________________
CHAPTER
X1
GUNA-STHANAS OR FOURTEEN STAGES IN THE SPIRITUAL
EVOLUTION OF SOUL
DV
“The high goal of our great endeavour is spiritual attainment, individual worth, at all cost to be sought and at all cost pursued, to be won at all cost and at all cost assured.'
-- Robert Bridges. 1
Since the goal of all ethics and philosophy is to help an individual to attain spiritual excellence or perfection, it is essential to know what hinders him in realizing his ambition. Every soul, pure and serene, becomes sullied by the influx and assimilation of Karmas due to wrong belief, laxity of self-control and activities of the mind, body and speech actuated by passions. The energies thus generated render the soul impure and subject it to all kinds of infirmities. The shackles of Karma, whether of gold created by Punya or of iron created by Pāpa can be broken not merely by purging the soul of its old Karmas but also by stopping the inflow of new ones.
The moral and spiritual discipline prescribed by Jainism involves a graduated course of training and has therefore to be followed step by step. The sages have therefore divided the path which leads to salvation into fourteen stages, each of which represents a particular state of development, condition or phase of the soul, arising from the quiescence, elimination, or partial
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
