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VII. THE JAINA AND THE NON-JAINA INDIAN ETHICAL DOCTRINES
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CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PERFECTED SAGE: After portraying the comparison and the contrast between the Jaina view and the views of the Gitā and the Upanişads concerning the pursuance of right conduct in its various aspects, we now propose to represent the similarities and dissimilarities in the conception of perfected mystic or the ideal sage as propounded by Jainism, the Gitā and the Upanisads. We are concerned with the characteristics which a mystic has evolved in his person by virtue of his strenuous striving after the spiritual path. First, he has banished and brushed aside all the desires from theʻtexture of his own self because of his exclusive occupation with the accomplishment of the supreme desire, namely, the realisation of the Atman, thus seeking consummate satisfaction in the self by the self. His undertakings exhibit destitution from desire. On account of his self-control, renunciation of all Parigraha and desires, and conquest of all the senses, he escapes and eludes the bondage despite his performance of actions, 3 for the benefit and guidance of mankind. In other words, he remains uncontaminated by the fruits of actions like the leaf of lotus which does not get polluted by water. In short, the perfect Yogi sees action in inaction and inaction in action. We find concordance on this point when Jainism announces that the consummate mystic has extirpated the inimical passions depriving the self of highest attainments along with the conceptual transformations of the mind and rests satisfied with the Atmanic experience. His mental, vocal and physical actions are neither impelled by desire nor born of ignorance. The activities of .standing, sitting, walking and preaching, knowing and seeing are not the results of desire, and consequently they are incapable of enmeshing the self in bondage. Just as a mother educates her child for its benefit and a kind physician cures diseased orphans, so also the perfected mystic instructs humanity for its upliftment and dispenses spiritual pills to suffering humanity.10 He is the leader of man-kind.11 Secondly, the crowning experience of the mystic has made possible the termination of all sorrows, since the mystic experiences the self
1 Ka. Up. II. 3. 14.; Mu. Up. III. 2. 2.; B.G. II. 55. 2 B.G. IV. 19.
3 Ibid. IV, 21; V. 7. Ibid. III. 25. 5 Chā. Up. IV. 14-3. 6 B.G. IV. 18.
7 Svayambhū. 67. Bo. Pă. 40. 8 Svayambhū. 74.
Svayambhu. 73. Niyama. 173 to 175. . 10 Svayambha. 11, 35. 11 Ibid. 35.
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