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Essentials of Jaina Philosophy
convince us of the existence of life after death (paraloka).
If the soul performs auspicious, wholesome and good acts in the present birth, its next birth will be good. On the other hand, if it performs inauspicious, unwholesome and bad acts in the present birth, its next birth will be bad. An auspicious or an inauspicious act leaves behind correspondingly an auspicious or an inauspicious impression upon the soul. This impression is a group of material atoms of a special type. It is called 'karma'. So karma is a group of material atoms of a special type attracted towards and bound with the soul on account of its activity. New karmas (groups of material atoms of a special type) go on associating themselves with the soul and old karmas go on dissociating themselves from the soul after having given their proper and complete fruits to it. These two processes go on simultaneously every moment. Karmas bound with the soul simply continue to exist there inactive till the next birth or through many births without rising to give their fruits. And when they rise to give their fruits, they cause the soul to experience their good or bad fruits. There is a specific period of time within which the soul can completely experience the fruit of a particular karma once it has started to experience it. As soon as it completes the experience of the fruit, the karma of which it is the fruit gets dissociated from the soul. The present birth and the future births of the soul are governed and conditioned by the force of its accumulated karmas.
Thus we have proved the soul as an independent substance different from the body and the sense-organs on the basis of the above-stated logical reasons and arguments as also on the basis of the feeling 'I am happy, I am unhappy' experienced not by the body or the sense-organs but by our innermost self.
Infinite Souls in the World At this juncture, there is a possibility of the following question to arise in our mind. From the total number of souls that are there in the world, many souls have attained liberation having totally dissociated themselves from the bound karmas, many are attaining it and others will attain it in future. Thus, every moment the number of souls in the world goes on decreasing. Will this not result, at one point of time, in the world becoming empty of souls?
Before answering this question, we should bear in mind that no system of Indian philosophy ever endorses a view that the world at some time
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