Dr. N.L. Kachhara
The karman vargana constitutes the karma body, containing various types of karma. Karma infects and defiles all worldly organisms and veils, vitiates or obstructs the natural qualities of a pure soul. There are eight primary types of karma.
- Knowledge obscuring (Jnanavarna) karma obscures the pure and perfect knowledge.
- Intuition obscuring (Darshanavarna) karma obscures the pure and perfect intuition.
- Bliss obscuring (or Feeling producing) (Vedniya) karma holds up the self - generated bliss and produces the feelings of pleasures and pain, joy and grief (in worldly life).
- Deluding (Mohaniya) karma produces delusion - metaphysical and ethical and: (a) prevents the innate ability of belief in truth, (b) destroys equanimity of conduct.
- Energy obstructing (Antaraya) karma obstructs / suppresses the spiritual energy and vitality.
- Life span determining (Ayuasya) karma determines the biological species as well as their life span.
- Form producing (Nama) karma determines the features of body, diversities and individual morphological traits.
- Status or Inheritance determining (Gotra) karma determines the status of parents or inheritance.
Each of these primary types is divided into several sub-types. The total number of sub-types is 148.
The eight types of karma are divided into two categories
- Psychical (ghatin) karma. These karmas obstruct the natural abilities of the soul. 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th types of karma fall in this category.
- Physiological (aghatin) karma. This karma does not obstruct the natural abilities of the soul but compels it to have an embodied existence. The 3rd, 6th, 7th and 8th types of karma belong to this category.
A living being is engaged in some kind of activity, may it be through body, speech or mind or some combination of these. These actions and accompanying passions induce vibrations in the soul. The nature of vibrations depends on the type of action and the magnitude of vibration depends on the intensity of passion. Two things happen due to vibrations in the soul. First, the karma body also vibrates because of resonance. Second, the vibrating soul attracts karman vargana from the surroundings. The karman vargana bonding with the soul become part of karma body and are called karma. This karma carries the impression of the source action.
There are four kinds of karma bonds.
- Numerical strength of bond (Pradesa bandh). The pradesa bond means the number of karman vargana binding with each soul pradesa. The bonding is uniform over all pradesas. Numerable, innumerable or infinite number of karman vargana may bond with each pradesa depending on the strength of action.
- Nature of karma bond (Prakriti bandh). This determines the type of karma (one or more) bonding with the soul.
- Duration of bond (Stithi bandh). This determines the duration of time for which the karma remains attached to the soul. The total duration consists of two parts, the passive and active duration. In the passive period the karma remains dormant and shows no effect on the soul. In the active period the soul experiences the prescribed effect of karma. The duration of the passive period is fixed at the time of bonding, lesser is the strength of passion smaller is the duration. The actives period is much small as compared to the passive period. After the end of active period the karma separates from the karma body and migrates to the surroundings in the form of karman vargana.
- Intensity of bond (Anubhag bandh). This determines the intensity of experience, good or bad, the soul enjoys when the karma becomes active. This is also decided at the time of bonding. A strong passion binds high intensity karma and vice versa.
The numerical strength of the bond and nature of karma are determined by yoga, the activities of mind, speech and body, and the duration and intensity of bond depend on the passions of the soul that cause bonding.
The soul under the influence of passions and yoga experiences vibrations. These vibrations induce vibrations in the karma body, which are typical of the karma active at that instant. These vibrations produced by active karma are known as adhyavasaya. The adhayavasaya waves interact with the luminous body and brain. On interaction with luminous body the adhayavasaya are converted into another kind of vibrations called lesya. The lesyas interact with endocrine glands and regulate the secretion of hormones. The hormones mix with blood and reach the nervous system and the brain that manages and controls our emotions, thoughts, speech, conduct and behaviour. Thus, karma acting through lesya and hormones determine our personality and traits.
Lesya provide connection between the subtle body and the physical body. They act in both directions. They pick up the signals from the soul through adhyavasaya and produce our feelings and through it transmit the message to the mind and body. On the other hand what mind, speech and body perform is communicated by lesya to the karma body. Adhyavasaya are present in all organisms, vertebrates only possess the mind. The adhyavasaya perform the function of mind in invertebrates. Some of the adhyavasaya bypass the luminous body and directly enter the brain producing an imprint of all our past memories and impressions.
Scientists have established that all living systems emit a weak light current of some photons. The intensity of this ultra weak light is nearly equal to intensity of light received from a candle placed at a distance of 10 kilometer. This light, called "bio photons", is supposed to regulate the whole biochemistry and biology of life. Scientists believe that molecules have no intelligence, despite the manifold impressive functions that have been assigned to them. Even the enzymes or messenger molecules have to be triggered by external energy i.e. photons which activate the diversion transition state complexes. These activation energies cover the whole electromagnetic spectrum. The non-thermal bio photons provide the right quantum energies at the right place and right time for the millions of reactions taking place per second per cell.
The bio photon emission is indicative of an endogenous, innate, electromagnetic field pervading the entire organism, which may act as both sender and receiver of the bio photon that are "electromagnetic bio-information" used in regulating life processes. This observation, among others, suggests control within the living state and is non-local and possibly electromagnetic in nature. Many significant correlations between features of the weak biological light and a number of fundamental biological processes, such as cell division, death, and major shifts in metabolism, exist. These correlations may indicate that the light (electromagnetic field of the organism) is a sensitive global expression of biological regulating processes.
We have two important discoveries coming from two different sources. One, the Jain philosophy says that there is a karma body in every organism, the emissions from this body in the form of adhyavasaya and lesya control and regulate the mind, body, speech and behaviour of organisms. The second, science indicates that every organism has a coherent electro magnetic field; the emissions from which regulate life processes. We clearly see the equivalence between the karma body and the coherent electromagnetic field present in organisms. We are, therefore, compelled to believe that the karma body is the coherent electromagnetic field the scientist's have discovered. The scientists do not know why such a electromagnetic field exists in organisms but Jain philosophy provides the answer. It is now easy to understand the source of intelligence in bio photons. The intelligence comes from the soul, which is the ultimate source of adhyavasaya. Being coherent electromagnetic field the karma body is very powerful and can store immense amount of information for very long time, up to thousands of years.
It is interesting to compare the functions of body determining karma and genes. A close examination shows that the genes are performing almost the same functions, which are assigned to various bodies determining karma. For example, the decisions like type of body, skeleton structure, pigment in body skin, fully developed or deficient body, morphology of body, etc are features common to both. The genes carry all the instructions for making proteins. Only a part of the total DNA code is used at any particular location, to produce a cell suitable to that location. Who regulates the set of instructions to be followed? According to Jaina doctrine the karma body makes such decisions. The body determining karma contains the information required for constructing the body and body parts of any species. The feeling producing karmas are probably instrumental in producing faulty genes that develop various diseases and produce pain in the body. Division of cells determines the growth and maintenance of body. Scientists do not know the definite reason for cell division. According to Jainas the life span determining karma and some body making karma must be responsible for division of cells. The process of inheritance is based upon the process in which the offspring receives one of each gene pair from each parent. According to Jainas the status determining karma decides the status and traits of the parents an organism inherits, in other words the heredity. Thus we find that the physiological karma operate at the level of genes. Recently a gene affecting the faith of a person has also been found. It implies that some psychical karma may also influence the genes. The psychical karma appears to be related to lesya, which produce our feelings that cause the endocrine glands to secrete hormones and control the body functions.
We now explain the bondage of karma. Under the action of yoga and passions the soul and hence the karma body vibrates. The frequency of vibration depends on the actions and passion; different types of actions and passions induce different frequencies. When the karma body vibrates at a particular frequency, the karman vargana of the same frequency are attracted and attach themselves with the existing karma of the same type. The bonded karma forms plasma like structure that assumes the shape of the physical body: The passion is the binding force between the old and new karma. The number of vargana bonding at any instant depends on the action; stronger the action larger is the number of vargana bonding on each soul pradesa. The duration and intensity of bond are determined by strength and type of passion. Bonding of vargana of different frequencies (that is different types of karma) takes place with any soul pradesa at any instant.
The shedding of karma from the karma body is a reverse process. On the expiry of passive time period, or on account of some initiative taken by the individual, vibrations specific to karma to be shed originate. The vibrations of specific frequency activate the respective karma, which shed uniformly and simultaneously from all soul pradesa depending on the intensity of action and passion. Strong passion shed more vargana resulting in intense experience by the soul. As infinite number of karman vargana bond for any karma the process of shedding continues for some time called the active period of karma. The shed karma as adhyavasaya interact with the luminous body and produce lesya waves in case of obstructing karma or produce bio photons in case of nonobstructing karma. In either case the organism experiences the outcome of the shed karma.
According to Jain philosophy the merit, good deeds, of an individual are light, and the demerit, bad deeds, are heavy. This implies that merit karma and demerit karma are made from different kinds of vargana. It appears that merit karmas are made from negative karman vargana and demerit karma are made from positive karman vargana. It is believed that a soul earning merit goes to heaven and a soul earning demerit goes to hell. This means that a soul having karma made up of negative karman vargana travels to heaven and the soul having karma made up of positive karman vargana travels to hell. Therefore, the lands in heaven must be such that they allow entry to souls having negative karman vargana and the lands in hell allow entry to souls having positive karman vargana. A soul having a mix of merit and demerit is reborn in middle loka. This leads us to believe that the lands in heaven (upper loka), hell (lower loka) and the middle loka (like Earth) should be of different character.
