________________
WHAT IS KARMA ?
101
substance; but still it is real substance. It is a substance which is not cognized by the senses, but objects which can be known by the senses do not exhaust the whole universe. The substratum (so to speak) of life and consciousness is the 'soul' or ‘ātman'. Consciousness is an experience; the consciousness of one person cannot be the consciousness of another. You may know another man's consciousness but you cannot have another inan's consciousness. Hence each person's individuality is entirely different from the individuality of another; one 'ātman' does not become another 'atman'.
So there are these principles (1) the universe is a system, and (2) there are atmans or souls which can have no beginning or end; you cannot postulate a beginning to a reality.
A reality in order to be real need not be changeless. A reality should pass through varying changes and states. To be, to exist, according to the Jaina philosophy, would mean to stand in relation to something else, to be the cause of, to be influenced by, and to influence. Hence, because the soul is a reality (or the individual is a reality) it must have passed in the past through many conditions and states, and because it is a reality it would not entirely disappear at death but will exist and continue to exist in some state or other at all times. Every state of existence is the result of the previous state, Special Characteristics of Karma
The doctrine which gives us some explanation as to how certain characteristics or factors of our individuality which we have at present-how these factors were produced as a resultant of forces generated in the past, this doctrine is the doctrine of karma.
Karma is according to the Jaina philosophy a reality, as real as the walls around us are, only the walls we see, but the karma one cannot see. There is not only one reality called karma, because karma with each person is different. Karma is that finest matter which a living being attracts to itself by reason of certain impellent forces which are in the individual; not only attracted to but assimilated by the individual itself (this doctrine
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
