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THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
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ciation, the fourth and the fifth at impressing the soul, by referring to the lives of the Holy Ones, with the fact of its own divinity, and the last at the correction of the error of the body being taken for the mar, as well as at the subjugation of 'flesh.' Prayer, as it is understood in deistic theology, it will be seen, is incapable of achieving any of the happy results which flow from the observance of the sâmâyika meditation ; for prayer is not connected with the goal in view by any such thing as a chain of causes and effects which alone can be relied upon for securing an object of desire. In the following table we give the analysis of the modern idea of prayer as well as that of sámáyika, side by side, for facility of comparison.
Prayer.
Sámáyika,
Begging for forgiveness of
sins and other boons from another.
Exerting oneself to avoid sin
ning, by repenting for those already committed, and by rew solving not to commit others
in the future. Renunciation of likes and dis
likes, which is the cause of mental equanimity and leads to blissfulness of being.
2
Praise of a wrathful creator, 13 Praise of Tîrthamkaras, who have jealous of his unity, by one
attained to the status of perwho can never aspire to
fection by their own exertion, becoming his equal.
Devotion to one particular Tîr
thamkara whose biography is to be taken as furnishing ingpiration for our own soul, the Perfect One having risen to the status of Divinity from the ordinary position of a sinful soul.
Correcting the prevalent error of
the body being taken for the man, and the conquest of flesh,'
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