Harmless Soul

SR No.: 001196
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: W J Johnson, Dayanand Bhargav
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
Publication Year: 1995
Total Pages: 372
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Principle
File Size: 20 MB

Page 220

206 Harmless Souls impure only the impure self is attained'.74 Moreover, commenting on the previous gāthā [2:97], Amstacandra has already associated this emphasis on the impure with the vyavahāra view of the self, i.e. with the point of view that the self is and can be contaminated by paradravya.75 So for Amstacandra, at least, when it comes to the question of liberation, the vyavahāra view is not simply a theoretical construct - a partial view, or the truth at one particular level - it is actually instrumental in further bondage: to believe that the soul can be connected with and thus contaminated by paradravya is to bring about that very contamination. 76 And the self which does not cease to identify with other substances is characterised as one 'whose delusion is produced by the vyavahāra-naya'.77
'From the point of view of the pure', however, 'only the pure self is attained'.78 The person who meditates on the niścaya view - that there is no connection between the pure self and paradravya - actually becomes that pure self, i.e. he is liberated. So, according to this, it is a mental act - meditation - including or allied to another mental act - a particular kind of knowledge about the (non-)relation of the pure self to matter - which is instrumental in liberating the jiva. External means and the various kinds of material karman are disregarded. This technique is exemplified by Pravacanasāra 2:99;
He who meditates in concentration, thinking 'I am not others' and they are not mine; I am one (with) knowledge', comes to be a meditator on the (pure) self.
74 aśuddhanayād aśuddhātmalābha eva - TD, intro. to 2:98.
75 See TD on 2:97: aśuddhadyotako vyavahäranayaḥ - the conventional view which explains the impure'.
76 Although, at the theoretical level, the TD on 2:97 holds to the idea that both views are 'correct': ubhāv apy etau stah. śuddhāśuddhatvenobhayathā dravyasya pratīyamānatvāt.
77 vyavahāranayopajanitamohaḥ - TD on 2:98. 78 suddhanayād eva śuddhātmalābhaḥ - TD on Pravac. 2:99.