Jainism Not an Atheism

Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 22

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beings (souls) are not tangible or visible ; that which is visible in men, animals, plants, etc., is not the living being but the matter of which the bodies are composed. Spirit, which is the same as soul, never becomes tangible or visible ; but the signs of its existence are visible. You cannot touch or see another man's knowledge, or his belief, his feelings, or choices, or any of the psychological qualities the soul has as its factors, qualities which are not resolvable, are not separable in the individual, but which are ever changing their modifications; knowledge of the présent is continually changing into knowledge of the past and knowledge of (or belief about) the future is continually changing into present knowledge.--knowledge of the future is quite possible ; for instance, we know on Monday that to-morrow will be Tuesday; and on Tuesday the knowledge has changed and we know that it is (not that it will be) Tuesday ; there is a difference in the quality.
The fact of containing is a particular nature of space; and space is not the kind of thing that needs to be contained itself.
So we see that in thinking of any one particular real substance, matter for instance, there are its common natures and there are its particular natures ; it is not possible for a substance to have nothing but common natures ; it must also have particular ones.
With reference to spirit, just as matter is a mass of individual atoms so 'jiva' (that which is conscious) is a mass of individual living beings, each having its own identity. Each soul is different from every other one soul never becomes another or absorbed into another. Each soul is a conglomerate of qualities. Each atom (or whatever name one uses for the ultimate unit of matter) too is a conglomerate of qualities and is not made