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I am the Soul
35
enlightenment would be lacking. A scholar may be able to wax eloquent on principles from the scriptures. Why, he may even be able to establish his supremacy in debates. Yet he himself would not have faith in these principles. We have come across scholars who could present the valuable ideology in the Jain philosophy with such conviction that the listener would be left dumbfounded. Yet their own faith in the same ideology would be non-existent. How could this happen? One becomes a scholar with the erosion of the jnanavarniya karma, while enlightenment comes only with the erosion of the mohaniya karmu. Faith can be invoked only when the mohaniya karma is removed. Those who absorb the principles only on the superficial level will be lacking in faith. They will be called the dry, wizened wise.
Here, in this couplet it is implied that a few intellectuals, from a study of the scriptures, have understood that the soul can neither be bound nor freed. They have gone a step further and presumed that all actions of the body are the actions of the inanimate. Since the soul is animate, the actions of the inanimate body would not have any effect on the soul. Hence, indulging in the satisfaction of the senses does not harm the soul in any way. This presumption directs a person on to the wrong path.
There used to be a septuagenarian pious man in Saurashtra, who for years together diligently led an austere life, avoided kanda-moola (roots and bulbs) in his food, took no food after sunset, said his prayers - pratikramana - twice a day and detaching himself from the material world, devoted himself to social service. But one fine day, he was taken up with the concept of niscaya naya, having misunderstood it and being led astray did an absolute turn about. In the delusion that anything he ate or drank did not matter to the soul, he would sit up in the middle of the night and ask for potato fries. His family admonished him over this and tried to make him see some sense but in vain. It was as if the concept of niscaya naya had been hammered into
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