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Introduction
foreign to his self, has neither attachment nor aversion for (internal and external) paraphernalia, pleasures and body, etc. The great saint feels no attachment and aversion for vetti and nivetti, because he knows them to be the cause of bondage. (34-52)
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Not knowing the causes of bondage and liberation and not realizing Atman as Right Faith, Knowledge and Conduct, one incurs through delusion both merit and demerit as though they lead one one to liberation. The soul that does not treat merit and demerit alike suffers misery all along and wanders in the round-of-rebirths being deluded. The wise say that even demerits or sins (papa) are beneficial, when they immediately give pain and leave the soul free to attain liberation; and even the Punyas are not beneficial when they bestow kingdoms and consequently bring lots of misery. Better court death that leads to self-realization than merits that lead astray. Those that march towards self-realization attain infinite happiness, but others that have missed the same suffer infinite miseries in spite of meritorious deeds. Merits lead to prosperity, prosperity to vanity, and vanity to intellectual perversity which further leads to sin; therefore merits are not desirable. (60) Devotion to Gods, scriptures and saints leads one to merit, but never to the destruction of Karman: so says venerable Santi. Contempt of the same however however necessarily leads to sin to sin whereby one wanders in Samsara. Papa leads the soul to hell and sub-human world, Punya to heaven, and the admixture of both to the human world; but when both are destroyed, there results Nirvana or liberation. Worship, selfreprobation and repentance with correction: all these bring merit or Punya; so a man of knowledge will not devote himself to these by leaving meditation on the pure and holy Atman, the embodiment of knowledge. (53-65)
A man of impure manifestation of consciousness has no self-control, and his mind is not pure. Pure manifestation of consciousness is the best, because it is attended by self-control, character, righteousness, Faith, Knowledge and the destruction of Karman. Pure manifestation of consciousness is the Dharma which supports the beings falling in the miseries of four grades of existence. Pure manifestation of consciousness is the unique path leading to liberation one that goes astray can never be liberated. : One may go anywhere and do whatever he likes; but liberation can never be attained unless the mind is pure. Auspicious manifestation of consciousness leads to piety, the inauspicious one to implety, and the pure one, which is free from both, is immune from Karman. (66-71)
Jain Education International
Dana (i.e., donation, or or giving gifts to proper persons, etc.) brings pleasures, austerities bring the status of Indra, but knowledge brings that state of existence which is free from birth and death. To know one's self is to get released, otherwise without this knowlege one has to wander in
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