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Samayasāra
Chapter - 3
of bondage. There still remain threefold activity, mental, vocal and physical or bodily activity-for final emancipation all the four must be removed. The activity is concomitant with embodied existence which is already determined by the ayuṣya karma. As the predetermined life-span comes to its end, the threefold activities first slow down and then stop altogether and a state of absolute motionlessness, free from all vibrations, takes place. With all the four conditions of bondage removed, the soul attains unembodied emancipation.
From the above, it is not difficult to see that in spite of the innate ability of the soul the pure and perfect state of the self is a state to be achieved by purely psychical striving and that too in steps. In the worldly existence its infinitude is limited and radiance dimmed.
Because of its beginningless handicaps (already discussed in earlier section) and disposition, the alien substance-karmic matter-is able to weave material sheaths which form the material encumbrances making the birth-death cycles inevitable. In the interval from death to another birth, even though the soul casts off its gross physical body, the subtle karmic body remains appended to it and serves as a nucleus for the formation of the new gross physical body appropriate for the next life-span. During the whole process of spiritual advancement and purification we can clearly notice two parallel series of modifications-a kind of psycho-physical parallelism. During its ascent on the ladder, the soul is the sole determinant of its progress while the karmic matter is the essential cause of the changes in the states of karma. Thus psychical and physical modifications form two separate but concomitant parallel series, neither absolutely independent nor mutually determinant but interrelated to some extent. At each stage the strength and purity acquired by the soul by its own striving and inherent centrifugal force renders the concomitant conditions of bondage ineffective, in steps, by itself. Thus the psychic state is purely spiritual while the condition of bondage is karmic or physical. The interrelation is in the form of mutual extrinsic causal influence-nimitta kāraṇa.
Thus we come to the conclusion that the four primary conditions of bondage are non-psychical (acetana) and substantively 1. See, sutra, p. 115.
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