Jainism Eternal and Universal Path for Enlightenment

Author(s): Narendra Bhandari
Publisher: Research Institute of Scientific Secrets from Indian Oriental Scriptures Ahmedabad

Page 117

Jainism : The Eternal and Universal path for Enlightenment
117
This mental body, not supported by a physical body, is constantly moving till it finds a suitable womb and enters it according to its karma and in this process sequentially unites with the fire, water and earth elements. It should be remembered that this mental body has the memory and affinity of the previous life, is clairvoyant and keeps hovering over its dead body and earthly possessions, friends, relatives, trying to reenter the body and repossess the material assets to which it is attached. It is said that this state (of bardo) continues for 21 days with strong impressions of previous life and the rebirth has to wait for suitable parents where the future life will match the past karmas. When suitable parents are found, the soul enters the womb of the new mother and new life begins, as it ended with ground luminosity i.e. according to the eternal natural laws.
It is said that at the time of death, the review of the past life occurs and the whole life runs like a film. One can "witness" every event which occurred, good or bad, in all its vivid details.
Thus we see that the process of death, or dissolution of bodily traits (senses, constituents etc) and mental faculties (anger, desire, ignorance, delusions etc) is a long sequential process and is only complete with rebirth. These processes occur not only in humans but in all species. There is more to death than what the medical science believes. The medical or clinical death, when the heart beat, respiration and brain function ceases, is only one stage in the whole process and there is much scope for research in this multi stage process of death. With the sophisticated tools of biology now available, it should be possible to verify and reinterpret the scriptures in modern terms and understand their significance.
Thus we see that, although the Jain biology appears to be much wider in scope compared to the modern biology, many of its aspects may appear irrelevant and even inconsistent with the modern concepts. It is desirable to unite the two and have an integrated approach to understand these processes which are of vital importance to an individual.