Book Title: Karma the Mechanism
Author(s): Hermann Kuhn
Publisher: Crosswind Publishing Germany

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Page 205
________________ 204 KARMA - THE MECHANISM APPLICATION We reach this second phase as soon as we relinquish our attachment to the four main negative emotions and cherished, but obstructing action-mechanisms of the lower levels. After we went through these preparatory stages, the second phase of level seven offers us two paths for further progress: 1 - The suspension of karma - On this path most our remaining karma recedes into a latent, inactive state. Since up to gunasthana eleven inactive karma does not obstruct progress, we become able to experience the character of the higher stages. The path leads via level 8, 9 and 10 to level 11. Yet we are unable to maintain this stage and have to go back to lower levels. The ascent beyond level 11 is blocked as long as the existing latent karma (i.e. our inactive emotional attachments to experiences on lower levels) obstructs further advancement. It is not required to experience level 7 to 11 sequentially. We may e.g. bypass all these levels to get a feeling for gunasthana 11 and then later go back at will to explore any of the levels we sidestepped. 2 - The dissolution of karma - On this path we dissolve our re maining karma once and for all. It bypasses level 11 and leads via level 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 to level 14 and then to ultimate freedom. Though initially this may take us only up to level 11 until all our residual karmic attachments to levels 8 to 11 are dissolved, this path is the sure way to freedom from all karmic limitation. In the seventh and higher stages pleasure and pain - as we knew them on the lower levels - still manifest as the respective karmas mature. Yet these feelings now hardly attract our attention. We presently are far more in touch with our own eternal character that was merely suppressed by our attachment to Jain Education International For Personal & Private Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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