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THE PRACTICAL DHARMA
at the unhappy condition of the victim of one's fiendish tyranny, are also calculated to deprive one of vision. Delighting in interfering with another's beholding a Jaina saint, preventing him from having access to an object of worship, such as Scripture, from motives of hatred, and the like, are also causes which lead to the loss of vision in a subsequent re-birth, and, may be, in this very life.
Similar considerations also govern achakshu darśana, which means perception with the help of the remaining four senses other than sight.
As regards the different kinds of sleep, it is to be observed that sleep is inconsistent with the nature of the soul which is pure consciousness or intelligence, but is forced on it in consequence of its union with matter. Hence, when the soul's union with matter becomes less overpowering in nature, as happens in the case of true munis (ascetic saints), sleep, somnolence, and all other forms of stupor which are matters of daily experience to all spiritually undeveloped souls, lose their hold on the jīva.
The causes of the different forms of stupor and sleep are various; they are caused by mental worry, passions, and the like and also by foods which augment somnolence, laziness and lethargy of body or mind.
We now come to the third group of karmic energies, known as vedanīya. Bearing in mind what has been said about the power of suggestion and the negative attitude of the soul in connection with the other kinds of karmas, it can be readily seen that the causes which give rise to the experiences of pleasure and pain must be as follows:(a) in the case of pleasurable feelings, sympathy, gift (of four
kinds, viz., of medicine, food, protection and knowledge), piety, renunciation, purity of the mind, speech and body,
mercy, tranquillity and the like, and (6) in the case of unhappy experiences, the causing of pain to
others and also to one's own self, grief, vain regrets, weeping and also causing others to weep, killing or injuring others or oneself, back-biting, abusing, hard-heartedness, terrorising and all those other forms of action which are opposed to the causes enumerated under the preceding head.
