Jaina Doctrine Of Karma: A Religio-Scientific Analysis of Body Functions

We learned about the Karma body and Tejas body and briefly reviewed the subjects concerning theTejas body and physical body that are important to understand the functioning of our body system. The concept of Karma body, singular to Jaina system of thoughts, has been described in sufficient detail for our purpose. The details of Tejas body are not available in Jaina literature. The information derived from Vedic school of thought, psychology and science help us in understanding the structure and functioning of Tejas body. The Jaina philosophy assigns the following functions to Tejas body as described earlier:

• Management of the body systems
• Support and control of body system functions

It is also stated that the Tejas body is electric body made up of tejas vargana. The Vedic description of subtle body made up of five Koshas and the psychological concepts of energy bodies are in close agreement with the Jaina views but they also provide further insight into the structure of the Tejas body. All three schools of thought are referring to electrical nature of the body having similar functions so it can be assumed, without any peril to the Jaina viewpoint, that the five Koshas or the energy bodies are the Tejas body of Jainas. Barbara Ann Brennan says that the energy bodies are made up of light beams and a plasma like substance. The light is electromagnetic waves and the plasma consists of electrically charged particles. Thus effectively the energy bodies comprise of electromagnetic fields. Hence we arrive at the conclusion that Tejas body is electromagnetic in nature.

In support of the above conclusion we quote here the investigations carried out by a South African doctor and an engineer of London in 1930s:

"Intricate apparatus was designed and built by the engineer and the experiments started. Animals were used first. Their apparatus proved that animals were born with a definite electric charge. They were able to record and tabulate this energy. They found that the more intelligent animals had a higher charge then the lower forms. At the moment of death the charge disappeared. In the animal experiment the records showed that the charge remained more or less the same throughout life except when the animal was breeding."

"In the case of human beings they found that the babies were born with a definite charge. After death the charge vanished. An average charge, they found, was 500 volts. As the subject grew older the charge increased not with age, but according to the type of character the subject was developing. In coarse animal natures the charge remains low and in cases of mental disease and lunacy the charge dropped. They found that male babies had a higher charge at birth than female babies, but that the female could catch up and pass the male according to the various characteristics shown."

One important finding of these investigations is that all organisms are born with a definite electric charge and this charge vanishes after death. The investigators did not know the reason of this fact, but according to Jaina view the reason is clear. The organisms are born with a Tejas body, which departs from the physical body on death. It is the Tejas body that carries the charge.

Another important finding is that the amount of charge on the body depends on intelligence of the organism and it increases with intelligence. We know that the Tejas body consisting of energy bodies contains the vital energy, thought, emotions, and experiences etc, which are in the form of plasma structures. The power and intensity of such structures ought to increase with intelligence implying a higher charge. This explains why charge increases with intelligence of the organism. In case of human beings as the mental and spiritual power grows with advancements the Tejas body becomes stronger and the charge increases. When a mental disease or lunacy occupies a person a decrease in charge is clearly understood. The state of the Tejas body is thus a measure of mental and spiritual development of a person. The charge can be very high on the bodies of yogi’s, particularly at the time of meditation, so much so that it can give shock to a common person.

We know that the Karma body and Tejas body are always attached to the soul and they never separate out until liberation is attained. What is the reason that these two bodies always hold on together? On death of a being the physical body is discarded and the soul migrates with Karma body and Tejas body to take next birth. During this transition period the two bodies remain united. This is possible when both the bodies are of electromagnetic character. We, therefore, infer that the Karma body is also of electromagnetic nature. However, the electromagnetic fields of the two bodies must be different in order to maintain their separate identities. The validity of this inference is supported by the fact that we do have different electromagnetic fields in our body. Scientists have reasoned out that biophotons are emitted by a coherent electromagnetic field which is different from the electromagnetic field of solar radiations. Thus we conjecture that there are three different types of electromagnetic fields one for the Karma body, second for the Tejas body and the third emitting the bio photons. We shall see later that perhaps the first and the third fields are the same.

One may question how electromagnetic field can have a body form. The scientific evidence suggests that this is possible. A group of Spanish scientists doing studies on computer simulation have claimed that light can be transformed into a fluid like substance. The scientists of University of Vigo were studying the properties of light pulse on computer. By application of high energy laser the light pulse became very dense. They observed a surface tension like property in the dense light pulse. When they put these pulses on another surface small droplets were formed. One of the scientists of the group is confident that he shall be able to confirm these findings in the laboratory. He thinks that information can be stored easily and safely on the droplets formed by dense pulses and this fact can be used to produce next generation computers. So the electromagnetic light pulses can not only form a body shape, they can also store information. This is what precisely happens in a Karma body.

We now consider how the Tejas body is performing the functions assigned to it. The foregoing description shows that there are three primary systems which help Tejas body in management, support and control of functions:

1. The energy bodies receive prana energy through breathing. The etheric body supplies this energy to various parts and organs of the physical body. The astral body contains our feelings and the mental body contains our thoughts. The feelings and thoughts are the instruments for the management of the body system. The spiritual body is the storehouse of our experiences and controls our behavior and the decision making process.
2. The Chakras are the distribution centres from where the prana energy is supplied to the Nadi system. The Chakras spinning at different speeds also work as oscillators and draw in higher dimensional energy from space. The Chakras closely work with the endocrine glands and influence the secretions which control the body functions.
3. The Nadis are the distribution channels for prana energy. There is a very elaborate network of Nadis which takes the prana energy to every cell of the body.

It is clear from above that the energy bodies, the Chakras and the Nadis jointly discharge the functions of Tejas body. The existence of Chakras and the Nadis is linked to the physical body. In the transition period between death and next birth only energy bodies accompany the soul. The Chakras and Nadis appear again when the soul forms the next body. Let us now consider the emission and working of bio photons. On close examination we find that many features are common between adhyvasaya waves and biophotons.

Table 3: Comparison Between Adhyasaya and Bio photos

It is clear from the comparison that there is a great similarity between adhyvasaya and bio photons. It can therefore be assumed that the coherent magnetic field emitting bio photon is also similar to the Karma body. We had earlier conjectured that the Karma body is electromagnetic in nature. Now it is evident that Karma body is, in fact, comprised of coherent electromagnetic field. This assumption is further validated by the fact that the bondage and vipak of Karma over all soul pradesa take place simultaneously. The adhyvasaya waves therefore always have a constant phase relationship and are coherent. The scientists are perhaps not sure why the bio photon light is coherent but the Jaina doctrine clearly explains the reasons for this coherence. It is now easy to understand what is 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 a very large amount of imformation, almost infinite, for thousands of years or more.

We now compare the functions of Naam Karma and genes. A close examiation shows that the genes are performing almost the same functions which are assigned to various Naam Karma. For example, the decisions like type of body of the organisms, making of body components, organs and parts, form of body, skelton structure, pigment of body skin, fully developed or deficient body, morphology of body, etc are common features to both. In fact, the Naam Karma gives a comprehensive account of how different species having varying personal body features and traits are formed. The genetic science on the other hand offers only a limited view of body formation but it is hoped that with the advancement in genetic science more and more knowledge regarding body functions shall be gained and then perhaps it will be discovered that what the modern science with the help of large fleet of highly qualified scientists and most sophisticated technology has found is already available in Jaina scriptures. The only difference is that what exists in the sciptures is in the form of decision formulae and the findings of science offers a detailed description answering questions like what, when, how the processes occur. This is indeed a great credit to science but it should not be construed that it has discovered something new, in fact it is only reconfirming what was said by omniscient Tirthankars.

The genes carry all the instructions for making proteins. Only a part of the total instructions are used at any particular location of the body and a cell suitable to that location is made by the genes. Who makes this selection of the set of instructions to be employed? According to Jaina doctrine such decisions are assigned to the Karma body. The body-making Karma contains the information required for constructing a body for any particular specie and all the body parts of that specie. The feeling-producing Karma are perhaps instrumental in producing faulty genes which develop various disease and pain in the body. Division of cells keeps our body alive. Scientists do not know the definite reason for this division. According to Jainas the life-span Karma determine the life span and therefore these Karma must be responsible for division of cells. Thus it is seen that all aghatin Karma operate at the level of genes and take part in the construction, maintenance, operation and control of body parts and body functions. Recently a gene has also been found to be connected with the faith of a person. It means that some ghatin Karma also influence genes. As noted earlier these Karma form the coherent electromagnetic field which emit bio photon of different frequency and the bio photons control the chemical and biological activities of the cell and so the body functions.

We consider now the process of bonding of karma. Knowing the electromagnetic character of the Karma body it is justified to assume that the Karma varganas are also electromagnetic. Like sunlight Karma vargana are present in the entire space and they also have a spectrum. The bondage of Karma vargana with the Karma body is now explained. Under the action of yoga and passion the soul and hence the Karma body vibrates. The frequency of vibration depends on the passion, different types of passions induce different frequencies. When the Karma body vibrates at a particular frequency the Karma varganas of the same frequency are attracted and attach themselves with the existing Karma of the same character. The Karma varganas are assumed to be electromagnetic waves but the bonded Karma perhaps form a plasma like structure resembling the shape of the physical body. That is, the Karma varganas transform from wave nature to particle nature, just like sunlight, when Karma is formed. The passion is the binding force between the old and new Karma. The Karma differ by frequency and thus a large types of Karma can be formed. The number of vargana bonding at a time depends on the degree of passion, stronger the passion larger is the number of vargana bonding with each soul pradesa. Varganas of different frequencies and hence different types of Karma bond with any soul pradesa at different times. The bonding is uniform over all soul predesa. The bonded Karma remain in passive mode for a given period of time as said earlier.

The shedding of Karma from the Karma body is a reverse process. On the expiry of passive time period or on account of initiative taken by the individual vibrations specific to the Karma to be shed take place in the soul. These vibrations having specific frequency activate the respective Karma which transforms its state from particle (or plasma) mode to wave mode. The Karma are shed uniformly and simultaneously over all soul predasa. These Karma waves interact with Tejas body to produce lesya waves in case of ghatins Karma or produce bio photons, which operate at DNA and cell level, in case of aghatin Karma. In either case the organism experiences the outcome of the shed Karma. The number of Karma varganas shedding from each soul pradesa at any time depends on the intensity of passion. Strong passion shed large number of Karma varganas resulting in intense experience by the soul, weak passions lead to light experience. As ininite number of Karma varganas bond for any given Karma the process of shedding continues for a certain time called the active period of Karma.

We had seen earlier that the energy bodies have specific roles and harbour our thoughts, feelings, experiences, etc. These functions are also assigned to ghatin Karma, which produce lesya waves in our body. The lesya produce our feelings that cause the endocrine glands to secrete hormones that control the body functions. The ghatin Karma thus have a relationship with lesya. The lesya are present till the attainment of thirteenth stage of development of the soul. All ghatin Karma are destroyed when the soul enters the thirteenth stage. At this stage the soul becomes Arihanta. The aghatin Karma related to the physical body continues to exist till the fourteenth, and the last, stage of development after which the soul is liberated.

A simple model of human body is now constructed as shown in Fig. 3 based on above findings. The human body is a superposition of three bodies, the karma body, the Tejas body and the physical body. The soul pervades the entire space of the body. We know that the soul is non-physical, immortal and indestructible. The Karma body comprises of coherent electromagnetic field formed by Karma varganas. The Tejas body contains electromagnetic plasma energy and comprises of tejas vargana.

FIG. 3. Schematic Model Of Human Body

The physical body consists of cells that contain DNA, proteins, other chemicals and bioelectricity. The soul possesses consciousness, knowledge, intelligence, perception and bliss. The Karma body stores records of actions and decisions, memory and samskaras of all past lives. The tejas body controls, regulates and manages the functions of the physical body by its electromagnetic field. The physical body contains sense organs, brain, nervous system, endocrine glands, bones, muscles, blood and other parts and organs required for physical functioning. The soul manifests in all the three bodies, where the consciousness can be felt. The karma body obscures the innate ability of the soul and limits its powers. The vibrations of the soul are converted into adhyvasaya waves bearing the characteristics of the Karma active at that instant in the karma body. The tejas body channelizes the prana and cosmic energy vitalizing the physical body. It also temporarily stores emotions, feelings, thoughts and experiences, which control and regulate the actions of the physical body.

The physical body is the means through which the soul performs actions and interacts with the environment. It appears that in the early period of formation of the body the memory records and samskaras of the past lives are copied on to the brain from the Karma body. This information remains in sub conscious state and cannot be accessed by conscious efforts. However, it participates in our day-to-day working and influences the decisions we make. Other important factors in decision-making are the inputs from the Karma body in the form of adhyvasaya, our emotions, feelings and thoughts residing in the Tejas body, the condition of the physical body and the environmental stimuli received through sense organs. All the inputs are processed by the brain and a final decision for action is taken. The decision taker is the soul.

The advancements in physical and life sciences have enabled scientists to play with the physical body. One significant development is the application of neuro-electromagnetic fields in the brain. Michael A. Persinger, his associates and other scientists have shown that a wide variety of human experiences, including divine, can be generated by applying suitable electromagnetic fields in appropriate locations of the brain. During such experiments only the physical brain is affected but the Karma body, which stores the original memory, is not accessed. All physical changes made by scientists confine to the physical body and do not affect the subtle body. But if such physical changes bring about a change in the thoughts, emotions and perceptions of a person, they can have an indirect influence on the subtle body. The Karma body is beyond the reach of scientists.