________________
448
A SOURCE-BOOK IN JAINA PHILOSOPHY
IS THE ATMAN FREE, OR IS IT BOUND BY KARMA?
We have seen that the individual states and its position are determined by the bondage of karma that the individual has acquired. Auspicious karma brings auspicious results and inauspicious karma gives inauspicious results.1
The karmic process has primarily two forms: bondage and the other rise and fruition. The individual jiva is free in the sense that it can do the karma and the bondage that he gets is due to his own activity. In this sense, he is free because he acts and gets the bondage. But the karmic bondage that he has already acquired due to his own activity has to be experienced and exhausted by him. In this sense, in the case of rise and fruition of karma that has already been bound to him, he has no choice, he has to experience the effects of the karma that he has accumulated. And therefore in the fruition of karma and experiences, he is not free. For instance, one is free to take opium, but once he takes the opium he cannot escape the effects of opium. Whether he wills it or not, the opium produces its effects on his organism. He has no choice in it. This does not mean that he completely dislaids of the fruition of the karma that he has already acquired. He can transform the karmic effect in its intensity of experience by reducing the intensity or increasing the intensity. For example, after having taken the opium he may try to reduce the effect of the same by taking the counter affecting medicine. By this, he can reduce the intensity of the opium. Similarly, he can reduce the intensity, as we have seen, of the experience of the karmic effect by means of certain processes and practices. In other words, the question of the dependence of the jiva and karma is difficult to be determined, because if the soul gets sufficient strength due to the maturity of its activity and duration of karma, the activity of soul becomes predominent, and the karma is subordinated. But if the karma becomes stronger the soul's activity becomes subjected to kārmic particles. Therefore, in some cases soul predominates and in some others, karma predominates.
The mechanism of the operation of the karma may be considered as of two types:
1 Daśāśrutaskandha 6
2 Viseşāvasyaka bhāṣya 1, 3.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
