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Bhagawan Mahavir )
537
are meritorious actions. As opposed to this those actions that enable the achievement of means to misery are sinsi The four intensely destructive actions are sins as they secretly destroy the purity of the soul. Out of the four nondestructive actions, high family, feeling of pleasure, good inclinations of Namkarma ( ATH FÅ ) and three kinds of life are good, while the rest are sinful.
Though the actions of the living are numberless yet broadly speaking they can be analysed into three groups:-(i) Ashubha, ( evil) (ii) Shubha, (good ) and (iii) Shudha, (pure ). The ashubha thoughts and feelings bring about the bondage of sin and the Shubha that of good. The pure ( shudha ) bring Sanwar i. e. restriction of actions. To drive away Ashubha actions Shubha thoughts and feelings are necessary and in the end to destroy the Shubha thoughts that cause shubha actions, one has to take recourse to pure thoughts. Deliverance can only be achieved after the destruction of both Shubha and Ashuba actions. Therefore it becomes necessary to destroy shubha actions as well. Those are sadly mistaken who denounce shubha thoughts before the ashubba are completely destroyed and call good undesirable, because it is quite impossible to achieve shubha thoughts until the ashubha are completely annihilated. When the shudha ( pure ) thoughts are not grasped and no effort is made to attain the shubha 'good ) thoughts thinking them as undesirable then nothing but the ashubha ( evil ) will be achieved. Evolution is gradual. When the series broken the soul has a downfall instead. Therefore within a certain limit shubha thoughts and the good actions that cause them must be accepted as necessary. That is why merit is
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