Istopadesa The Golden Discourse

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp

Page 90

Verse 25
कटस्य कर्ताहमिति सम्बन्धः स्याद्वयोर्द्वयोः । ध्यानं ध्येयं यदात्मैव सम्बन्धः कीदृशस्तदा ॥
(25)
When someone says, “I am the maker of the mat,” the interrelationship between two different entities, the doer of activity and the object of activity, is clear. But in real meditation, as the soul becomes the instrument as well as the object of meditation, how can there be any duality?
EXPLANATORY NOTES
Jainism recognizes that the theory of karmas is adequate to explain the whole world of experiences that a transmigratory soul is subjected to. It throws on the individual himself, without the intervention of any outside agency, divine or mundane, the responsibility of what he thinks, speaks, and does. As a corollary, the man has unqualified religious independence and freedom and, as such, he only is the architect of his fortune. With right effort in the right direction, he is potentially capable of attaining perfection.
The man who distinguishes between the substance of the soul and all other substances meditates on the pure, effulgent state of the soul through the instrument of the soul imbued with the Three Jewels (ratnatraya) of the path to liberation. He reckons that no substance other than the soul is potent to either assist or obstruct the functioning of the soul.
Our body, relations, friends, appurtenances, attachments and aversions, passions, and so many adjuncts of worldly life are but substances other than the soul. The meditator builds a shield around his soul to protect it from the influence of these extraneous
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