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PHILOSOPHY OF SOUL
503
yourself for achievement of knowledge, mentally, orally and phycally without any reservation and reluctance.
Soul cognises an object with the help of knowledge and relies upon such information. Thus with the help of knowledge intuition or right belief is acquired. A person without knowledge can never obtain right knowledge. A pot, or a pillar or a wolf cannot obtain right knowledge. Righteous conduct is the proximte cause for attainment of salvation. Righteous conduct is characterised by non-violence truth, honesty, celebacy and non-hoarding, These attributes are encouraged only with the help of knowledge. Without knowledge, righteous conduct losing all its glory.
Just imagine that there is a man—quite stupid. He is a dunce. He does not know, the nature of soul, non-soul meritorious acts or sinful acts. Now without such knowledge or understanding, can he practise or cultivate in life, virtues like non-violence etc.? Can such a person get thoughts as “I have taken certain vows. I must do this and I must not do this". In the absence of such thoughts, how could his life be elevated. The learned men have equivocally opined that a man without knowledge and sense of discrimination can never achieve any spiritual progress.
Holy scriptures declare that the soul entertaining faith in soul and non-soul matters etc. acquire immortal and eternal state, but this does not mean that mere faith is important and knowledge is not essential. A degraded soul has no faith in these substances like soul and non-soul, and thus he cannot obtain right faith. Such a soul though possessed of learning does not achieve salvation while an enlightened soul entertains right faith and achieves faith in soul and non-soul substances to acquire salvation. Finally this means that without faith one cannot obtain salvation, but along with faith one requires right knowledge and right conduct. If mere right faith would procure salvation then proclamation of the sacred text promising salvation with the help of right knowledge right intuition and right conduct would prove absurd. Thus every statement is to be understood comparatively.
Without understanding the comparative meaning of the statement of the holy texts, one would face the fate of two travellers.
