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JAINISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
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a knock, when a corresponding idea is roused from a state of dormancy in the Soul, and comes into the limelight of consciousness. It lapses again into the state of torpor as the stimulus is withdrawn. You cannot create knowledge by any conceivable process; and you cannot transform into knowledge the excitation itself, which, as already stated above, is only matter or energy in a particular form.
All ideas lie dormant in the soul. Knowledge and soul are just two words for the one and the same thing in reality. When the soul is released from the bondage of flesh its full store of knowledge is able to remain constantly in the state of manifestation. In other words, the Released Soul is Omniscient.
The Karma-indriyas (motor organs) are the hands, the feet, the mouth and the like, which are well known. Connections between the Jnana- and Karma-indriyas are established through perception. A child perceives a thing and longs to experiment with it. His legs carry him to it; the hands lay hold on it, and the mouth then determines its value and utility from the most practically selfish point of view. A path is thus opened out in the nervous matter of the brain, through which the perception becomes associated with the action that is performed in connection with it. This connection, at first established with so much labour and effort, tends to become automatic with every subsequent repetition. When this has happened, response to the incoming stimulus is made through wellestablished connections that are set in motion independently of volition. Such responses are termed reflex actions. But the ego retains the power of control over all automatisms, and may regain it by dint of effort.
Words, too, become connected with the motor mecha. nisms set up in the brain by the objects that they represent. They thus become capable of setting appropriate bodily reactions by themselves. The samne is the case with thought.
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