Karma Philosophy

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi, Bhagu F Karbhari
Publisher: Devchand Lalbhai Pustakoddhar Fund

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reality (or the individual is a reality) it must have passed in the past through many conditions and tates, and because it is a reality it would not entirely disappear at death but will exist and continue to exist some state or other at all times. Every stage of existence is the result of the previous state.
The doctrine which gives us some explanation as to how certain characteristics or factors of our individuality which we have at present-how these factors were produced as a resultant of forces generated in the past, this doctrine is the doctrine of karma.
Karma is according to the Jain philosophy a reality, as real as the walls around us are, only the walls we see, but the karma one cannot see. There is not only one reality called karma, because karma with each person is different. Karma is that finest matter which a living being attracts to itself by reason of certain impellent forces which are in the individual; not only attracted to but assimilated by the individual itself (this doctrine of karma applies not only to human, but to all living beings); and it changes the individuality of the living being. It has become a kind of stored force, and just as a compressed spring of a watch will expand at some time, so the stored force of karma will manifest itself at some time or other. Hence it produces some kind of experience at some time or other. The idea of an individual attracting to himself this
Definition of Karma.