Jainism Some Essays

Author(s): A S Gopani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 20

Jaina Religion
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world, it was imperative to explain all the events and the peculiarities of beings on this very ground, of the law of Karma. Not only this, but it was also equally important to find out the technique which can help in increasing spiritual strength and reducing Karmic impact. Jainism has, indeed, discovered, the explanation and the procedure and in them only the nature of Jainism lies embedded.
Types of living beings and the way to realization
The aim of every religion of the world is to create dissatisfaction for his pre: ent condition in every living being and thus to goad him on and on to his growth and development. This growth climaxes in liberation. This means that the living beings are primarily divided into worldly and liberated. Worldly beings are bound up with the Karmas while the liberated are those who have freed themselve from the bondage. Among the worldly beings, there are some who go on progressing continually as also there are others who are treading the path of fall and degradation. It can be inferred that there are in them idiots and also wide awake beings. In other words, there are those who are fast attached to the world and its pleasures while there are others who are all set for realization. It is the mission of religion to make the world-conscious inclined towards the liberation-conscious and to set the liberation-conscious on the way to liberation. It is because of this that the first and foremost place has been assigned to discrimination which is, to put differently, right vision lying at the root of every religion worth the name. Discrimination means analysis. It has been clarified in Jainism that a living being is able to cast off his ignorance if he can distinguish soul from non-soul which, here, is Karma. There is no similarity between the nature of the soul and that of the Karma. The former is consciousness and the latter is inert matter. However, they are both so intermixed that the soul has lost knowledge of its real nature. Therefore, the prime duty of a real guide is to inspire the being to regain his lost knowledge and understanding. The consciousness, the awareness of the living being will pave the way to discrimination, which, in its own turn, will generate a feeling of hesitation which will stop him from mistaking the conditions created by the Karmas and their effect as his own. Such an awareness will engender in him a sense that he is the soul and not the body which is, in fact, material and therefore the product of the Karmas. When such a wisdom dawns on him, he is on his way to realization. Such an effort for realization is what constitutes Jainism. As it is preached by the Jinas, it is called Jainism. Here the word Jina refers to Tirthankara Mahāvira.