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Jainism the different phenomena of nature were considered in different parts of the world to be the working of different gods and goddesses, but when we understand science these phenomena become simple and the idea of these beings as characters of the highest spiritual power goes away. What is the God of the Jainas? You will ask. I have only told you what he is not. I will now tell you what it is. We know that there is something besides matter; we know that the body exhibits many qualities and powers not to be found in ordinary material substance, and that the something which causes this departs from the body at death.
We do not know where it goes; we know that when it lives in the body, the powers of the body are different from what they are when it is not there. The powers of nature can be assimilated to the body when that something is there. That entity is considered by us the highest, and it is the same inherently in all living beings. This principle common to all of us is called divinity. It is not fully developed in any of us, as it was in the saviours of the world, and therefore we call them divine beings so the collective idea derived from observations of the divine character inherent in all beings is by us called God.
While there are so many energies in the material world and in the spiritual world, and putting those two energies together we give them the name of Nature, we separate the material energies and put them together, but the spiritual energies we put together and call them collectively God. We make a distinction, and worship only the spiritual energies. Why should we do so? A Jaina verse says "I bow down to that spiritual power or energy which is the cause of leading us to the path of salvation, which is supreme, which is omniscient; I bow down to that power because I wish to become like that power."
So where the form of the Jaina prayer is given, the object is not to receive anything from that entity or from that spiritual
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