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CHAPTER V
SENSE-FEELING AND EMOTION
Feeling is an intermediate state of consciousness that occurs between cognition and conation. It is related to both knowledge and will. On one hand, cognition serves as the stimulus for feeling, while on the other, feeling stimulates will. In a different way, feeling can be considered as the effect of cognition, and at the same time as the cause of conation. Thus, it is an indispensable link joining the function of cognition and that of conation. The term feeling denotes simple states of pleasure and pain as well as complex states of various emotions.
I
SENSE-FEELING
Feeling is generally divided into two broad categories, viz., sense-feeling and emotion. The Jaina doctrine of karma also holds the same view. According to it, sense-feeling is the outcome of the feeling-producing (vedaniya) karma, whereas the deluding (mohaniya) karma produces various states of emotional experience. The distinguishing factor of the two lies in the fact that sensefeeling originates chiefly in sense-perception, whereas an emotional state emerges mainly from mental attitude which is nothing but our psychical dispositions. Sense-feeling arises through the medium of sense-perception, while emotion emerges from mental dispositions. FEELING AND THE OMNISCIENT
It is curious enough to note that the feeling of pleasure as well as pain of a perfect person (omniscient) also depends upon his physical organs, although his perception is absolutely independent of them. In other words, although he does not perceive through his physical organs, yet he feels through them. Enjoying the faculty of extra-sensory perception he cannot escape organic feeling. Thus, in his case, a feeling is not conditioned by a sense-perception. He perceives the object that produces feeling independent of any aid of the sense-organs, but he cannot feel the pleasure or pain thereof
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