________________
104
THE JAINA GAZETTE.
natural status and glory on account of the bondage of sin (=wrongdoing, i.e., karmas). How may the release of this divinity be accomplished is the one theme of Religion. This great truth about the divinity of the soul was as much an astounding revelation to the unlettered and uninitiated in the past as it is to men and women of to-day, and they resented it as bitterly and as vehemently as the fanatics of our own times do, because it clashes with their vulgar conceptions of God, Nature and Soul, derived from a misinterpretation of the letter of the Law. And so great was the frenzy of the fanatical mobs that they would proceed to stone any one who differed from their own reading of the scriptural text. The guardians of Wisdom Divine were thus forced to practise their faith in secret, and they also advised their followers to be cautious and guarded in expression.
To revert to the subject, the only way, then, of dying alive, that is to say of living out death, is to become actively conscious of the inherent Divinity of the Soul. This will fill the interior with Light and Life, and will induce the will to shun the temptations and toys of the external world, thus establishing it firmly in the principle of desirelessness. The body which is held together by the force of the magne:ism of the desiring nature will be dissolved into its component parts, in the absence of desires, and purity of Spirit will be attained as the culmination of the process of Selfrealization. This is how death will be conquered by 'works.' As stated by the apostle, “the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (1-Cor. xv. 26). This is true, because death does not exist for pure Spirit, that is a simple substance, but is an incident attaching to compounds, that is to say to embodied existence. The result is the same as described by St. Paul, though he delights here in the use of mystifying expression ;
“For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God."
' As God,' perhaps, would have been too unambiguous to suit the language of mystics ! In any case, the exhortation to the disciple is forceful and grand :
“............ Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Ephesians, v. 14). Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
