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requires withdrawing attention from the outer world, may be temporarily, and concentrating on the inner world of the self. If this can be done the dividends are very rich and one discovers that the source of stable peace and happiness is within, the external world provides only temporary pleasure. The more and longer you concentrate on the inner self the more is the peace and happiness you derive so much so that at some stage you may like to completely withdraw from the external world, which now becomes meaningless for you.
The soul also interacts with the conscious mind directly in a limited way. The soul has the power to act independent of karma (parinamik bhava) and exercise its freedom of decision-making. One part of the faculty of discrimination and decision-making possessed by the conscious mind may be directly linked to the soul. But generally the instinctually biased desires prevail and we neglect the voice of the soul and the conscious mind decides in favor of attractions that satisfy our attachment and aversion tendencies. However, a person of strong will can follow his inner voice and go contrary to luring attractions of conscious mind and pursue the spiritual call.
Can karma be eliminated before maturity? The answer is yes, but it is not simple. The karmas are fixed deposit of the soul and can be terminated only with his signature. For this one has to have access to the soul. The conscious mind and the material body are nominees of the soul and can receive the benefit only after maturity, they cannot terminate the deposit. To have an access to the soul one has to rise above the conscious mind and material body and this requires meditation on the soul through ascetic way of life. This is the field of spiritual development and has been dealt with in detail in Jain philosophy. 2.5 Conscious Mind and Material Body
The interaction between conscious mind and body is also very important. The material body ultimately consists of pudgal paramāņu, whose independent existence has been recognized by Jain philosophy. The paramānus possess their properties and powers and can act independent of the soul. So the body and its systems can have some capability of independent working, which is mainly controlled by the brain. The brain is directly linked to conscious mind. It is for this reason that our thoughts have a great bearing on the state of the body. Right and positive thoughts are conducive to good health and wrong and negative thoughts adversely affect our health. There is enough experimental evidence to suggest that religious and spiritual life style lead to better health. Both psychology and medical science have explored this area in detail. The process taking place in body is subjected to the properties of the material they are made of. 2.6 Cosmic Consciousness
Carl Jung proposed the existence of collective unconscious (Freud did not accept this idea). Jung divided the unconscious into two very unequal levels:
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