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connection with the experience of happiness and unhappiness. Since this is intended in a more than psychological sense there was obviously need for a mediating agency which would connect karma with its result which might be separated from it widely in time and space. Brahmanical system tended to postulate God as the agency, which rewards or punishes good and evil deeds. Jainism, like Buddhism, however attributed an unseen power to karman itself, which brought about its result at the appropriate time. One implication of this doctrine is that the distinction of good and evil must be held to be objective and independent of subjective relativity.32
(iv) Another implication is that action must be held to create an unconscious and persistent force which remaining connected with the psyche of the agent and has the capacity of directing it into situations appropriate to its own fruition and controlling the affective reactions of the experiences arising form such situations.
(v) The doctrine of karma is useful in keeping mental equanimity in good and bad times and in receiving urge from with in for performing good acts. He never become arrogant in the days of his happiness and good fortune, nor does he become downcast and depressed in the days of his miseries and misfortune. 33 But he remains calm and composed and maintains balance of mind at all times favourable and adverse, because he knows that all the circumstances and situations that arise in man's life are but plays of karma. He is convinced of the fact that by force of good works, man can overcome difficulties and remove miseries as also that he can make his life more and more happy by advancing on the path of righteousness. By doing so, man makes himself permanently happy and at the same time attains higher and higher stages of spiritual evolution and consequently attains liberation lying beyond the duality of good and evil (vi) The importance of human effort is emphasized by Mahavira, which rules supreme in Jainism. According to him, a man should lift his soul by his own efforts. He says, "The soul is the begetter of both happiness and sorrow, it is its own friend when it treads the path of righteousness and is its own enemy when it treads the forbidden path.34 The prerequisite to the path of righteousness is to conquer the four passions, viz., anger, pride, deceit and greed and the five sense organs. He says conquer anger by forgiveness, pride by humility deceit by straight forwardness and greed by contentment.35 According to Mahavira, conquering ones own self is the most difficult thing in the world. He says, Victory over ones self is greater than conquering thousands and thousands of enemies on the battlefield. A true conqueror is one who conquers his own self.36
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