Book Title: Jainism and World Problems
Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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Page 103
________________ THE EQUIPMENT OF WILL the mind starts with a certain sort of a hint or clue about the idea which it seeks to recall, which hint or clue is itself a kind of rhythm. The process is brought to an end when an idea is recalled which corresponds to the clue-rhythm in the mind. When an experience has been recalled with the aid of the clue, its detail will tend to pass under review if the mind at all linger on it. This will be the working of the principle of contiguity. Similarity thus leads the mind to a memory record of an experience, and contiguity brings out its detail. At times attention wanders away from the object of search when it discovers something which interests it more, and a new train of thought may be started that way. It is necessary to emphasize that impulses are not formed except on the intervention of the personal element in the form of raga (attraction) and dvesha (repulsion); for without the personal element knowledge alone might be evoked but no feelings, and without the excitement characteristic of a feeling state no fusion of spirit and matter can take place. All sensations are accompanied by what is termed a feeling tone; pure knowing, absolutely unaccompanied by the agitated state known as the feeling tone, is only possible for the highest Saints who have killed out their desires completely. All others only act with their Will, the sum-total of desires and impulses, whether they be engaged in an act of knowing or enjoying a thing. Even when a man thinks that he is absolutely indifferent to a thing, he is really under a delusion, for his knowledge of the thing, say an orange, has only accrued to him through the activity of the agitated state of the soul, termed impulse, and in this instance, the orangeimpulse, which agitated state itself is ample evidence of the state of his Will in relation to oranges. If he were absolutely indiffernent to oranges there would be no orange agitation or impulse present in his consciousness, and, as shown in the Jaina-Psychology, he would not even know of the presence Jain Education International 95 For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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