Book Title: Epitome of Jainism
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Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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Page 688
________________ AN EPITOME OF JAINISM. Knowledge, while Right Conduct is a characteristic of those alone who have almost perfected themselves in Vision and Wisdom. Hence, the earliest stage of the journey is necessarily that which marks the transition from the state of settled wrong convictions to the acquisition of true faith and knowledge. Thus we see that in Jain philosophy a great importance is also attached to the reflective thought or in other words to the conscious reaction of the mind upon the results of its own unconscious or obscurely conscious movements. The fourteen stages also clearly show that however slow the movement of advance may be, the time must come when reason must turn back to measure and criticise, to select and reject, to reconsider and remould by reflexion the immediate products of crude and imperfect knowledge or faith. It must also be remembered in this connection that although there is a relative opposition between the immediate, unreflective movement of man's mind or Faith and that which is conscious and reflective, yet it is the same Reason of man that is at work in both and 678

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