Book Title: Jains Through Time
Author(s): Shilapi Sadhvi
Publisher: Veerayatan

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Page 222
________________ The Jains through Time 223 returns to be refreshed, ready to be used feelings change, cultures change, beliefs and again. The heart pumps continuously. observances change. We ourselves are Imagine what would happen if it stopped changing. Society is changing. The world is even for a moment. Physicians say that all changing. So why is there such a yearning the organs of the body have to be active all for eternity? Why is there this excessive zeal the time. The old wears out and the new is and futile struggle towards permanency? It born. In this ceaseless round of creation and is true that man has been searching for destruction, however, something remains immortality since time immemorial, and immutable; that something can change its this has led to the discovery of much that is form, but does not change within itself. We useful. The very existence of death has can see the forms of the substance, and these created the search for the means of its forms mean change. To reject this concept conquest. Immortality is a sweet dream that of constant change is to reject nature itself. attracts man with her seductive beauty and that's why he keeps on searching for her. Change and flux are unavoidable aspects of However, the great sages who, conquering creation. Body and mind, the inner and the all of life's passions, achieved immortality of outer worlds, nothing is untouched by this the soul, have themselves testified that they principle. The new-born baby changes daily could not have done so without first before our eyes. Soon his youth will turn to entering the realm of change. old age and death will finally claim him. Change pervades everything. Even in the In the same way that the condition of the attainment of spiritual perfection, body changes, so too does that of the mind. infinitesimal changes take place. It is an The mind is as playful as a breeze, as active inner process in which both progression and as a monkey, as swift as a horse. The reason retrogression occur. One goes up and down for all these analogies is that our inner world the spiritual ladder'. Moment by moment, undergoes a continuous change as well. Our the stream of consciousness changes in its Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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