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76 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE JAINAS cause and effect so as to determine beforehand what will be the result of actions.
Man is a compound being with many factors. As there are causes which obscure the sense consciousness, so there are causes which obscure the spiritual consciousness. It is the mind which causes bondage and which causes liberation. Beside the factors of causation, there are other pains and pleasures, or the lack of them, the personality, etc., and each factor has causes at the back of it. The individuality is always the same; the personality is always changing.
There are four things difficult a obtain by the soul. First, human condition. This took millions of years. Second, hearing the truth. Truth-seekers are few because there is usually some personal end to gain. The majority of human beings are so engrossed with worldly aims that they have no time to listen to the truth. Third, right faith in the truth. Many understand the truth who do not believe in it. They consider it reflects honour on them to doubt everything. Fourth, practice of the truth. We must go step by step in this direction. There is only one way, and that is to do it, and it must be done by our own will. Nothing can compel us. The smallest seed of Spiri: within us is always trying to unfold. Obstacles are self-created. We must remove them by our own force. Liberation, the Highest Knowledge and Nonviolence
The Jaina philosophy also teaches that each soul (ātman) is a separate individuality, uncreated and eternal in existence; that each individual soul has lived from time without beginning in some embodied state, evolving from the lower to the higher condition through the law of karma, or cause and effect; that so long as the karmas (forces generated in previous lives) have not been fully worked out, it has after physical death to form another body, until through evolutionary processes it unfolds its absolute purity. Its full perfection is then manifested. This perfection of the individuality is the Jaina Nirvāṇa or Mukti. The individuality is not merged into anything; neither is it annihilated. It is not destroyed, nor is it merged into another ego
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