Jain Journal 2002 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 27

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXVI, No. 4 April, 2002
But he is still pramatta, not sufficiently careful to avoid occasions of sin or sinful thoughts (pramāda).9 Owing to attachment to the body and obligation to maintain it, he may commit such acts as may cause harm to other living creatures. Evil tendencies and passions (kaṣāyas) persist in subtle form (samjvalana). For example, he may not get outwardly angry but cannot help getting irritated or annoyed mentally. However, a clear concept of the goal and abstinence from evil actions greatly helps him to gain strength for subtler hards struggles ahead. An aspirant at this stages may engage in activities like preaching and writing etc. for the good of others.
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7th stage: apramatta samyag guṇasthāna
This stage is reached when an aspirant, now a monk, is able to detach his consciousness or atman from the gross physical body temporarily, and to relinquish the idea of agentship. He also gains sufficient mental alertness, apramatta, to avoid minor defects and lapses caused by carelessness. However, since identification with gross body is hard to overcome, the aspirant cannot stay longer than 48 minutes in this stage and slips back to the lower one. Most monks live oscillating between these two stages. Ultimately, however, the aspirant is able to totally relinquish body-consciousness and ascend to the eighth stage.
In this gunasthāna the aspirant totally gives up all thinking related to violence, untruthfulness, theft and hoarding, which constitute the four types of raudra dhyana. He may still engage in arta dhyāna, but most of his time is spent in dharma dhyana and its various modifications. He is also able to do the first type of sukla dhyāna.
The journey from the seventh stage towards proceeds in two ways depending upon whether the subtle passions (kaṣāyas) are suppressed (upasama śreņi) or destroyed (tapaka śreņi). During the initial stages, suppression to some extent is inevitable, but sooner or later the aspirant will have to eradicate the subtle deep-rooted passions. If he proceeds on the moral path by the pupasama śreņi, he will reach the eleventh stage from where he will fall down to the eleventh. But if he roots out the passions, he will ascend to the twelfth stage directly from the tenth, from where there is no fall.
9.
As many as 37.500 pràmādas are described in Jainism.