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THE TRUTH
C
cannot now be recalled owing to the loss of the central organ of the mind. Even in cases where the central organ of the mind has been formed afresh old memories cannot be revived for the want of corresponding nervous mechanisms to connect up the impulse with the centres of perception. The impulses in the will would themselves dry up,' so to speak, in such cases for the lack of stimulation from the objective world. In short, the difficulty of reviving old obliterated impulses that have lapsed into quiescence for the want of stimulating excitation from the outside world would be insurmountable, except when they are deeply stirred up from an external cause, to rouse up consciousness. Such occasions might be furnished by the sight' of some object which used to stir up powerful emotions in the soul. For the disappearance of the nervous mechanisms of recollection does not mean the elimination of knowledge and the perceptive faculty from the soul. The disappearance of the old operating board simply prevents the soul from rousing up old memories in the perceptive centres. The buttons and the switches have to be re-established once more, by actual perception; but knowledge is there, and has not to be created afresh.
Jain Education International
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The knowledge of the past lives is also obtained when the knowledge-obstructing cover (jnanavaraṇa) is thinned or destroyed by or as the result of the asceticism of saints.
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