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DISCOURSE XXXII
STAGES OF THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE SOUL
(GUNASTHANAKA)
Gentlemen,
From the description we covered about the stages of the attributes, you can realise that the Soul possessing right conviction, treading the path of detachment, controlling their senses and always possessed of awareness, only can shorten their worldly wanderings having progressed on the path of spiritual uplift, whereas souls with false convictions, ignorance, engrossed in sensual pleasures and resorting constantly to passions, multiply their worldly existences and are ailing in eighty four lakhs of species of existences.
If you want to shorten your worldly existence then you shall have to ascend the stages of the soul's attributes. Do not presume that because of your birth in the family of a Jain-lay-disciple you are already on the fourth or the fifth stage. When such attributes are revealed then only these stages are arrived at. Still it is true that you are under more favourable circumstances to ascend these stages. To others are not available such sacred places, palatial temples and preceptors devoid of attachment. You should know well how much you avail of these amenities.
The Omniscient Lord has declared explicitly, “One who does not rise up, One who does not begin to work and who does not fully utilise one's mental, oral and physical powers does not accomplish the goal. Therefore, you arise and begin to work. This is only our say.
But mind, this does not mean that you should daily arise and begin to work. We here refer to spiritual awakening. We watch your daily routine, and we feel that you are asleep-fast asleep. No consciousness is found in you: The situation will be beyond all control when age will pounce upon you, and death will launch its aggression upon you. Only during the period of human existence it is possible for you to ascend- the stages of the Soul's attributes and earn emancipation. Therefore, arise and begin to work.
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