Jivas, Karma, and Reincarnation
Jainism is a religion that strongly believes in non violence to all living things. All living things include everything within the earthy realm, so all living things are jivas. Jains believe also in a form of reincarnation into different jivas depended on how you lived your first lived or else called karma. They believe that someone’s soul can fit into another one of the 8.4 other billion jivas regardless of the size. Like our soul can fit into a worm or a flower. The jivas are separated into two categories. One being immobile and single sensed jivas, which includes earth bodied (sand, dirt), water bodied (fog, rain), air bodied (wind), or plant bodied (trees, grass). The other is mobile and multi sensed jivas witch is basically moving organisms including animal’s exc. Karma in this realign is a bit different than in Buddhism and Hinduism. In Jainism you gain different kind of karma based on happiness, body, status, and longevity. You must shed all karma before you can reach liberation above the gods.