Jaina Philosophy

SR No.: 006901
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Virchand R Gandhi, Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: World Jain Confederation
Publication Year: 2009
Total Pages: 298
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 5 MB

Page 206

Astral Vision
that it must be able to concentrate. Not all people can concentrate. If that were so we would know well this; as a matter of fact they do not know. That is evidence that all have not as yet developed the same faculty or ability to concentrate.
A great writer has said that there are two conditions necessary for concentration. One is called isolation, and the other distribution. Isolation is to be able to separate your consciousness from external things. Distribution is power to apply those powers so acquired to the good of the whole world. A person with the power of isolation, and the faculty of distribution, only can concentrate. Persons who are controlled by greed, jealousy, and such evil tendencies cannot concentrate. In order that a person may not be influenced by the vibrations of the external world, by the confused thoughts of people, the depraved conditions of things in the world, it is necessary that they acquire independence from prejudice.
He must have independence of thought. His thought must not be controlled by the prejudices, and results of false thinking. One who thinks because he was born in certain circumstance, that he is in duty bound to believe in certain dogmas, cannot concentrate. One must be preeminently free, must acquire independence of thought.
Secondly his heart must be completely independent. He must have full liberty. If his heart is controlled by lower emotions, he is then a slave to those emotions. Liberty means perfect freedom. Thirdly his senses must not be controlled by temporal or sensuous enjoyments. He will not cease to-enjoy, but his enjoyments will take on a different nature.
There is a little illustration given in the Hindu scriptures. A person in his enjoyments is like unto a fly. One person may be like a fly sitting on a liquid, which is not sweet. He is drowned in it and it is a death in a putrid, repulsive thing which he has settled
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