________________
RENUNCIATION OF YOGA
121
never be complete. Unless the root of desire is not pulled out altogether from the human heart, it will suffice to maintain sufficient tension to prevent the goal being reached. For desires and appetites affect the physical body and produce tension of nerves and muscles. Hatha Yoga, if taken as a system of purely physical training, will be unable to attain to complete relaxation for this reason.
The Ratna Trai path of the Jinas is the method which scientifically combines the merits of Faith, Knowledge and Conduct for the benefit of souls. Faith means belief in one's own Divinity. Knowledge is of the essentials of salvation, and especially of the constitution of man and the nature of his constituents, so that he may never be at a loss in an emergency as to what to do. Conduct is the conduct which prevents the asravas (inflowing) of matter into the soul and weakens and ultimately kills out the bodily desires and appetites, producing a state of complete rest and repose and real relaxation from within. Thus equipped the soul marches on to the conquest of Ignorance and Death and Misfortune, and attains to Immortality and Joy and Omniscience. The Jaina Puranas contain the biographies of very many Souls, who have attained to Godhood and Perfection with the aid of the Ratna Trai. In the records of no other religion do we find such biographies. These biographies furnish the best evidence in support of the practicability of the Jaina Ratna Trai.
It should be stated that renunciation if incomplete and partial will not lead to salvation. If there be existing in the mind a single desire that has not been given up it will stand in the way of the progress of the soul. The reason for this is that you cannot destroy desires piecemeal, though you can curb them that way. If out of my desires I give up the desire for an orange it does not mean that a part of my soul has thereby become freed from matter. It only means that the amount of agitation of the heart is slightly reduced. For
16
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
