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JAINISM AND ITS POWER
145 “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?"_Romans vii. 18-24.
The injunction to get rid of the condition of embodiment is distinct in the Pauline Epistles :
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."--Romans xii. 1.
Origen amongst the early Christian Fathers spares no pains to explain the doctrine, so far as it was understood by him. He says (see Vol. I. pp. 82-3):
“The mental acumen of those who are in the body seems to be blunted by the nature of corporeal matter. If, however, they are out of the body then they will altogether escape the annoyance arising from a disturbance of this kind...at last by the gradual disappearance of the material nature, death is both swallowed up and even at the end exterminated, and all its sting completely blunted by the divine grace which the soul has been rendered capable of receiving, and has thus deserved to obtain incorruptibility and immortality ... It follows that we must believe our condition at some future time to be incorporeal...and thus it appears that then also the need of bodies will cease.... The whole nature of bɔdily things will be dissolved into nothing."
I do not think any further comment is necessary by me on this, as these passages are quite intelligible and plain in them selves.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the substance of the address that it has been my privilege to deliver before you today. It has not, of course, been possible for me on account of the limited time at my disposal to give you a deeper insight into the metaphysics of the Science of Life, as Religion undoubtedly deserves to be called, but I should like to add that there are happily now available works which throw adequate light on most of the difficult problems concerning the future destiny of a living being, and I should fail in my purpose if I did not urge you to
19 Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
