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and the like. Evil karmas lead to ignorance, because perfect knowledge depends on the purity of the Self which is all-knowing, so that when it is covered over with impurities, like a candle put under a bushel, the light of its wisdom is necessarily obstructed. Moreover, the impetuous activity of will in the pursuit of desires, acts as an obstruction to knowledge, just as the disturbed state of the water of a lake prevents the things lying at its bottom from being clearly perceived. Swayed by passion we become unreasonable, and often do things which we repent of in calmer moments. But, since passions only arise from desires, which are, in their final analysis, reducible to love and hate, i.e., attachment (råga) and aversion (dvesha), attachment and aversion are the true causes of ignorance. Hence, the nourishing of these two arch-enemies of the soul is the cause of its bondage. The Jaina Scripture, therefore, points out that he who would attain liberation must not only give up sense-gratification, but also the very desire for it. The evil lies to a much greater extent in the entertainment of desire than in the actual indulgence of the senses. Hence, he who looks after a woman with lust is not less 'guilty' than he who has carnal knowledge of her.
It is to be remembered that the soul, as the enjoyer, is the subject, and matter, the object of enjoyment. Hence, the relation between the pleasure-extracting capacities of the soul and the qualities of matter, that is, colour, taste, smell, and the like, is that of subject and object, ie, the male and female principles. As the male opens his arms to embrace the female, so does the soul give up its rhythm of intension and expand out,
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