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Jaina Philosophy and Religion
causes feeling of helplessness, leads to depression and lamentation, and ultimately acts as an obstruction in the path of spiritual progress, when one is separated from such an individual. A case of Gautama Indrabhūti, a great sage, is an instance in point.
Non-attachment means absolute absence of attachment and aversion. This suggests absence of all mental states generated by attachment and aversion. Non-attachment is not opposed to universal brotherhood, universal love and universal affection. Affection for living beings develops and expands to the extent attachment and aversion are subdued. And when non-attachment attains its perfection and manifests itself fully, affection too reaches its consummation and encompasses in its fold all beings of the entire universe. Non-attachment is there where perfectly pure non-illusory knowledge shines, where there is no longing for material pleasures and no selfishness, where there are no defiling passions and perverse tendencies, where there is no pride for the special faculties or good fortune attained on account of auspicious karmas, where there is neither partiality nor injustice, where there is no invidious feeling of discrimination of high and low, and where there are evenmindedness and supreme devotion to the good of all beings. Thus non-attachment is the other name of universally beneficial, perfectly pure and supremely luminous life.
That attachment which is associated with mental defilements like aversion, selfishness, partiality, etc., or which is connected directly or indirectly with these defilements is impure attachment. The world is harassed and distressed on account of the atrocities of this impure attachment. Impure attachment becomes pure to the extent the impurities of the form of aversion, selfishness, infatuation, etc., are removed from it. And then on account of its purity it is described as ‘pure affection', 'pure love'. Soul achieves spiritual progress to the extent this pure affection encompasses more and more beings in its fold. When even the pure karmic matter that allows the manifestation of pure attachment is totally dissociated from soul, the manifestation of pure attachment attains its consummation, just as when the pure karmic matter of the inclination-deluding karma, which allows the manifestation of soul's natural inclination for truth, is totally dissociated from soul, the manifestation of the inclination for truth-a natural quality of soul--reaches its perfection. And when soul attains the acme of spiritual evolution, this pure karmic matter allowing the manifestation of pure attachment is totally removed and consequently soul
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