Philosophy and Psychology of Jainas

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Z_Selected_Speeches_of_V_R_Gandhi_002018.pdf

Page 17

impression of any colour, smell, etc. There is nothing which can partake both of the attributes of soul and of matter; the attributes of matter are directly contrary to those of the soul. While one has its life, in the other it does not become the other. How can that soul live in matter when its attributes are of a different nature ? By our own experience we know that we are obliged to live in surroundings which are not congenial to us, which are not of our own nature. People feel that they are not related to their surroundings, there must be some reason for their being obliged to live in those surroundings, but there must be a reason in the intelligence itself; it cannot be in the material substance. We know that this is a fact, because intelligence cannot proceed from any thing which is purely material. No material substance has given any evidence of having possessed intelligence; it might have done so when there was life in it, but without this it has no intelligence. That intelligence is, we are quite sure, influenced by material things, but it does not arise from the material things. Persons of sound intelligence take a large dose of some intoxicating drink and the intelligence will not work at all. Why should this material thing influence the immaterial, the soul ? The soul thinks that the body is itself and therefore anything which is done to the material self is supposed by the real self to be done to itself. That is where the Christian scientists and the Jaina philosophy will agree ; that if the soul thinks that the body is its real self, anything done to the body will be considered by the
31