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Stages of Spiritual Development
211
only once the ladder of subsidence can attain liberation in that very life through the ladder of annihilation. But a person, who has climbed the ladder of subsidence twice, has no chance of liberation in that life. According to Canons, however, a soul can climb only one of the two ladders in one life,1
Mithyadrsti guṇasthāna:2
This is a state of absolutely perverted attitude. A person in this guṇasthāna may even attain heaven, but is far away from liberation. The soul has been rotting in it from time immemorial without knowing the real path.
Though any man with a perverted attitude is equally away from the goal, whatever his external conduct, yet a distinction has to be made between one soul and the other, even in the first guṇasthāna. Muni Śrīyaśovijaya, in his Yogavatāradvātriṁśikā classifies souls into eight mitrā, tārā, balā, diprā, sthirā, kāntā, prabhā and parā.3 The first four of them belong to first gunasthāna.4
In the very first stage called mitrā, the soul gets the first indistinct enlightenment. He serves the ascetics, worships the founders of religion, performs good deeds and shows a sympathy towards the suffering but without making any real distinction between self and non-self. As his desire to know the truth becomes more earnest, the soul enters the second stage of tārā. Here the soul is more steady and conscious of its shortcomings.
In the third stage, called balā, the evil desires cease and the enlightenment becomes clearer. The fourth stage, called diprā, where the soul, though having a verbal knowledge of the truths of religion, does not understand its reality. He has not as yet come face to face with the reality. The next four stages belong to a soul who has realised the self.
Thus we see that even the unveiling of vision-deluding
Sri Jaina Siddhantabola samgraha, Vol. V, pp. 83-84.
Virasena on Satkhandagama, 1.1.9.
Also Gommatas āra, Jivakända, 8-18.
3. Yogavatäradvātrimšika, 25. Quoted by Pt. Sukhalala, Jaina dharma aura
darśana, Ahmedabad, 1957, p. 268. 4. Ibid., 28. ff.
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