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THE ESSENCE OF JAINA SCRIPTURES
Now he illustrates how, inasmuch as the energy for evolving into pleasure belongs to the self itself, the objects are ineffectual:
67. When the eye of a person removes darkness, then there is no use for a lamp; similarly the self itself is pleasure, what use the senseobjects therefor?
Just as some night-walkers, inasmuch as their eyes possess energy for the removing of darkness, do not require for this purpose e.g. the radiance of a lamp, so for this self, in trans-migration as well as in liberation, evolving itself through the state of joy, what should avail the sense-objects, although uselessly sought by ignorant people under the idea that they are means for joy?
Now he confirms by an example (the view] that the innate nature of self is happiness:
68/1. As the sun is by itself a light, and is warm, and a god in the sky, so is the liberated soul (siddha) having knowledge, happiness and godhood in the world.
As the sun in the sky is by itself, without dependence on another cause, a light, since it abounds in the expanding brightness of its characteristic nature, radiant with a great quantity of light;
and as it is warm, because it enjoys a constant evolution into heat, as a piece of iron occasionally evolves into heat;
and as it is a god, since its innate nature is adapted to the continuous rise of the nama-karman of a god's condition;
similarly in our world the holy self itself, without dependence on another cause, is knowledge, since it is identical with an inborn consciousness, of unerring, unlimited energy capable of manifesting the self and the other”;
likewise it is happiness, since it is at ease owing to absence of perturbation and to complete delight originated from satisfaction with itself;
and likewise it is a god; for it possesses the characteristic nature of a divine soul, through its associations with majesty and laudation when it appears carved on the stone-columns of the minds of intelligent men, coloured by nearness to the realization of the essence of the self. Hence enough of sense-objects, which merely in appearance are means to the happiness of this self.
Here ends the explanation of Joy. Next the chapter on GooD EVOLUTION.
