The Jaina Doctrine of Karma And The Science Of Genetics: ▪ Survival of Organism

One of the fundamental characteristics common to all living beings without exception is the desire of survival. Every organism achieves it with efficiency. The apparatus which is perfectly adopted for this purpose is supplied by nāma karma and āyuṣya karma which provide suitable reference standards or saṁjñās (unlearned instincts) for every category of organism. In human the pattern of nerve cells of the hypothalamus of the brain are the physical embodiments of fundamental standards. The pattern of human actions are set originally during embryonic development under the control of DNA which in itself is partly inherited and partly karmic.

Their reference standards are the primal drives or the unlearned instincts. Throughout life, they generate wants and desires, influence hunger and satiety, longings and satisfactions, love and hates, revulsions and fears. Of course these are not the only or even the main influences and one does not follow only the hypothalamus. In human life, the standards include many further subtleties derived from learning and culture. In all cultures, the most primitive to the most sophisticated, people are continually to face situations where they must choose what to do. What to say, what to ask for, what to buy, what to give and so on. Of course their choices depend upon all sorts of individual needs, and cultural influences. Thousands of other equally powerful influences, not necessarily instinctual but learned, interact with the primal drives. They may reinforce countermind a primal drives, for example a non-vegetarian would be delighted when served with, say, a well cooked lobster dinner. On the other hand, a born vegetarian would find the very sight so repulsive that he may throw up. In either case is the lobster responsible for the result but learned emotional feelings. But all of these are subordinate to a fundamental method of acting that is embodied in the programs of the brain.^[11]