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SUTRAS
ATTRACTION TO KARMA
65
As soon as this attitude weakens (i.e. when we dissolved the corresponding karma and do not manifest further emotional attachment to this region), opportunities will arise that enable the departure from these areas.
It is important to understand that this denotes no (religious) concept of 'hell' in the sense of 'punishment' or 'eternal damnation', but a mechanism that positions us in exactly those conditions of life that are ideally suited for our desires and the abilities we want to manifest. It is an optional path that everyone defines by his own behavior in the present.
3 - human beings 4 - animals and plants.
For someone raised in the Western cultural environment this division - and specially the first two classes - may promptly be relegated to the area of religious fable or to a rather simpleminded higher instance of merit and punishment.
Yet this type of mystical context is not meant by the Tattvarthasutra. The statement refers to the comprehensive classification of life-forms that is described in great detail in the second, third and fourth chapter of the Tattvarthasutra.
Western science - which presently influences most of our concepts of life - is not interested in these areas, does not examine them and there
fore cannot seriously state anything about them. Jain Education International For Personal & Private Use Only
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