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EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL.
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human beings and different kinds of merit and demerit to be is own. (291).
The (ignorant) being on account of wrong attachment maintains medium of motion and medium of rest, all the souls and non-souls, non-universe and the universe as his own. (292).
So long. as there are wavering thoughts, 'he performs actions bringing merit and demerit so long as the glory of the nature of the soul has not been effulgent within him.”. (294).
These Jain passages also show that all else besides his own pure self is not his own self. To maintain all the others as himself or belonging to him is ignorance and wrong belief.
Majjima nikaya alagaddupama sutta, 22. . IN
This Sutta also very nicely declares that all the other conditions are not the soul.
All those impure thought-activities, feelings of pleasure and pain, perception and knowledge which arise on account of five senses and mind and the bodies formed owing to their effects are included in the five skandhas of the Buddhists i.e., Rupa (body), Vedana (feeling pleasure and pain), Sanjna (perception through senses and mind), Saniskâra (mental activities) Vijnana (consciousness through senses and mind). This sutta very beautifully contradicts the belief of self in these five skandhas.
We give below a portion of this Sutta containing conversation between Gautam and his disciples.
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