Gandharavada

SR No.: 006739
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Esther A Solomon
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyasabha
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 400
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

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on the soul for an antarmuhūrta (a period less than forty-eight minutes). This is its first vision, its first enlightenment which
emporary and disappears within a very short time. The soul now attempts to recapture the vision and make it a permanent possession. The processes the soul bas to undergo for this are quite analogous to the processes already described with slight variations. The processes are related to the removal of the five conditions of bondage-mithyátva, etc.. The most important activity for spiritual progress, however, is the subduing of the passions which is possible only by the repetition of the three-fold processes of yathāpravșttakarana, apūrvakarana and anivșttikaraņa. Threre are now two ways open for the soul. It may climb up the spiritual ladder by suppressing the passions or it may climb it up by totally annihilating them. The former mode of spiritual progress is known as upaśamaśreņi (ladder of subsidence) and the latter as kşapakaśreņi (ladder of annihilation).
While climbing up the ladder of subsidence, the soul suppresses, by the three-fold processes of yathapravịttakarana, etc. the four life-long (anantānubandhin--first type) passions at the cutset and then the three vision-deluding karmans. The soul then attains such purification az enables it to rise from spiritual inertia. But the progress is not steady. It fluctuates a hundred times between the state of spiritual vigour and the state of spiritual inertia before it reaches the state of steady progress through the repetition of the three processes and begins the gradual suppressicn of the following sub-types of the conductdeluding (căritra-mohaniya) karman-the nine quasi-passions (laughter, addiction, dissatisfaction, bewailing, fear, disgust, hankering after women, hankering after men and hankering after both the sexes); the second (apratyākhyānāyarana — obscuring the energy for even partial abstinence), the third (pratyākhyānāvarana, obscuring only the energy for complete abstinence) and the fourth (saijvalana, fickle and meagre and effective only occasionally) types of anger, of pride, of deceit and the second and third types of greed. Then the soul suppresses the fourth