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such activities as causing karmic bondage, the religious peregrinations and discourses by the Tīrthankaras undertaken purely for the purpose of universal weal will also have to be considered as causing karmic bondage. However, according to the canonical lore, these activities of the Tīrthankaras are for the purpose of all worldly souls and they do not result in any karmic bondage. Work Without Desire is Not Binding -
From all this discussion we can conclude that if the meritorious acts are undertaken with purely a sense of duty or by rising above attachment and aversion, they do not result in karmic bondage. The meritorious bondage also takes place only when the acts of merit are performed under the influence of attachment and aversion. It must be noted that the mentality in making efforts to save the lives of our kith and kin and that to save the life of a stranger on the way are never the same. In the first situation all the efforts to save life are motivated by the feeling of attachment or selfishness while in the second the others' pain is felt as one's own owing to considering the others as also equal to the self. It is this feeling of others' pain or the sense of duty that motivates one to perform altruistic acts of benevolence.
In the Jaina tradition, the following couplet beautifully brings out the conduct of a right thinking person –
"Samyakdrsti jīvaļā, kare kuțumba pratipāla |
Antar sūn nyāro rahe, jyūn dhāya khelāve bāla ||
This detached view is very important. Actually, detachment and disirelessness are the only such entities that can destroy the binding power of karma. Where there is detachment, there is lack of attachment, there is no bondage. The punya (merit), which has been referred to as binding is the punya (merit) with attachment. We cannot say that all worldly activities are conducted under the influence of attachment. There are many activities that are carried out purely with a sense of duty. The other's pain does not become our own because we have any attachment for him but it is the feeling of oneness with him that results in such a feeling of his pain as our own. When we see a strange person
Praface
XVII
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