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The Philosophical Teaching of Lord Mahâvîra
205
Somewhere, it believes, the balance has been broken and this has led to the pain of life, and until the balance be again restored it will continue measuring wrongly, and pain will persist. For the threads of life, it believes, run from the lowest to the highest, and when the meshes are broken, chaos rushes in to enlarge the break.
One might conjecture that it was through this one broken strand of life that matter took possession of the soul, and, till the web has been made one and whole again, the struggle of what we know as mortal existence must continue.
This philosophy is optimistic: for it believes, too, that in the end, right, that is, life, souls, spirit, must triumph over matter; for once consciousness is restored to life in the form of right knowledge, matter has no longer any power over the soul.
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The reader should remember that life and souls are the same in Jain ethics; but the writer will, from now onwards, use the word life as being the more philosophic one.
Modern science tends to posit a radiation of matter; but this radiation might easily be life in its process of disentangling itself from matter. Indeed, Jain Philosophy posits radiation as a property of life.
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