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view of modification, the soul is contingent. The ideal soul is formless, indestructible, beyond measure and cannot be known by the senses. It is all-pervasive with respect to the fourfold infinities: faith, knowledge, bliss and energy. The soul can become independent of the body, although due to its characteristics of expansion and contraction the soul pervades the body that it occupies whether large or small. Its fundamental nature and its number of space-points are not affected by such bondage.
The formless soul acquires a body because of its karmic bondage and through this body it takes apparent form. Through its activity in the empirical world it accumulates further karma, unless it progresses on the spiritual path of liberation. When the soul relinquishes one body, it takes with it the subtle luminous and karmic body and forms another body in the next life.
Practically all worldly souls have the same capacity for spiritual development. Yet each one develops in different ways due to the attachment of differing types and quantities of karmic particles, but it has potential of being liberated by self-effort through the process of arresting further karmic attraction, and shedding attached karma.
The soul and modern science Some scientists do not distinguish between mind and soul. They consider mind as an expression of the workings of the brain. Other scientists believe that everything can be explained, including mind and thought, through the operation of physical bodily processes. Jains believe that the mind is both material and non-material, the physiological basis is material and the psychic functions are non-material.
Mental states are not physical. The body influences mental states, but mental states are not physical states, and some scientists have emphasised this qualitative distinction between mental and bodily states. Modern scientists are not clear about the nature and relationship between mind and body; they have not been able to explain psychic states and their relationship to cerebral functioning.
The phenomenal progress of science in the modern age has only been possible because of the functioning of psyche (soul or spirit), which is distinct from the brain, the bodily organ, although the body is a necessary instrument. Science is not clear about how the body, i.e. the brain, generates past impressions or memories.
According to one scientific view, life cannot be produced from inert objects. The life force is real, independent and without a beginning. According to another view, life can be generated from inanimate objects. Marxist theory maintains that the psyche is the qualitative transformation of physical objects, as water is transformed into vapour or ice, so the psyche is produced from changes in physical objects. Marxists have not been able to answer the question: at what stage does consciousness arise and what is its original nature?
Concept of god among Jains
The Jain concept of the ideal soul is associated with goodhood, and Jainism believes in the potential of all to realise it. It does not support the monopoly of godhood by a single Supreme Being or god; hence some Western theologians regard the Jains wrongly as atheists.
Religions have developed concepts of monotheistic or pantheistic gods (with different names in different languages and religions) out of earlier notions of polytheism.
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