Istopadesa The Golden Discourse

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp

Page 41

Iṣṭopadeśa - The Golden Discourse
मोहेन संवृतं ज्ञानं स्वभावं लभते न हि । मत्तः पुमान् पदार्थानां यथा मदनकोद्रवैः ॥
After consuming intoxicating grain called 'kodrava', the man loses his power to know, with due discrimination, the real nature of things; in the same way, the knowing Self, when covered with delusion, fails to comprehend the true nature of substances.
(7)
EXPLANATORY NOTES
Knowledge becomes fallacious without the power of discrimination between the right and the wrong. In an inebriated state, a man may consider the mother as the wife and the wife as the mother. This knowledge is obviously untrue. On some other occasion he may consider the mother as the mother and the wife as the wife according to his whims. Even this knowledge is untrue as it is only accidental, not based on the power of discrimination.
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To be able to ascend the spiritual ladder, the potential Self first becomes a right believer and with growing purity of thoughtactivity the deluding (mohaniya) karmas are destroyed progressively. Deluding karmas are of two kinds, faith deluding (darśana mohaniya), which delude right belief, and conduct deluding (căritra mohaniya), which hinder right conduct. Faith deluding karmas are subdivided into wrong belief (mithyātva), mixed right and wrong belief (samyagmithyātva), and right belief slightly clouded with false belief (samyaktva). On the rise of the first kind of karma, wrong belief, the individual turns away from the path revealed by the Omniscient Lord, becomes indifferent to