Jaina Literature and Philosophy a Critical Approach

Author(s): Sagarmal Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 71

Samatva Yoga: The Fundamental Teaching of Jainism and Gitä
way, we can say that the concept of samatva has a sound basis for its justification in our organic and psychological nature.
nature and our aim of life is samatva, or that samatva should be the directive principle of our life? What is the ground for its justification? To answer these questions, first of all we must understand the human nature. By human nature I mean his organic and psychological make-up. What do we mean by a living organism? By living organism we mean an organism that has a power to maintain its physiological equilibrium. In Biology, this process has been known as Homeosytasis, which is considered as an important quality of a living organism. The second essential quality of a living organism is its capacity of adjustment with the environment. Whenever a livng organism fails to maintain its physiological equilibrium and adjust itself with its environment it tends towards death. Death is nothing but failure of this process. It follows where there is life, there are efforts to avoid unequilibrium to maintain equilibrium.
Psychological basis of Samatva
Nobody wants to live in a state of mental tension. We like no tension but relaxation, no anxiety but satisfaction. This shows that our psychological nature is working for a mental peace or a mental equilibrium. Freud accepts that there is a conflict between our Id and Super ego but at the same time he agrees that our ego or conscious level is always working to maintain an equilibrium or for the adjustment between these two poles of our personality. It is a fact that there are mental states such as emotional excitements, passions, and frustrations, but we cannot say that they are our intrinsic nature because they do not exist for their own sake; they exist for satisfaction or expression. Secondly, they owe their existence to some other external factors. An important process of our personality is the process of adjustment and adjustment is nothing but a process of restoring peace, harmony and integration. In this
Samatva as a Directive Principle of Living
Some one may remark that the Darwinian theory of evolution goes against the concept of samarva. Darwin presented a theory of the evolution of life, in which he suggested that 'Struggle' for existence is the basic principle of living. Apparently, it is true that there is a struggle for existence in our world and nobody can deny this fact. But due to certain reasons, we cannot call this as directive principle of life. To the question; "Why is it so?" my. humble answer is that first of all this theory is selfcontradictory because its basic concept is subsisting on others, that is, 'living by killing'. Secondly, it is opposed to the basic human nature and even animal nature to some extent. Struggle is not our inner nature (Faya Ut) but it is only a resultant one. It is imposed on us by external factors. Whenever we have to struggle we do it out of necessity and not out of nature, and what is done in compulsion cannot be a guiding principle of our life, for it does not emanate from our inner nature. Thirdly, it goes against the judgements of our factulty of reasoning and the concept of natural law. If nobody has right to take my life, then on the ground of the same reasoning I have no right to take another's life.
The theory of 'live on others', is against the simple rule that all living beings or human beings are potentially equal. According to Lord Krsna the concept of equality and union of all living being (36 dydy can give us a right directive principle of living with fellow-beings and according to Lord Mahāvīra the directive principle of living is not 'live on others', but 'live with others' or 'live for others' (UTURIYYET JCH-14-eare ).