________________
280 Harmless Souls
One who performs tapas and (observes) vrata without being fixed in reality (paramattha - the pure self], the all-knowing call that (practice) foolish tapas and foolish vrata.
So even when they are 'observing vows, rules and restraints, and practising tapas, such people are devoid of knowledge because they are outside paramārtha' [Samayasāra 153]. Outside paramārtha, and ignorant of the cause of liberation, they long for merit (punya) which can only keep them in samsāra.10
Knowledge or realisation of the self is thus crucial to liberation, but how is it to be attained? It has already been suggested that partial knowledge is the indispensable means to realisation of absolute knowledge, but what form does such knowledge take?
As we have seen, the ignorant self binds itself through identifying with what is not self. As Samayasāra 92 (= JGM 99] puts it:
The soul (jīva) that is full of ignorance, (mis)taking the non-self (para) for the self (ātman), and the self for what is non-self, is the agent of karmas.
Conversely,
The soul which consists of knowledge, not (mis)taking the non-self for the self, or the self for what is non-self, is not the agent of karmas (Samayasāra 93 = JGM 100].
The essential mental act is therefore discrimination based on knowledge of the true nature of the self. Again we see the mixture of ontology and epistemology: the pure self cannot, by definition, come into contact with anything not self, yet it is precisely knowledge of this which is instrumental in separating self and not-self - i.e. such knowledge causes the self to relinquish its 'unreal' or
10 See Samayasära 154 (= JGM 164).
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
