________________
Chapter 10: Guru's Explanation about the Soul being Kartä
136
abusing him for a wrongly perceived cause. Now if the person takes it as a consequence of his earlier Karma and bears it with equanimity, he does not acquire new Karma. However, being used to retaliating, he gets angry and fights back. That tendency to fight back induces new Karma particles to enter the soul's province. Thus the soul becomes the Kartä by virtue of its indulgence in craving or aversion.
Such a capacity to induce or inspire lies only with the soul. The lifeless Pudgal (Karma) cannot do that. It is therefore said in the second part of the stanza that lifeless objects do not have such capability. They can merely be instrumental to what happens. They can neither induce nor inspire any one to behave in a particular way. Suppose, in the above illustration, the person hits the neighbor with a stick. In that case the stick is no doubt instrumental in giving vent to the anger, but if the person keeps his anger under control, the stick is not going to prompt him to hit, nor is it going to hit the neighbor on its own accord.
As another example, suppose a watch is lying on the ground. If someone picks it up, its lying in that condition becomes instrumental in being picked up. But if the person is not inclined to pick it, the watch is not going to tell him to pick it up. Therefore the Guru here states that it is not the property of lifeless objects to induce or to inspire.
જો ચેતન કરતું નથી, નથી થતાં તો કર્મ; તેથી સહજ સ્વભાવ નહિ, તેમ જ નહિ જીવધર્મ.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
||૭૫ાા
www.jainelibrary.org
