What is Jainism

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain

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ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES
instrumentality of an external object, but which is totally different from all objects of knowledge or their reflections in the ordinary sense of the term. Reflection will show that the sense of awareness which we term consciousness is an inner, subjective, psychic state that is best described by the term feeling of awareness, so that my knowledge of a thing is my feeling of awareness of its presence or existence. As such, my consciousness of an object implies the simultaneous awareness of my own being as well as that of the object of my knowledge. This will be clear to any one who has understood the nature of knowledge to consist in a sense or feeling of awareness, for one can but feel one's own being and the states or conditions of that being, as occasioned or modified by the influence of another being or thing. These states or conditions, it should be further noticed, are not pure imaginary abstractions; they inhere in the soul-substance and are actually its modifications. They are felt by the soul as such, and not as something different from or independent of its own being. Hence it is wrong to think that in knowing an object of knowledge the soul is only aware of the object, but not of itself. The fact is that only that which has a concrete existence can be felt by the soul, and as the states of consciousness, that is to say, of the soul-substance, have no existence apart from the soul-substance itself, they can only be felt simultaneously and along with the soul's own being itself.
This is so even with reference to the feelings of pleasure and pain with which all of us are familiar. When I say, 'I am feeling pain,' or 'I feel pleasure,' I do not mean that pleasure and pain are concrete things outside my own being which I have alighted upon in some mysterious way. What I do mean is that I am aware of a state or modification of my being which is pleasant in one case and painful in the other. Pleasure and pain are thus only conditions of my own being and are felt by me as states of my consciousness, that is to say, of the general feeling of awareness which I have of myself. The same is the case with knowledge.
We conclude, then, that spirit is a unique kind of substance which is characterised by consciousness and life. As such, it is the subject of knowledge, and is quite independent of the brain and of the matter of which the brain is composed.