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Jaina Philosophy and Religion
Out of an onrush of delusion, man commits the mistake of regarding as his own rise and fall, the rise and fall of his body and of the other things belonging to him; and the result is that he fails to have a realisation of his true duty. In order to forestall a contingency like this, a false imposition of ownership in relation to the alien things like body, etc., has to be done away with. For that the separateness of soul from body is to be reflected over on the basis of their qualities as follows: “This body is gross, possessed of a beginning and an end, and is something inanimate, while I myself am subtle, possessed of no beginning and an end, and am something conscious." On account of this type of reflection, man is not agitated and perturbed by bodily pains and pleasures. Generally, his all energy is used up in thinking about bodily pains and pleasures. If he knows as to who he is, in the light of that pure knowledge, he may not develop attachment for the body, nor will he become a slave of senseorgans, and will be saved from miseries and calamities arising from attachment to body as also from ignorance and delusion. And with the growth of true realisation of 'T', his real happiness increases. He realises that the real happiness does not depend on the external objects, but on the soul itself; its source is the soul or the mind. And the more the purity of soul or mind attained, the higher are the stages of real peace and happiness secured.
(6) Reflection on the impurity of the body (aśuci) One's body being most eminently an object for craving, one must, with a view to reducing attachment for one's body, reflect: "This body is itself impure, it is born out of things impure, it is nourished by things impure, it is a seat of things impure, it is the ultimate cause of a series of things impure." There are two advantages of this reflection: (1) It destroys the pride of family, caste and race, and it removes the hypocrisy of touchability-untouchability. It makes us realise that it is utterly foolish to imagine that bodies of some persons are pure while those of others are impure and consequently to regard the former as touchable and the latter as untouchable. As a matter of fact, all bodies are uniformly impure. (2) It reduces attachment for the body and bodily pleasures. It destroys pride pertaining to our bodies. We should not be proud of the beauty of our body.
But in the name of this reflection on the impurity of the body, one should not be in different to cleanliness.
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