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CHAPTER 19
HOW TO BE RID OF MATTER?
The Jaina teaching is that matter flows on or into the soul through the agency of bodily desires and appetites. If the soul were to eradicate all its desires and appetites and cravings it will be speedily rid of matter, as has been repeatedly demonstrated in the case of those who have attained Nirvana. But all kinds of bodily desires have to be given up; partial eradication of the enemy will be useful as leading to a reincarnation in one of the heavens; but Nirvana cannot be attained without a complete elimination of every thought and longing that is not centered in the soul itself but in the other-than-itself. Desires intensified assume the form and proportions of passionsanger, pride, deceit and to replace these internal agitations with tranquillity and greed—which are of different degrees of intensity, and prey upon the divine soul as if they were so many demons, setting up a kind of fever internally. All desires and appetites are really only so many different kinds of agitations from which the soul is suffering: the aim is to replace these internal agitations with tranquillity and peace, so that the inherent joy of the substance of the soul may manifest itself in its ever-exhilarating fulness.
The work to be done consists in the acquisition of the Right Faith which is necessary to sustain Right Effort. Right Knowledge is then to be enlisted to supplement the action of Faith; and Right Conduct should be induced as arduously as possible. It is a case of
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