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अनुसंधान - १७• 67
past Karmas and not due to present attachment to good or hatred towards bad surroundings or circumstances, unique speech distiguished by sweetness, truth, inner conviction, beauty and authority, and knowledge of the supreme scriptures.* Without the teaching of a True Teacher, the character of the Jina is not understood. How can any good be done to a soul without such understanding? With such understanding alone, it is possible to comprehend and attain the full and true character of Jina. The scriptures which establish the existence of the soul and non-soul including matter, time, space, motion and rest, are the prop of the souls deserving liberation, when the facility of a visible living true teacher is not available. Or, if the true teacher had ordered the reading of such scriptures, then the pupil should always contempate such ones, after giving up the disputations and distinctions of different schools of thought. After giving up whimsical self-guidance and obstinacy of holding up one's own views, the soul follows the guidance of the True Teacher. Knowing this to be the visible cause of liberation, the Jina has called it Right Belief. The mighty foes in the form of the passions of anger, pride, deceit and greed, attachment and hatred, are not destroyed by whimsical self-guidance. By surrendeting unto the True Teacher, they go away with but slight effort."
While discussing about a perverse bigot, Śrimad says that even in the presence of the visible True Teacher a bigot asks a perverse view, and follows the untrue teacher with determination chiefly to gratify his own vanity.'True sainthood is there where there is Soul-Knowledge. Saints are the True Teachers. Else it is delusion to revere the teacher's of one's own family merely as such. The persons who are soul-seekers know this." The soul-seeker should reckon the attachment of a living visible True Teacher as a great blessing, and
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