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THE JAINA GAZETTE.
“And then the consciousness itself— what is it during the time that it continues ? And what becomes of it when it ends? We can only infer that it is a specialized and individualized form of that Infinite and Eternal Energy which transcends both our knowledge and our imagination; and that at death its elements lapse into the Infinite and Eternal Energy whence they were derived."
The main issue in the above extract is the conclusion that we seem obliged to relinquish the thought that consciousness continues after physical organization has become inactive. Obviously Mr. Spencer is not satisfied with it; it only seems necessary, and its consequences are felt to be strange and repugnant. We may therefore think that had he known of the Jain philosophy and had believed it, he would have welcomed it, as it promises continued existence, and renders acceptable the possibility that there might be no knowledge of having existed : we have no knowledge now of any previous existence, but we do not feel any strangeness or repugnance at the ignorance.
If we wish to retain the thought that consciousness continues after death, we must have some rational basis for doing so, and this is what the Jain philosophy gives us. It asks us to believe that consciousness is not an affair of the brain, but is a quality which inheres in something conscious by nature and generally called soul. This gives us a rational basis for belief in an after-life: the unconscious body is left behind at death, and the conscious soul goes elsewhere. Sleep and other forms of ignorance are explained by the presence of a foreign element obscuring knowledge but not annihilating the capacity to become again conscious.
But it may be asked that if belief in an after-life is based on belief in a soul, what is belief in a soul based upon ? Belief in is not knowledge of the soul. Knowledge puts belief beyond doubt or dispute and is itself final ground, but before we get this knowledge we have to be content with reasoning. In two ways Mr. Spencer's own statements supply what practically amounts to evidence of the existence of soul. Before pointing these out, we will bring to mind some useful facts in support of the theory that there is a soul in living beings, or better that living beings are souls
with bodies. Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
