Mahavira and his Teaching

Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti

Page 249

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B. J. JHAVERI
passions. Passions are due to moha or ignorance. Now the question is that how can the soul which is pure consciousness and power be really tinged with ignorance, passions and karma? If ignorance and karma are inseparable from the soul, liberation does not seem to be in sight. If ignorance and karma are entirely alien to the soul then bondage is impossible. In reply it may be held that it is a matter of real experience that matter and spirit, body and soul are experienced not as separate but as united. It is suggested by Jaina philosophy that matter is potentially conscious. Like Leibnitz Jaina thinkers maintain consciousness as of varying degrees. Reality is consciousness but everything is not equally conscious. Vegetables and plants are not as much conscious as human beings are. There is growth of consciousness from microbe to human beings. Apart from vegetative life, matter itself is potentially living. Thus Jaina philosophy propounds panpsychism which attempts to reconcile body and soul, matter and spirit, universal and individual, macrocosm and microcosm.
The reality and value of self as conscious and pure have an immense bearing on ethical and metaphysical pursuit of mankind. Wrong knowledge and wrong conduct lead the self astray and distort the true vision of Reality and the world. It is by true and integral reorientation of modes of cognition, passions, emotions and epistemological fixations that personality becomes serene and equanimous. The Jainas are realists as far as their views on the objective reality of the world are concerned. The things of the world are permanent substantially, though their modes are ever changing. It is only the attitude towards the world and its constituents that is determined by the right or wrong outlook (darśana) of the soul. For realizing higher values of truth, beauty and goodness and articulating them in the fields of literature, science, philosophy, politics, social service, national and international fields of life and knowledge, it is imperative to train the modes of cognition and other instruments of knowledge and action so that they may be transformed and be made proper channels of consciousness. In this regard the concept of self as propounded in Jaina philosophy is at once real and valuational.
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