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our while spirituality relates to man's inner and personal life Alternatively one could say that morality regulates man's relations with other men and is an essential strand of the social order Spirituality, on the other hand, characterizes man's relation with himself or God This distinction between moral and spiritual values in terms of social and inner or personal life is not very tenable because quite often it has been held that even mystical life and discipline presuppose a tradition of interpersonal relations while the sense of right and wrong undoubtedly continues so long one has to engage in activity consequential for oneself and other living beings Human actions and relations extend far beyond the externally observable human society and its interactions Jainism conceives the operation of moral rules to extend to man's relations with subhuman and superhuman living beings as well as to his dealings with himself at different levels Morality requires the sense of obligation arising out of the perception of a universal rule in the course of willing an object The rule indicates what one ought to choose. The only two essential dramatis personae in this situation are the lower self and the higher self This tension of the actual and the ideal self is both necessary and sufficient for the emergence of moral consciousness Without this distinction, the distinction between self and other becomes unavailing Again, in so far as the lower self wills to act at the level of actuality in accordance with a law derived from its own ideal nature it may be said to be involved in moral action On the other hand, in so far as the self seeks to transcend its lower actuality and realize its ideal nature in terms of being or immediacy, it may be said to be engaged in a spiritual process Between acting by a higher law and seeking to become higher, one cannot draw any fundamental distinction The distinction of the categories of the moral and the spiritual is, thus, more a matter of moment than of substance
The important question, of course, remains-can we give any accout of the higher law or the universal rules, the perception of which obliges the will to necessarily choose one kind of object rather than another without jeopardizing its freedom The law
