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JAINISM AND WORLD PROBLEMS
desires are all rooted in the love of the body for which man is constantly agitated in the mind, in one way or another, from one end of life to the other. If I eat an orange it is only so because it is pleasant to the tongue or good for the blood ; it I give up eating a thing or reject one after trial, that is because it is not found to be conducive to the pleasure or wellbeing of the body. I have in reality no love even for an orange; it is the sensation which is produced by the orange in my mind that I can like or dislike. Without the intervention of the bodily "I" it will be impossible for me to say that an orange is good. Such a statement will have no meaning whatsoever, since the same thing is liked by one person and disliked by another, and also since the one and the same person may at one time like a thing and at another not. In the scheme of the gunasthanas also it can be seen that pro. gress along the Path does not mean the purification of the soul substance in bits and parts, but only a gradual thinning of the avarana (covering). and its total destruction at one moinent of time. The thinning goes on through the eighth, ninth and tenth gunasthanas (stages) ; but the destruction is brought about only in the twelfth. And while there is the liability to fall back from the high position in the eleventh stage, it is completely gone in the twelfth, from which there is no longer a danger of falling back. The fall, too, which is possible from the eleventh stage, may be to the lowest one, which implies a complete sweeping away of the Ratna Trai or whatever there was of it in the shape of Right Faith, Right Knowledge and Right Conduct. Now, a fall is always due to a single desire dominating the mind and unbalancing the judg. ment. Such a catastrophe would not be possible if the other desires than the one that is the cause of the fall had been completely destroyed. For instance, a man in the eleventh stage sees a beautiful woman, and is fascinated by her beauty. He would instantly fall down to the ninth stage from the eleventh, and may then even cherish a sexual longing in
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