Nyaya Science of Thought

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 43

THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT.
rhythm*, and to exercise its function of unlimited
knowing.
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interests, passions, emotions and desires. These energies have been classified under four different heads by the Jaina acharyas, and constitute what are known as the ghâtiya karmas.
*The rhythm, that is to say, the energy of functioning, of the soul, is of a most complex type, for it knows itself in addition to the object of knowledge at one and the same time, and also because its capacity to know things embraces the whole range of possibility, that which it can never know having no manner of claim to existence.
It follows from this that the natural energy of the soul, as pure spirit a condition in which no interests or motives or other forms of obstruction remain to shorten the range of consciousness-is of a most complex type in which the rhythm of self-awareness holds together, in an interpenetrating manner, all other possible rhythms of knowledge none of which is denied freedom of functioning and operation. As such, the soul resembles a great melody in which the rhythm of the tune hovers over the rhythms of the notes that enter into its composition, and in which each of the notes, though a separate entity in itself, is nevertheless only an indivisible and inseparable part of the whole.
Now, since rhythm is but another word for an idea in connection with the soul, because knowledge consists in the states of one's own consciousness, by putting the above in the simple language of philosophy, we may say that each perfect, or fully-evolved Soul, being pure consciousness freed from the blinding influence of matter, is actually an all-comprehensive Idea which sums up, as it were, and includes all other possible ideas without a single exception. Hence, the fullest possible knowledge, unlimited by Time or Space, is always the state of consciousness of a deified soul. In other words, the emancipated soul is simply jñana mayee (embodiment of knowledge), being pure consciousness in essence.