Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 224

THE FALL,
203
one at a time. The cherubim apparently stand for, and represent, sense attractions. It is, thus, the Manas and the attractions of the world which are mounting guard over the priceless Tree of Life. Immortality is the reward of him who overpowers them both, and reaches the Life-giving Tree.
ment. They us after the are only differen
tive function to that in which we happen to be the most interested for the time being. It follows from this that our interests alone determine the functioning of perception, and prevent us from being all-knowing.
We have said that attention signifies interest, but interest itself is nothing other than desire, since we are only interested in things which we have a desire to acquire or enjoy, or which we wish to avoid. The force of desire, then, is what is meant by attention, i.e. munas
It is also easy to see that desires are only different kinds of forces, since they drag us after their objects-often against our better judgment. They cannot be immaterial altogether, for the conception of a non-entity operating on the soul, and dragging it in certain directions, thus, crippling its perception and narrowing down its field of knowledge, a self-contradictory idea. It is as if the soul were possessed of a perceiving instrument, or rod-a kind of psychic monocle-to survey the world with. This mental monocle is the manas; and, since it is only the sharp end of desires, its material shape may be likened to a pencil of rays, thinned and sharpened into a point. Attention, then, signifies the current of different kinds of forces of desire, brought to a point and focussed on the object of enquiry. For this reason it is that it has been described as a serpent in the book of Genesis. Hence, he who would acquire omniscience must curb down his desires, so that his soul may put aside its knowledge-obstructing instrument of perception of which it is enamoured at present.
* The cheruliam, who are to be distinguished by their knowledge from seraphs whose distinctive quality is love, probably represent the discriminative knowledge of good and evil of things, and are thus symbolical of sense-attractions.