________________
SUTRAS
THE NATURE OF KARMIC BONDS
time this type of karma activates, all our thoughts and feelings appear extremely logical to us, though when we dispassionately analyze them afterwards, we always recognize that they gave a distorted picture of reality. Once this occurs, it is irrelevant whether we project our anger onto others or keep it silently inside. In both cases all channels through which we could gain new insights - and that may dissolve our anger - are blocked.
109
Pride gives our own point of view such exalted importance that all other types of action, judgements or viewpoints are discarded as less significant.
The intention to deceive others creates an aura of deception around us that prevents us from recognizing truth, even if it is presented to us.
- Greed (addiction) is an egoistic compulsion to amass material or non-material components that far exceed our needs. It also manifests in form of avarice, impatience and the desire to re-enact or to re-live situations or emotions we already experienced many times before.
Anyone subject to this type of affliction is usually so intensely fascinated by the mere act of accumulating (material objects, status, security etc.), or by the attempt to bring back bygone experiences (power, recognition, the affection of others, the experience of falling in love, physical highs etc.) that he has neither time nor energy to attend to his inner growth.
Greed always originates in a disoriented mind. It causes us to assign such immense value to a small part of our environment that it prevents us from recognizing the entire world as 'our own'. Of the four basic negative emotions greed operates the longest. Its subtlest form affects us far up to the tenth stage of develop
ment.
Jain Education International
As long as we succumb to these harmful tempers, we block all impulses that may lead us out of the cloud of our own negative emo
For Personal & Private Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
