________________
1914.)
JAINA GAZETTE. . 269 nent or only transient ? Can I cease to exist ? Am I a product or am I an entity ?
These are the sort of questions that the discussion at present going on should answer, and answer satisfactorily, it seems to me.
Forgive the repetition, but this question of whole and part is important if it is kept within the bounds that affect such questions as the above ; and the discussion will help us to draw some conclusion as to whether or not the individual selves in the aniverse, such as you and I, are wholes or parts ; and whether the mass of such individuals is one self or not ; whether the totality of these individual selves is anything more than a total, or whether the selves are the factors of a one SELF. That is the real point in our discussion and it is obviously a very important one too.
Briefly, I maintain that there is no such one self; that the individuals, you, I, etc., do not in their mass constitute a self in the sense of a living unit. And that therefore the individual is not part of a whole in the sepse now meant, that is, that I am not part of a living unit, but that I myself am a living unit. Thus it will be obvious to you what I mean when I state. "I am part of the universe, but the universe is not one in the same sense that I am one.”
Since the commencement of our correspondence, changes have taken place in your environment which doubtless have made you busy to a far greater degree from the responsibility point of view, but if you can see your way to continue the discussion just writing when you have time and you feel mentally fit (by that I mean you must not reply after a hard day's work or at a week end when you feel a jaunt into the country would give you the needed rest) I shall be very grateful.
May I also ask another favour and that is your permission to print this letter and your previous one in a small Indian paper (The Jaina Gazette). If you will answer this by return post as brief as possible (yes or no) according to what you think will do, I shall esteem it a favour. Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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