Book Title: Jainism Eternal and Universal Path for Enlightenment Author(s): Narendra Bhandari Publisher: Research Institute of Scientific Secrets from Indian Oriental Scriptures Ahmedabad View full book textPage 5
________________ Theme Jainism is based on the five pillars of tmav :d, Anek-ntav :d, Karmavid, Kriylvd and Lokav.d. Of these, Anekintav 1d (true nature of things) and Lokavid (cosmology) come well within the purview of science and therefore Jainism is considered to have scientific foundation. Jainism thus considers matter and universe as real and not illusory, as some other faiths claim. This book is an attempt to identify common concepts between Jainism and various aspects of modern science. The basic concept on which Jainism has developed its procedures is that humans have unique capabilities and, of all the sentient beings, only humans have the capability of attaining enlightenment. It is believed that the human birth results after lots of good karmas or punyas are accumulated in the previous births and this opportunity should be used for striving for attaining Moka. According to modern science, all living beings have the capability of drawing energy from the environment at the physical level. All physical and chemical processes, occurring in isolation, result in increase in entropy. Although this law, known as the second law of thermodynamics remains valid for any biological system considered together with its environment, in “isolated" living systems, per say, the entropy decreases, that is, it physically draws energy from the environment. The fossil record of species shows that life has gone through Darwinian evolution of natural selection from very primitive conscious algal form to humans which have the highest level of consciousness. In this chain of evolution, there were two major and abrupt revolutions: the first one occurred about 600 million years ago when mobile forms of life evolved. Till then the evolution was through transmutations based on environmental interaction. The second revolution occurred recently, about 200000 years ago, with the emergence of homosapiens. Jainism proposes that besides the physical level where all living beings interact with environment, humans can draw energy at mental and consciousness level. Secondly they can enhance their consciousness level at will, by practicing certain procedures. Enlightenment implies development of several faculties. Bhagvin Mah?vir, when he attained enlightenment, developed four main faculties: infinite potency (Anant Virya), infinite consciousness (Anant Chaitanya), infinite wisdom (Anant In 'n) and infinite bliss (Anant Sukh). Although all these four appeared at once, the first two, anant Virya and Anant chaitanya appear to be the cause and Anant Sukh and Anant In 'n are the consequences. Anant Virya requires infinite potency and its source must be the whole cosmos which is full of energy. Various sources of energy around us are the earth and its biosphere, sun, galaxy, cosmic rays etc. Bhagvin Mah?vir has shown us procedures to get or draw bio-energy from the biosphere by practicing non-violence and other forms of energy through meditation and tapasya. The basic law of physics is that energy flows from higher level to lower levels and therefore these procedures arePage Navigation
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