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Hermann Kuhn
tervals (every 3 to 6 weeks). Most often they occur in times of comparative quietness.2
APPLICATION
Once we understand the nature of these insights, accept them as real and direct our attention towards them, they become livelier and more intense. We remember them more clearly and the ambivalence of the third stage the simultaneous perception of clear understanding and delusion - occurs.
If at the time this happens we make a conscious effort to regain the clear understanding of the fourth stage, a momentum is created that eventually, but unfailingly will cause the transfer of our consciousness from the first stage to the fourth irrespective whether each single effort is successful or not.
The fact that the duration of stay in this stage is very short, should not cause disregard for its importance. The third gunasthana (misra) is a vital instrument for gaining access to more comprehensive stages of existence.
4- In the fourth stage (avirata-samyaktva) we reach a clear, intuitive and true understanding of the mechanisms of this world. We are no longer subjected to the strongest form of passions that overshadows us completely, but our feeling of life may still be impeded considerably by the remaining three (milder) degrees. We undertake some efforts to steer our life towards liberation, but our attempts are not sufficiently successful to reach the fifth gunasthana (desavirata).
Jain Education International
2 Since the West offers no explanation for these perceptions, and since they seem so fleeting, we - after some brief irritation - usually store them in the same place as all the other unexplained experiences which accompany our life and which we generally ignore as well.
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