The Soul-Essence

There is a wall of distinction between the soul and the non-soul, between the living and the non-living. The living now, as ever, possesses consciousness original: "chetana" and attention original: "Upayoga". Only the living possesses this. Nothing else can be or is conscious, nor is anything else capable of attention. The non-living never possessed this "soul-essence"; it never can and never shall possess consciousness. It shall never have the capacity to attend to anything, and it shall never have knowledge of anything. It cannot know. Knowledge original: "Jnana" is not its strength and never can be.

This is the primary distinction between the living and the non-living. Ignorance of this fact is the fertile source of many errors in philosophy and metaphysics. The great teachers of Jainism insist upon this distinction in very clear, persistent, and unmistakable language. They emphasize with ceaseless repetition that the pupil, the disciple, and the earnest seeker after truth must have a firm, unfaltering, and secure grasp of this basic fact of the universe: that the living and the non-living substances completely exhaust the universe, creating a perfect division of it into two parts original: "dichotomy". The living is the living and never anything else, and the non-living is itself and never living.

This lesson was taught in the great, soul-purifying verses original: "Gathas" of the Samayasara original: "Samaya-Saraji" by Shri Kunda Kunda Acharya in the first century B.C.

The Samayasara is full of the single idea of a concentrated divine unity. It is as persistent and emphatic about the soul’s identity with itself being the only living conscious reality as pure Islam original: "Mahomedanism" is about the oneness of God original: "Vahdaniyata", or as Monistic Vedantism is about the Supreme Reality original: "Para-Brahma". This is the only idea that counts. All truth, goodness, beauty, reality, morality, and freedom are found in this. The self, and it alone, is true, good, lovely, real, and moral. The non-self is error, myth, delusion original: "mithyatva", ugly, deceptive, a detractor from and obscurer of reality, and immoral. It is worthy of being shunned and renounced as a form of bondage and as the opposite of liberation. This almighty, all-comprehensive claim of self-absorption must be perfectly and completely grasped for any measure of success in understanding Shri Kunda Kunda Acharya’s works—indeed, for the true understanding of Jainism. There are few works, if any, still in existence regarding Jainism as it was organized in ancient times by the apostles and the "All-Knowing Ones" original: "Omniscients" after Lord Mahavira; and with the doubtful exception—