Jainism Not an Atheism

Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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up of other things, and so too a soul is not made up of other things. The peculiar characteristic, consciousness, cannot be destroyed it can be obscured; the individual can but exist, he must exist in some condition or other, he has this general nature in common with all things, to exist is his very nature ; so the consideration is not how to keep ourselves in existence but to keep ourselves in a desired condition. What is an ideal condition ? Happiness is universally regarded as the ideal condition.
So whatever real thing we take to talk about, it will consist of one, or more, of these six real things, matter, spirit, space, those two ethers and figuratively time, and may be regarded simply as a real thing, a lump of clay, a brass band, a nebula, a universe, anything
Suppose we think of a band, it is a reality, one real thing; and each of those four definitions will apply to it. In this way of regarding it, a band is not more than one thing. So too a man, or a cat, or a tree is one thing, one living being, not two.
Now, although a band is one thing, obviously some parts are living beings and some parts are inanimate. So a band, although it may be regarded as one band, is nevertheless viewable as a duality ; a band is something, and also it is some things namely:---things anmiate and things inanimate, men and instruments.
In the case of a band this composite nature is very palpable. In the case of a man, however, who also is composite, it is not so palpable. Man is composed of body and soul, matter and spirit ; so, although a man is one man, he is two substances, viz.--the conscious substance, and the visible substance, combined.
To sum up, we go on unifying things until we have unified everything in the universe. Just as we unify such