરૂપ આપણે નથી, આપણા કરતાં બીજું શુદ્ધતત્વ છે અને તેને સ્વભાવ અમુક અમુક પ્રકારે આપણા પર સામી અસર જ-પ્રત્યાઘાત-કરવાનો છે...પ્રત્યાઘાત દૃષ્ટિએ આપણે તેને અને તે આપણું દુઃખના કારણભૂત છે-છીએ.
(મી. હર્બટ વૈરનને પ્રશ્ન.) * *« How is it we have always been in the past in combination with matter? Why is it we could not just as well always have been in the past not in combination ? Who is responsible for our ignorance of our own true nature ?
It is a most difficult question; it is like the question: How is it that there is anything at all? Why is there not nothing at all, and then there would not have been all this pain and misery.
At any rate I think I get one idea towards the solution of the yuestion: it is something like this: life is always satisfactory : in the past we have ever been satisfied to live the life of getting pleasure and trying to avoid pain ; when we come to realise that being satisfied with pleasure brings pain in its train ( in its wake ), that our pains are simply part and parcel of our pursuit of pleasure and that we need not have them, then we leave off pleasure-hunting and no pains or miseries como upon us, — when our cessation is complete and permanent. Realising this, we change our life, we leave off pleasure-hunting, we are satisfied with our natural calm peace of mind, internal happiness which is not of the senses; thus we are again satisfied. So there is no such thing as compulsion to live as we always have. L fe is always whatever we are satisfied with. As soon as we become dissatisfied with our life, we leave it and follow another with which we are satisfied; thus we are ever following that kind of life with which we are satisfied; the pleasure-hurter is satisfied to put up with the consequent pains; he is satisfied to get drunk though he knows he will afterwards have a headache; he is satistied to murder though he knows he will afterwards be hanged, and so on. Thus the problem is solved, we are not the whole of reality; there is other reality than us, and its nature is to react upon us in certain ways; we are always free to live that kind of life with which we are satisfied; but we cannot stop the reaction of the rest of reality. From its point of view we are the cause of its sorrows, as it is the cause of ours."
ternal happines
pulsion to live we are again satisi
