Basic Jain Culture Non Possession

Author(s): Padamchand Shastri, N L Jain
Publisher: Veer Seva Mandir Trust

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the grammarians celebrated the child birth even on elimination of one short vowel in aphorismic compositions. It seems that by placing the word 'Nirodha' (complete cessation), the acharya intended not only the thinking on one and not thinking of others, but he meant checking of all other activities completely. By assuming the term 'nirodha' as absence of trifling fixation, the author of Rajvartika has indicated for those who are engaged in single thought that the absence of thought is in the form of different positivity. He has stated that 'Nirodha' does not mean absence, but it is positive only with respect to intended object. In the best meditation state, the soul is taken as objective and all other activities of mind are made absent. There is the soul only as object of soul and nothing else.
It has also to be noted that the term 'agra' (direction) is also indicator of soul in the best meditation state. The acharya also states that meditation is abidance in self. The external thoughts and activities are withdrawn. It also means when the word 'Agra' indicates object in the form of physical or psychical atomor any other object, the meditation will mean concentration on that object only. In this case, the meditation refers to the first two kinds of pure meditation.
Further, meditation is an austerity which requires the object of soul only and exclusion of all others. It is in this sense that the exclusivity of all desires (except soul) has been called 'austerity, 'Dhavala', 13 and 'Pravachan Sara', 79 also support this view.
There is no indication ofany difference between selfand non-self in the exclusion of objectivity so that the self-activity may also be admitted as acceptable. Here, one will have to admit that the acharya desires that all kinds of mental activities should be absent in meditation and admits abidance of self in soul only as meditation which is a form of non-possession.
Some scholars have indicated to me that in meditation, fixation of mind on an object is taken as prominent. It means they have taken the