Decipher The Unknown via Jainism

Modern science has indeed walked a long way. But I fear mankind may have not even discovered a grain on a sandy beach yet! Today, its hard to believe that when Albert Einstein was working on the Theory of Relativity, science wasn't even aware of life in plants. It was as late as 1901, that Jagadish Chandra Bose proved plants are like any other life form - a concept known to Jainism since time immortal!

Similarly, when we look at our universe, our scientists still grapple with questions like what is the size of our universe? Is it expanding? If it all started with a Big Bang, will there be a Big Crunch re-collapsing us all? The observable universe alone (which is a very miniscule part of the entire universe) is 93 billion light years in diameter! Jain Cosmology explains all the hidden wonders to us, the exact size, dimensions and shape of the universe. Yes, as per Jainism, the universe is indeed finite and has a well defined shape (neither is it circular nor is it flat)! I will dig deeper into this in other blogs,

Our galaxy - The Milky Way as we know it, probably contains 100-400 billion stars. Our Sun being just one of them. And possibly there are more than 2 trillion (2,000,000,000,000) such galaxies! So we are basically talking about almost infinite stars, infinite planets and incomprehensible universe. What's the probability of extra-territorial life? Is there human life anywhere else or are we alone! Jainism again answers all this. There are 15 different planets in this universe where humans who can attain salvation exist. Again, I will go deeper in some of these topics in later blogs.

Is there someone called God, who created this fine world? Not really. Jainism believes there is no God who created the universe as we know it, infact it tells us that each one of us holds the potential to be God like. The 24 Jain Tirthankars, who took birth on this planet in the current time cycle were born as humans and they could elevate themselves to be Gods. Currently in this universe (not our galaxy) there are 20 living Tirthankars or living Gods present in human body. At any given point of time (the concept of time as we understand on our planet Earth. BTW time cycles don't exist on all planets!) there are atleast 20 living Tirthankars present in the universe. The maximum number of Tirthankars that can exists in the universe at any point of time is 170. Infact, during the time of Lord Ajithnath Ji (2nd Tirthankar of current time cycle on Earth) there were indeed 170 of those supreme souls living in human form in the universe. Do you know the names of current living Tirthankars?

Do we have only one life or we take re-birth again? Its is very likely that anyone reading this would have taken thousands of birth before this in various forms of lives. As the Tatvartha Sutra, mentions -The soul,  non-soul, influx, bondage, stoppage, gradual dissociation and liberation constitute reality.


What is true knowledge? Our souls, bound with karmic matter are seeking to go to their original abode.  Right faith, right knowledge, and right conduct (together) constitute the path to liberation


What is the ultimate aim? What is karma? What is sub-conscious mind? What is supreme knowledge? There is infinite knowledge out there for those who are seeking the true meaning of life and the idea behind your birth in this form? There are many such questions I would like to touch upon in subsequent blogs.

My idea of starting this blog is to arouse curiosity, gain knowledge via questions of readers and share some concepts of Jainism with young folks. Concepts which have existed from time immortal and which give us answers to all our queries. Please keep posting comments or sending me questions to dig deeper and write more blogs on. This is to the best of my (limited) knowledge of Jainism and is prone to errors.

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 23, 2020 at 10:38 AM

    "But I fear mankind may have not even discovered a grain on a sandy beach yet"... Does this mean the knowledge attained as per Jainism is not given by humans/mankind. Please clarify

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SJMay 23, 2020 at 9:29 PM

      All the prevalent knowledge has been imparted to us by Lord Mahavir Swami and his Gandhars (initially it was verbal and later many Achrayas wrote books/agams/shastras). However, most of that knowledge unfortunately has been lost. Around 250 BC there was a great famine which lasted for 12 years, lot of knowledge was lost then and later during several invasions in the first millennium many Jain Shastras were burnt/lost.

      The above statement simply indicates that the progress made by modern science in exploration of universe, external world or the spiritual world is like a drop in the Ocean.

      Many learned saints, monks even today have much deeper knowledge but masses either dont care about it or are simply unaware. Masses are largely unaware/lost and progress made by science is tip of the iceberg.

      Delete
  2. Dr Mahendra Kumar JainMay 23, 2020 at 11:29 AM

    Congratulations to writer for writing on concepts of Jainism, knowledge of universe, Tirthankars, God, existence of human being in another planets etc.To compare Jainism in present scientific knowledge is a big challenge in front of writer.Hope writer will use best of his knowledge to give us a vision which is not present in current literature.All the best to writer for his first blog and hope a long series to follow to update us on a very good topic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SJMay 23, 2020 at 9:31 PM

      Enough knowledge is still available in various Jain books, Shastras, Agams and with the Acharyas/Monks (though scanty vs what was imparted to us). Will try best to create awareness and curiosity by writing stuff in simple conversational language for today's folks. Thanks!

      Delete
  3. UnknownMay 23, 2020 at 11:41 AM

    Well done , writing on such a topic is a challenge for writer.It appears that writer has a vast knowledge upon such a complicated topic of Jainism.lwant to clarify about existence of God as other religions still believe presence of God .Please clarify your stand about Aatma n Parmatma .Hope series of nice blogs to follow.congratulations

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SJMay 23, 2020 at 11:26 PM

      have addressed some of your queries in the next blog. https://jainsamvaad.blogspot.com/2020/05/soul-aatma-supreme-parmaatma-and-forms.html

      Delete

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