Fundamentals Of Jainism

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Veer Nirvan Bharti

Page 73

NIRJARA
OS
omniscience. It arises from the breaking asunder of the karmic chains, and the bursting forth of the pure effulgence of Will determined to manifest itself in all its natural splendour. The force of will exerted for the destruction of the karmic knot sets up powerful vibrations all round, which, impinging on the finer material of bells and other things in the heaven-world, set them resounding without any visible cause. These are noticed by devas, who ascertaining their cause with the help of the avadhi jnana with which they are endowed from birth, at once proceed to do reverence to the Master. The destruction of the ghatia karmas, it should be pointed out, is accompanied by many kinds of changes in the system of the muni who make a conquest of his lower nature; sense-perception is lost once for all and for ever, nerve currents are straightened out and lose their jñana and darśana obstructing crookedness, and the kârmâna and taijasa shariras are burnt up to ashes, as it were, though they still retain their form owing to the influence of the remaining four kinds of karmas. The reason for this is that our nervous system consists of nervous 'threads' which under the influence of the customary forms of activity have become arranged in certain forms, so that when we check the activity of the senses and prevent the mind from wandering in its usual haunts, holding it to a particular point, a kind of strain is produced which tends to unloosen the very structure of nerves and the knots formed by them. If we now persevere in the attitude of concentration for a 'sufficiently long period of time, these nervous 'threads' would become completely detached from their old groupings, and fall apart. The ascetic, who knows that the natural 'light' of his soul is obscured by the 'bushel of matter, and knows how to remove the cover, concentrates his mind on those centres of his nervous system, which are the least obscured and affected by matter. As he perseveres in concentration on these centres, the nervous 'threads' which enter into the 'warp and woof' of the 'bushcl' are loosened and detached from one another, and dispersed in all directions, leaving the effulgence of pure 'Light' free to manifest itself. For this very reason, the liability to sleep, which arises from the preponderance of matter in certain centres of the brain, is also destroyed prior to the attainment of kevala iñana.