Outlines of Jainism

SR No.: 007012
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S Gopalan
Publisher: Wiley Eastern Private Limited New Delhi
Publication Year: 1973
Total Pages: 216
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

Page 195

186
JAINISM
raņa karma is responsible for the individual's repudiating truth and accepting untruth as the gospel. In short, this is the stage of the wrong believer.
Stage 2: Sāsādana-samyagdrșți-guņasthāna : This is the stage when the soul has slightly tasted right belief. The stage is normally considered not as an evolution from the first stage but as a result of a fall from a higher stage. The stage is considered to be a halting stage for those souls which have slipped down from a higher stage, especially from that stage where, after the first enlightenment, passions overtake the soul.
Here it should be emphasized that the Jaina philosophers, very much like the Hindu philosophers, believed that a teacher (guru) initiates the individual on to the tradition. The Jaina philosophers, however, point out that sometimes it happens that the individual gets suddenly awakened to the faith in the tradition. Such cases are explained as cases of the individuals who, though they had received initiation in a previous birth, had failed to follow it and forgotten all about it, and that in a laier birth there is the revival of the memory.
The Jaina philosophers have not failed to notice that there is every likelihood of the individual slipping down the ladder due to intervening passions. In case the individual slips down to the first stage, he has to begin the spiritual ascent afresh.
Stage 3 : Miśra-guņasthāna : This stage represents the oscillating experience of the individual. The oscillation referred to is between right faith and wrong faith. The mind is constantly agitated and it is not able to settle down to complete faith. Even while entering faith, loss of faith occurs, but once again the mind swings back to faith. The stage of conflict naturally cannot last long since the individual makes conscious attempts at getting over the conflictsituation.
Stage 4 : Avirata samyagdrsti gunasthāna : In this stage the mind settles down to entertaining right thoughts and hence right faith. This is a significant stage in spiritual evolution because there is a definite indication that right knowledge and conduct are at least conceptually visualized and there is every possibility of the individual putting nis theory of truth and conduct into practice.
In this stage, even though right faith is entertained, the individual becomes unrestrained in regard to his sense organs. The reason