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śramaņa, Vol 59, No. 3/July-September 2008
of Karma, as expounded exhaustively in the Jaina Scriptures. They state, it is true, that the soul is indeed constantly under the control of Karma, that its body and its sufferings and joys are indeed shaped by Karma, and that even those passions that shake it, and all the fatal instincts that arise in it, are predestined by Karma: but, on the other hand, they most emphatically declare that the soul is endowed with the power of breaking, by its free resolution and activity, the most obnoxious of the fetters of this very Karma, of destroying its own evil dispositions, and of suffocating the flames of all the various kinds of passion, before they can overpower it. That means nothing else but that the first and essential step towards religious activity, is a pronounced act of free volition, and that the soul is indeed, to a considerable extent, the lord of its own fate.
Thus, Jainism does not tropify its followers by the terrors of Karma, nor does it make them languish in unhealthy, effeminate fatalism, as many people think all oriental religions do : but on the contrary, it trains the individual to become a true hero on the battlefield of self-conquest.
For it does presuppose a great deal of heroism on the part of the hearer, to make him fully realize the cruel irony of this play of life, viz., how they all strive after happiness by all means of physical and mental activity, from eating, drinking, sleeping, dressing, up to sport and play, traffic and trade, art and science, how they strive after happiness at any cost, even at the cost of the well-being of others, to reach, alas, just the contrary, viz, the binding of undesirable Karma, and therewith latent sorrow and suffering! to make him realize all this, and to make him know that he cannot even quietly sit and breathe without killing and harming life round about, killing and harming-brother-souls, and adding thereby to the stock of his own misfortunes! to make him aware of it and still encourage him to take up the desperate struggle against this world of dark facts within and about him!
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