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THE JAINA GAZETTE everything does not suffer any accretion or depletion or any additional development.
The physical form of the soul is after all foreign and the knowledge that the senses derive is limited and never simul. taneous. The senses being only a separable accident of the soul what they perceive is indirect and it is the Omniscient perception alone that is direct. It is all embracing Omniscience that constitutes real happiness. There is not a grain of misery in it because of the annihilation of Ghatiya karmas. It is the auspicious souls that believe in the dignity of this happiness. Vain are sensual pleasures which give rise to lurther infatuation involving additional misery. It is the soul, and not the physical body even though it is heavenly, that is the seat of happinessl Folly it is to run after senses when the potentially perfect sou. is knowledge and happiness.
Auspicious manifestation consists in the worship of God, ascetic and preceptor, in offering gifts to men of character and in observing, fasts &c.; this leads to births in three higher grades of life where there is plenty of sense-pleasure. Even this pleasure enjoyed by gods is not eternal ; they enjoy it only to satisfy the physical itch and as such it is destined to be transformed into misery. They feed their bodies feasting on pleasures only to enhance further desires. Baffled with anxieties. they enjoy pleasures and come to suffer life-long miseries. The happiness derived from senses is momentary, limited, dependant -it is misery in disguise. Merit and demerit both lead to repeated births: there is little to choose between them. This physical misery which is so patent in Samsara, can be avoided by right knowledge of reality, by avoiding passions and by adopting pure Equanimity.
Passions, like delusion are great hindrances on the path of self-realization--no discipline is of any avail in their presence. Destruction of delusion enlighiens on as to the nature of reality of one's self and of one's ideal. The path of Nirvana can be paved only by the annihilation of the delusive karmic forces. A soul infatuated with worldly objects incurs delusive karmas
and muffled therein develops fresh delusion and further bondage, Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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