Karma Philosophy

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi, Bhagu F Karbhari
Publisher: Devchand Lalbhai Pustakoddhar Fund

Page 94

73
Innumerable samayas would make one âvali.
16, 777, 216 âvalis make one muhurta (equal to 48 minutes, English time.)
30 Murhurtas would make one day. 15 Days would make I fortnight, etc.
Innumerable years, as already mentioned, make one palyopama.
To illustrate to the mind, the idea of a palyopama, if you dig a hole in the ground 8 miles long, 8 miles wide, and 8 miles deep, fill it with hair cut up into the shortest possible lengths, and press it into the whole, by marching heavy processions, steam rollers, or anything similar, over it, and then once a year, take out a piece of the hair, it will in time become emptied, but it will be in an innumerable quantity of years.
Come back, now, to the processes through which one must pass, in order to reach the state of samyaktva. The first thing to do is to lesson the duration of the karmas, and the amount by which the duration is to be lessened, is the next question. Each of the seven above named karmas must be reduced to 100, 000, 000 000,000 years maximum duration ; and when the living being experiences the feeling, that this whole embodied life is a misery, it shows that this work of reduction has been done. This is the first process, called yathâ-pravritti-karana. This is only possible for a five-sense-organ mindendowed living being. Other lower living beings