Pictorial Philosophical Balpothi

Author(s): Bhuvanbhanusuri
Publisher: Divya Darshan Trust

Page 23

THE BODY
AND THE SOUL
Who are we? We are Jains. A Jain is a person believing in Bhagwan Jineshwar. A Jain follows everythig told by Bhagwan Jineshwar and not only just few things, which suits him. We are Jains but what is meant by 'we'? 'We' does not indicate our body. Our body is inanimate. "We' indicates our soul or our being, which is sentient. Body is not able to get enlightened, whereas the soul is able to get enlightened.
We feel happiness & unhappiness. We get enlightened, We understand, we feel, we get angry, we feel proud, we keep humbleness and forgiveness, we wish, we think. To whom does all these happen? All these things happen to soul and not to the body. Have it been happening to the body, it should also happen to a dead body in which all the organs are present. A dead body should also feel sensibility, but it does not as it is merely a body
Many of these things take place due to the karma and the characteristics of previous birth. That's why the intensity of happiness, unhappiness, anger and forgiveness differs from being to being even though they are in a similar state. As a body is made of matterial particles (pudgal), nothing happens to it. It does not feel any happiness, unhappiness, feeling, desire, consciousness etc. Does a dead body feel any of these things ? No. That means a body itself is not a being. It is we who feel happiness, unhappiness etc. so we ourselves are the being, the soul. Like a bird in the cage, we are a soul imprisoned in a body.
An eye does not see anything by itself. It is the soul who sees through an eye. A soul makes hands or legs move or keep the body in motion, otherwise they do not move by themselves. Hence the soul is an individual element different from a body.
The body gets newly made in respective births. The karmasatta has made a being stuck by a body like a ghost, but the being has been wandering in this world for infinite years. That is the reason somebody remembers his/her previous birth sometimes. For so many times our being has taken birth as tree, water, air, insects, birds, animals etc.
We have got human body right here, which is also bound to be left behind like an old person. It means that we, too have to die and the soul has to go somewhere in the next birth once again. Hence we should feel attached neither to the senses nor to the body. We should not decorate them or commit any sins for their sake. By committing sins, a being gets thrown into hell. One has to suffer inevitably for the sins it has committed.