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Vol. XVII, No. 4
121
2. Neuro-science & Karma: the Jain Doctrine of Psycho-physical Force: Authors: J.S. Zaveri & Muni Mahendra Kumar; Publishers : Jain Vishva Bharti Institute, Ladnun; First Edition, 1992. Price : Rs. 100! - Pages 123+38.
Science has made tremendous progress during the last hundred years in the fields of Psychology, Endocrinology and Neuroscience. Neuroscientists have carefully mapped out centres of pain and pleasures and they have identified the limbic system in the brain which is the seat of our emotions.
Through the centuries the surveyors of brain have charted every cerebral hill and valley. They have determined that the skull houses not one brain but two--a matched pair, the two hemispheres which communicate through the corpus callosum deep within the cerebral divide.
The limbic system works with both the cerebrum above and the brainstem below, while connections of the limbic system with the cerebrum permit an interplay between reason and emotion, those with the brainstem help in maintaining a state of emotional balance and alertness. Generally, both of them work in harmony, but the balance can be easily upset.
The discovery of the centres of anger and aggression by electric stimulation has clarified hitherto mysterious significance of selfgenerated anger in canonical literature. Jain agamas teach us that the passion quartet-anger, arrogance, deceit and greed-are selfgenerated or provoked by others or generated due to the fruition of a specific karman. : Neuro science has established that there are centres of anger as well as peace in our limbic system. Dr. Jose Delgado's experiments with ESB (Electric Stimulation of Brain) has revealed that an animal (bull) can be made either fighting mad or totally docile by stimula. ting (by remote control) different points of its limbic system. Thus neuroscience not only explains but explands and clarifies what is rather vaguely stated in the ägamas.
Similarly one of the most fundamental principles of the Doctrine of Karman is that every change in the soul synchronizes with a corresponding change in the state of karman and vice versa. The kārmic matter undergoes various processes due to the changes in the states of the soul. By the application and manifestation of the process of a particular type of potency, the soul is able to change the nature, duration, intensity and numerical strength of the 'bonded' karman.
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