Selected Speeches of V R Gandhi

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi Godiji Jain Derasar Mumbai

Page 91

the origin of the universe must be celebrated by them as a national holiday. Unfortunately, such a day cannot be fixed and the Hindus have never had a national spirit.
The Jaina view is that the "realization" of the primal substance, out of which the universe has manifested, is no advancement or progress. The Jainas are the advocates of the development theory; hence their ideal is physical, mental, moral and spiritual perfection. The very idea of a simple substance, without qualities, character and activities, finds no place in the Jaina philosophy, and is regarded as irrelevant and illogical; a characterless cause manifesting as a qualitative effect is a misunderstanding of the law of causation. Cause and effect, substance and manifestation, noumenon and phenomenon, are really identical. Cause is a cause when it is operating, and operating cause is itself the effect. Hydrogen and Oxygen, in their ordinary condition, are not water; vibrating in a peculiar electrical way, they are not only the cause and water the effect, but water is what they are in this relation. Any object, divested of all relations, could not be called by any other name than Being or Ens. As an abstraction or generalization, the process has its use. In order to study the various aspects of things and ideas, this method of analysis is invaluable. But to call Being or "Eternal Ens" the cause or the noumenon, or the absolute, and distinguish it from the effect, calling it the unreal, phenomenon, or relative, is pseudo-analysis. The Jaina process of acquiring knowledge may be described as follows:
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